New Series: It’s in the Code
American Christians speak in a bewildering array of different “codes” that mark their identities, signaling to others who is welcome among them and who isn’t. This series explores how to decode popular religious language, revealing the cultural politics of American Christians of different stripes. What does the slogan on the that church billboard mean? How can we tell which churches value social justice, or are LGBTQ+ inclusive? Learning how to decipher the codes of American Christianity can tell us.
This first episode outlines the aims of the new series, which will explore that ways that different kinds of American Christians express their identities through the language they use in sermons, in denominational statements, on church billboards, and other common expressions. He argues that the significance of what American Christians say is not limited to the literal meaning of their words, but with how they use that language to define themselves and others. The episode highlights the value of the series for anyone who wants to better understand and map the complex terrain of American Christian identities.
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Produced by Bradley Onishi and Dan Miller
Edited by Shannon Sassone
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Axis Mundy What are the connections between purity culture and race?
Why does purity culture work so hard to disembody people, make them feel as if they're not living in their own skin?
And what do these things have to do with each other?
Well, we're incredibly excited to announce our next Straight White American Jesus seminar, Purity Culture, Race, and Disembodiment.
In this class, the instructor, Dr. Sarah Mosliner, who is a leading researcher on purity culture and the leader of the After Purity Project, will take participants through various histories and ideologies as they relate to the racist origins of purity culture, And how disembodiment is a tactic used by white evangelical leaders and others in order to achieve cultural, political, and religious dominance.
Sarah Mosliner is the author of Virgin Nation, a leading scholar on purity culture, and someone who's been studying this topic for over 15 years.
Our seminar is going to run in May, every Thursday, and you can find all the information at StraightWhiteAmericanJesus.com under the Seminars tab.
Sign up quick.
There are limited spots and we expect them to fill up fast.
We hope you're having a great day.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you soon.
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Hello and welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College, and this is the first episode in a new series, It's in the Code.
And for those of you who have listened to the podcast for some time, this will be a phrase that's familiar to you.
We use it when we talk about something that is not sort of Incidental or an add-on to religion or politics or whatever but is in fact as it were in the code a substantive part of it And I'll talk in just a couple minutes here about where we're headed with that what that's going to mean in this series But first one of you want to say a few things The first is that we are hosted in partnership with the CAP Center at UCSB always thank them for their support and
As well as all of you who listen and who contribute and keep us going, keep us posting.
We couldn't do it without you and we thank you for that.
I also want to send out some personal thanks to all those who wished well and condolences of the recent loss of my brother-in-law.
I really appreciate that and have appreciated everybody's understanding as it has taken me a lot of time to get back to folks.
I am not as up on my emails and contacts as I would like to be.
I'm trying to dig my way out of that, but please do keep reaching out because I value that more than I could possibly say.
And to that end, you can reach me at Daniel Miller Swadge.
That's DanielMillerSWAJ at gmail.com.
Always love to hear from everybody, and as I'll announce again later in this episode, this is going to be a substantive part of where we go in this series.
I need your help with this.
Final announcement is that starting on May 5th, Sarah Mosliner will be offering our newest Straight White American Jesus seminar on purity, culture, race, and embodiment.
Last I checked, there were some spots open, but it's filling fast, so by the time you hear this, there may not be, but please do check that out.
I cannot recommend Sarah's work highly enough.
I've used it for years in my own work, in my own teaching, and she is really the one I can credit for opening my eyes a number of years ago to the connections between evangelical purity culture and race and racial identity.
So check that out.
You can find that at www.StraightWhiteAmericanJesus.com and just look at the link for seminars.
So let's shift into the focus this week, right?
So what is this new series about?
Well, I just finished a long series on identity politics, and one of the things that builds off of this is that in American identity, in American history, religion is famously a sort of core social identity for millions of Americans.
It has been that way since the founding of of the United States.
It has been that way since long before that, and America in many ways is becoming paradoxically both more virulently religious and also more secular at the same time.
And within that broader context of religion as a part of core identity, Christianity in its various forms looms large, as do other forms of religion.
But as most of you will know, if you're familiar with the podcast, our focus really is Christianity, politics, Christian nationalism.
I don't focus on that because I think there's anything wrong with other traditions or that I don't know anything about them.
But this is really what I know best and that's that's where we're gonna sort of focus and it is the largest religious affiliation for most Americans when most Americans think of quote-unquote religion they think of some form of Christianity and People reach out to us.
They reach out to Brad and I they reach out to me students come to me faculty colleagues come to me others and All the time trying to understand American Christian identities.
Some are trying to move away from them.
I am also, as many of you know, a trauma resolution practitioner with the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, and I talk with a lot of folks there who are seeking to move out of or to figure out who they are if they no longer have a Christian identity.
Thanks for listening to this free preview of our SWADGE episode.
In order to get access to the full episode and so much more, become a Straight White American Jesus Premium Subscriber by clicking the link in the show notes.
It'll take you like two clicks, I promise.
In addition to getting access to this episode, you'll have access to the entire SWADGE archive, over 550 episodes.
You'll also get an extra episode every month, ad-free listening, Discord access, and so much more.
All that for less than six bucks a month, and it helps us keep our flag up and continue to safeguard democracy from religious nationalism, extremism, and rising authoritarianism.
