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Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith
Carole M. Cusack
Utilizing contemporary scholarship on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, and Jediism. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1990s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet. This book deals with immensely popular subject matter: Jediism developed from George Lucas' Star Wars films; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded by 26-year-old student Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools; Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius which retain strong followings and participation rates among college students. The Church of All Worlds' focus on Gaia theology and environmental issues makes it a popular focus of attention. The continued success of these groups of Invented Religions provide a unique opportunity to explore the nature of late/post-modern religious forms, including the use of fiction as part of a bricolage for spirituality, identity-formation, and personal orientation.
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Title Page
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Copyright Page
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Contents
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Acknowledgements
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Introduction: Imagination, Fiction and Faith
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Chapter 1: The Contemporary Context of Invented Religions
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Chapter 2: Discordianism: Chaos is a Goddess
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Chapter 3: The Church of All Worlds: Science Fiction, Environmentalism and a Holistic Pagan Vision
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Chapter 4: The Church of the SubGenius: Science Fiction Mythos, Culture Jamming and the Sacredness of Slack
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Chapter 5: Third-Millennium Invented Religions: Jediism, Matrixism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
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Conclusion: Imagination, Fiction and Faith Revisited
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Bibliography
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Index
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Citable Link
Published: 2010
Publisher: Routledge
- 9781315589695 (ebook)