And Once Again: The Virtual Church

In case you missed it:

"In Second Life, the online virtual universe that is attracting 3.7 million users, you can light virtual candles for Shabbat, teleport to a Buddhist temple or consult the oracle for some divine guidance.

Second Life is a three-dimensional, online game produced by San Francisco-based Linden Lab in which participants create a virtual world, buy and sell land and products and interact in all the usual ways.

Now religion has a growing presence there, too, users say, and religious diversity and participation have skyrocketed since last June, when basic membership to Second Life became free."

Thus begins the feature story in the Washington Post about Second life, and the role that religion plays therein.

It's a good story. Does it sound familiar? It might. Cathy Grossman over at USA today wrote an awesome version of the same story back in April. Then Stephanie Simon wrote an eerily similar piece in the LA Times. Now the Post is running the same story, courtesy of Shona Crabtree at Religion News Service. Yeah, Second Life is interesting, and a few tech-savvy people of faith are making a mark. But I mean, c'mon. Three times in two months?

And Cathy Grossman, who in my opinion does the most justice to the story, gives us this reason to scratch our heads:

"Statistically, denominational religion is still a speck in Second Life. In a typical week in late March, 451,000 avatars, nearly 9% of all registered users, visited Second Life. Leaders of Christian, Jewish and Muslim sites estimate about 1,000 avatars teleport into churches, synagogues or mosques on a regular basis. Hundreds more list themselves with Buddhist, pagan, Wiccan and other groups."

A thousand people get this kind of coverage? They must feel like the New Hampshire farmers under the old primary system.

What's so irresistible about writing this story?

There's the sexy technology angle - whenever old traditions venture into new media, that's a slam-dunk. There are the crazy outliers - the Second Life church of Elvis, the Church of Burgertime, etcetera - which are good for color. And the counter-story is going to write itself - in the end, just find a pastor or a convenient academic to say, "This is all interesting, but it's just a passing fad."

But there are interesting aspects to the story. And if - Elvis forbid - there's one more colorful feature about Second Life and religion in our future, I hope it addresses them.

America is a culture of increasingly private spirituality. The "unchurched," the "spiritual but not religious," are the fastest growing religious demographic in the country. People are finding their religious information and identies outside of the traditional church/community cultures.

As I blogged about a few months ago, a Danish researcher found that internet hits for "God" are outstripping internet searches for "sex." A tantalizing combination of these facts is this: Americans are turning away from churches and towards... the internet. I think this is one of the stories of the decade that isn't really being written. The Gutenberg Bible brought a democracy of information that shook the religious order of its day to its foundations. Is the same thing happening with the Web?

That might be a story worth reading three times.

Sex and the Modern Muslim

One of the few positive upshots of the President's clash with the Muslim world has been the education of the west about Islam. What do they believe? What is the Hajj? What is the difference between Sunni and Shiite? Why the hijab?

The Muslim education of America broke fresh ground this week. Yes, read further for the breaking news about sex and the the world's second-largest religion.

First off, Salon.com ran a massive piece about an Egyptian sex advisor. Here are some highlights:

[Dr. Heba] Kotb [pictured], the first licensed sexologist in Egypt, believes that sex is a gift Allah intended for humans; her divine mission is to make sure that they're enjoying it. Every week, viewers throughout the Muslim world flood her station with calls, hoping to have their most embarrassing and intimate questions answered on-air. All sorts of sexual queries are allowed, with one snag: Sexual relations outside of marriage are haram (prohibited by Islam) and not open to discussion. In fact, Kotb, a wife and mother of three, draws her sex advice directly from the Quran. According to hertextual analysis, the Prophet Mohammed encouraged frequent sex and foreplay and decreed that female pleasure is, um, actually kind of important.

And from the Q&A with Kotb. Both surprising...

Q:Is the Quran concerned with female pleasure?
A:Yes, it is. The biggest chapter of the Quran is called "The Cow." There is a verse talking about the woman's rising pleasure. It's an order to the man to give the woman the right to have pleasure -- it orders the man to give the woman foreplay and also to get the wife to have sex repeatedly and to not wait for the woman to ask because sometimes she's too shy to ask.

Q:Why is sex such a controversial topic in the Muslim world?
A:It's culture -- it's not Islam, whatsoever. Islam is a very liberal and progressive religion. It invites people to have sex, of course within the marital frame. Prophet Mohammed never showed any offense to anyone asking about sexuality. On the contrary, he responded to every single question. The thing is, the culture overwhelms this.

..and not so surprising...

Q:You have encouraged women to explore their bodies -- does that include masturbation?
A:The woman, by means of instinct, does not need masturbation. She's not like the man
whatsoever. It's not a call of nature for her. So that's why I'm not very sympathetic with young women and girls choosing to masturbate. They're ruining their sexual future -- a woman has to remain blank until she gets married and by masturbating she's forming her sexuality.

Q:What are your feelings on homosexuality?
A:[Laughs] Well, I have a very famous opinion about homosexuality. I'm totally against
homosexuality being considered a gene or natural. It's a sin -- they're just like the alcoholics and the drug-takers. I'm also the reason for a lot of patients to have been cured -- so, no, I can't believe that it is natural.

Also on the Muslim battle of the sexes, the NY Times ran an article by Michael Slackman yesterday about the proliferation of fatwas in Egypt. What's a fatwa?

...fatwas, or religious edicts, are the bridge between the principles of their faith and modern life. They are supposed to be issued by religious scholars who look to the Koran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance. While the more sensational pronouncements grab attention, the bulk of the fatwas involve the routine of daily life. In Egypt alone, thousands are issued every month....

Technically, the fatwa is nonbinding and recipients are free to look elsewhere for a better ruling. In a faith with no central doctrinal authority, there has been an explosion of places offering fatwas, from Web sites that respond to written queries, to satellite television shows that take phone calls, to radical and terrorist organizations that set up their own fatwa committees.

And what are the topics up for discussion? According to one sheik in the business...

...the vast majority of the visitors have asked [him] for help with their marriages.

“The greatest ill in society I observe is the lack of trust and knowledge between husband and wife,” he said. “A man will think masculinity is being a dictator.”

At 11:30 one recent morning, a young woman entered and sat in the chair opposite him. She held her son, about 4, on her knee as she explained that her husband had married another woman (four wives are allowed in Islam) and that the new wife was only 18. “He said he would spend five nights with her and one with me,” the woman complained. “Can I ask for a divorce?”

Under Islam, the sheik advised, all wives must be treated equally. So if she could not work the matter out “peacefully, then yes, she could ask for a divorce.”

That was her fatwa.

The fatwa that made it into the lede was one that has caused recent embarrasment in Egypt - one scholar wrote that because "there had been instances in the time of the prophet when adult women breast-fed adult men in order to avoid the need for women to wear a veil in front of them. 'Breast-feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage,' wrote the scholar, Izat Atiyah. 'A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breast-fed.'

And, reaching a little farther into the archives, there was a great piece last October in Der Spigel about sex and Islam. One of the most interesting bits was how the Web is changing a world that had erected strict taboos around sex.

The Internet is a refuge for hidden desires, even though it offers only virtual relief. Google Trends, a new service offered by the search engine, provides a way to demonstrate how difficult it is to banish forbidden yearnings from the heads of Muslims. By entering the term "sex" into Google Trends, one obtains a ranked list of cities, countries and languages in which the term was entered most frequently. According to Google Trends, the Pakistanis search for "sex" most often, followed by the Egyptians. Iran and Morocco are in fourth and fifth, Indonesia is in seventh and Saudi Arabia in eighth place. The top city for "sex" searches is Cairo. When the terms "boy sex" or "man boy sex" are entered (many Internet filters catch the word "gay"), Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the first four countries listed.

All grist for international understanding and diplomacy. Maybe America has more in common with the Muslim world than we thought.

God's Green Earth

Please forgive the lapse - been getting dental work done and haven't felt up to snuff.

While I was getting my mouth renovated, the Vatican was also having a little bit of construction. Maybe you caught this AP story on Tuesday:

Some of the Holy See buildings will start using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's worry about squandering the Earth's resources, a Vatican engineer said Tuesday.

The roof of the Paul VI auditorum will be redone next year, with its cement panels replaced with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity, engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna said.

Holy greenhouse gasses! It seems like a pretty bold statement by Rome, when other Christians - especially our homegrown evangelicals - are deeply divided on what exactly God wants us to do with the planet. Later in the article, it seems that Pope Benedict XVI was working to phrase environmental stewardship as a poverty issue:

A feasibility study for the planned conversion, published recently in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, found the conversion made economic sense. It quoted from Benedict's speeches defending the environment and noted that his predecessor, the late John Paul II, also championed the safeguarding of natural resources.

Cuscianna recalled a speech in which Benedict lamented "the unbalanced use of energy" in the world.

Last summer, Benedict called on Christians to unite to take "care of creation without squandering its resources and sharing them in a convivial manner." He said lifestyle choices were damaging the environment and making "the lives of poor people on Earth especially unbearable."

And what's going on here at home with Christians and the environment? Heck if I know. As you may know, the evangelical bloc is becoming somewhat divided on this issue. But how divided? At the passing of Jerry Falwell last month, all sorts of stories came out which seemed to imply that Falwell's "old guard" with its solidly right-wing issues was passing into the sunset, and an openness to traditionally lefty topics like poverty and the environment was again on the table.

Quoting at length from the NY Times article on the subject from May 21:

The evangelical movement, however, is clearly evolving. Members of the baby boomer generation are taking over the reins, said D. G. Hart, a historian of religion. The boomers, he said, are markedly different in style and temperament from their predecessors and much more animated by social justice and humanitarianism. Most of them are pastors, as opposed to the heads of advocacy groups, making them more reluctant to plunge into politics to avoid alienating diverse congregations.

"I just don't see in the next generation of so-called evangelical leaders anyone as politically activist-minded" as Mr. Falwell, the Rev. Pat Robertson or James C. Dobson, he said....

Mr. [Rick] Warren, along with Mr. [Bill] Hybels, 55, and several dozen other evangelical leaders, signed a call to action last year on climate change. The initiative brought together more mainstream conservative Christian leaders with prominent liberal evangelicals, such as the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and the Rev. Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, who have long championed progressive causes. Notably absent from the list of signatories were several old lions of the Christian right, some of whom were openly critical of the effort: Mr. Falwell; Mr. Robertson, 77; and Mr. Dobson, 71, founder of Focus on the Family.

Another evangelical standard-bearer who did not sign the statement was Charles W. Colson, 75, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, who said in an interview that there were many environmental groups behind the statement that were hostile to evangelical causes.

So - there you have the issues in a nutshell. New evangelical leaders are pastors of growing congregations and may want to avoid divisive issues. There is concern about who you're in bed with if you vote green, and how likely they are to vote along with other core issues. And not mentioned here, the confusing matter of the apocalypse - some believe that God would not allow the earth to be destroyed before it's time, and that global warming is a red herring issue.

For more resources, here are websites of the two major contenders:

The Evangelical Environmental Network, who have been actively trying to promote saving the environment and "creation care.

The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, supported by James Dobson and others, who think the current thinking of environmental activists is misleading to Christians, and that "dominion" takes place over "stewardship."

Makes my head spin a little. For some more passionate, in-depth coverage of this complicated issue, catch the daily wisdom of this blogger: The Evangelical Ecologist.

MUNGIKI UPDATE

An unfortunate update in the Mungiki story in Kenya. From the BBC:

Police in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have shot and killed 21 people in a gun battle with suspected members of the banned Mungiki sect.

Police say their officers engaged "a gang of thugs" resisting an operation to recover firearms stolen from three policemen who were killed on Monday.

Several weapons are said to have been recovered and some policemen injured.

Last week, the president warned Mungiki activities would no longer be tolerated and ordered a shoot-to-kill policy.

The security forces in Kenya have spent the past three months trying to crack down on criminal elements in the Mungiki - a sect which it is claimed runs an extensive extortion operation and is reported to have connections high up in Kenya politics.

Stay Tuned.

Mungiki Rising

It's no news that Americans have a blind spot just about the size of Africa. I'm as guilty as anyone else. But I've started to follow the political situation in Kenya, and the inextricable part the Mungiki sect are playing in it.

Over the weekend, members of the sect allegedly killed - make that allegedly beheaded - a bus driver and conductor in the Murang'a district of Nairobi. More from Reuters:

Members of Kenya's outlawed Mungiki gang beheaded two more people on Saturday, local media said, a day after the president vowed to crack down on those behind a wave of violence in the volatile run-up to elections...

On Friday, President Mwai Kibaki pledged to hunt down Mungiki members just hours after five earlier murders rocked central Kenya, including one in his own constituency. The gang was also blamed for the murders of six people found decapitated last month.

Who are the Mungiki? A gang? A religious group? An insurgency? For the answer, you have to go back to colonial Africa, when Kenya was under British rule. A predominant tribe in the region - the Kikuyu - were responsible for the Mau Mau uprising, which lasted from 1952 to 1960. While it did not overthrow British rule, it paved the way for Kenyan independence in 1963.

The origins of the Mungiki movement are shrouded in secrecy, but tied to the mythos of the Mau Mau uprising, and the Kikuyu people. There's a good sum-up on BBC News:

One theory has it that Mungiki was formed in 1988 with the aim of toppling the government of former President Daniel arap Moi. The sect was, at one time, associated with Mwakenya, an underground movement formed in 1979 to challenge the former Kanu regime.

Other reports say Mungiki was founded in 1987 by some young students in central Kenya to reclaim political power and wealth which its members claim was stolen from the Kikuyu.

Its leadership claims to have two million members around the country and to have infiltrated government offices, factories, schools and the armed forces - members who would not necessarily sport [identifying] dreadlocks but support and finance the sect behind the scenes.

The group has been blamed for racketeering and intimidation. There's basis for calling this a political opposition group. But is it a religion? Here are some of their reported beliefs (again, hats off to BBC):

They pray as they face Mount Kenya, which they believe to be the home of their God, known as Ngai.

And their name means "a united people".

Their holy communion is tobacco-sniffing, their hairstyle that of the Mau Mau dreadlocks.

They are also carrying on the Mau Mau tradition of opposition to any Western influence in Kenya and have conservative attitudes towards womens' dress, and are advocates of forced female circumcision, according to some reports. Although the sect was outlawed in 2002, the size of the group today is most often cited to be in the millions.

The reasons for the recent violence are complicated, and include a hostility to the President Kibaki's current government, which has been rife with crime and corruption. Kibaki, who faces an uphill battle towards reelection this year, has tried to make the Mungiki the target of a "cleanup" effort - but with their underground practices, and popular support, they are turning this on its head, creating a shadow uprising of untold numbers.

It is a volatile situation, where religion and underground politics are threatening the stability of the country. Keep an eye out for Mungiki stories in the coming weeks - if you can find them.