[ . . .  continued from part 1]

In addition to the shallow switcharoo (IMHO) ending, to me the reunion at the interfaith church was just so eerily and obnoxiously warm and fuzzy, that it made me think that the LOST gang was some sort of creepy suicide cult. I liked it better when the show worked in subtle references to various religious symbolism, but this last scene feels like a strange religious cocktail blend that kinda makes me want to vomit. Did you notice the stained glass window? The Taoist yin and yang, Christian cross, Jewish star of David, Muslim crescent moon and star, Hindu aum, and Buddhist dharmacakra wheel (a connection to the frozen wheel I hadn’t considered). Really, did you have to be that blatant about your religious combo meal? What happened to the mystery? It’s as if LOST is taking us aside to tell us, “Hi viewer, in this series we have borrowed from all of these very profound and inspirational religions. Won’t you, like us, respect and value these important religious traditions in your own path to spiritual enlightenment?”

Please permit me a moment of commentary here. Far from respecting all religions, this sort of religious soup is a slap in the face to all communities of faith. This is where Stephen Prothero’s latest book, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter, has tremendous relevance (check out his video interview on PBS’ Religion and Ethics). When we blend all religions together, we create something entirely different from any one religion. We need to consider each religion within its own context if we’re going to respect and study each religion, not “the simple celebration of diversity for diversity’s sake—that is too easy,” as Prof. Boustan likes to say. In his letter from the director on UCLA’s Center for the Study of Religion site, Boustan notes, “We must avoid the temptation to divide the world into the familiar and the exotic.” The LOST finale has not avoided such temptation and rather makes religion into a cheesy, meaningless prop.

Gary Susman at TV Squad interprets the stained glass window thusly: “There’s an afterlife waiting for everyone, as long as they have faith and are willing to let go.” Why on God’s green earth would LOST end its magnificent run with such a hokey message? Commenting on that stained-glass window and the entire interfaith church idea, one blogger complains, “Why not just have Jack ascend to heaven in a Prius with a ‘coexist’ bumper sticker?” Not that I have anything against Priuses (Prii?) or those stickers (if properly conceived), but the point is: Why do the final moments of the LOST finale feel like an after school special on the importance of respecting religious diversity? There we were, wondering about the mythology of LOST, which questions would be answered and how, following the epic story, and then, we were being homilized. And it’s not even a good homily at that.

On the other hand, I did appreciate Kate’s poignant question at the beginning of the episode: “‘Christian Shepherd’? Seriously?”

[continued (with some less negative thoughts) in part 3 . . . ]

For the past academic year, the Center for the Study of Religion (CSR) at UCLA has been going through a transition from one director to another. My doctoral advisor, Scott Bartchy stepped down from his tenure as director for the CSR after over a decade of skillful and passionate leadership. Another professor with whom I work closely, Ra’anan Boustan, has taken up the reins and brought me on staff as he builds upon the strong foundation that Prof. Bartchy has laid.

One of the central projects of this transitional year has been the recreation of the CSR website. The old website had served its purpose well, but it was time to move on and UCLA’s Center for the Digital Humanities (many of you may know about this center through its Instructional Technology Coordinator, Bob Cargill) helped us out big time. I encourage you to go check out the new site. We’ve got some cool things going on.

If you’re reading this blog post, chances are that you generally, well, read blog posts. If that’s the case, please do check out and subscribe to the CSR blog! Here’s the link for the RSS feed. Visually, the blog is currently a little bare bones, but we’ll be working on that. As far as content goes, we will be hosting many guest posts, including an upcoming one from Dr. Cargill himself, explaining our multidimensional icon (see the “o” in the logo above). One of our instructors for the Study of Religion summer courses will be contributing as well. I hope keep it active and include interviews and reflections on CSR events and topics.

On Thursday afternoon, The Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA hosted a debate between Sunsara Taylor and Scott Bartchy, my doctoral advisor. I was not able to make it to the debate, but was happy to find this tidbit giving what appears to be a fair report of the debate. The report is done by the Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists. Even giving their leanings, they seem to indicate that Bartchy had a much stronger point than Taylor.

Taylor’s argument was that all religion is bad. Bartchy’s point was that there is bad religion and good religion. I think Bartchy had an easier job to do because, well, he’s right. Both terrible things and great things have been done in the name of religion. Apparently Taylor shot herself in the foot when she defending communism by saying that there are good things and bad things in communism: “When Sunsara said that some things in Communist societies were good, some bad, Bartchy immediately compared it to his own point about good and bad religion.”

Of course there were people of faith who were dissatisfied with Bartchy as their representative in this debate. Apparently one woman refused to believe that Bartchy actually believes in God:

I didn’t catch the whole thing, but I heard her say, “So you don’t really believe in God”.  Bartchy insisted that she didn’t know that.  But she kept on saying “He doesn’t really believe in God”, walking away satisfied.

Bartchy often mentions that when people ask him about this, he often tries to ask them what they mean by “God.” Too often people have no idea how to articulate an understanding of what “God” means to them. For Bartchy, at least as he explains early Judaism and Christianity, their God is the God of “community forming power”: the God who gathers a people who are committed to following God’s way of social justice. When people talk about “God” in America, it is often something quite different.

Incidentally, it seems that Bartchy had the correct approach by responding in a reasoned and logical manner, in contrast to Bill O’Reilly who interviewed Sunsara Taylor and simply called her a “lunatic.”

Sounds like it was a stimulating event. Sorry I couldn’t make it.

I was listening to the radio program, “Chanukah: A Time for Schtick,” this evening and I heard a great story about a comedy trio of, well, a Muslim, a Mormon, and a Jew. They intentionally address religious stereotypes and misunderstandings. Some of the bits they played were great. The Mormon guy talks about the “rules” of the LDS church:

There are a lot of rules: you know, no drinking, no smoking, no premarital sex, no coffee… which does seem actually kinda weird. I mean, for God to say, “no coffee.” Kinda just tack it on like some sort of pork barrel legislation. It seems illogical, but “no coffee” is logical. Think about it: You can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t have sex… why stay awake?

The Iranian-American Muslim woman talked about having troubles with her passport:

He takes out this big magnifying glass, he’s runnin’ it through these giant x-ray machines. I turn to him. I’m like, “What are you doing?” He goes, “I’m checking to see if your passport is fake.” If my passport were fake, do you really think I would write my birthplace as Iran?

You can listen to the whole “Chanukah: A Time for Schtick” program here. The bit about the comedy show, “A Muslim, a Morman, and a Jew Walk Into a Bar: The Comedy of Religion,” comes on about a quarter of the way through. You can check out their official webpage here. I feel like I should take a trip up to the bay area to check it out.