The Bible and Pop Culture: An Academic Journey?

Every time I hear about the latest college course in popular culture, I want to take it! I wonder why I never had the chance to beam over to a class on Star Trek and Religion when I was an undergraduate. I lament the fact that no tenured “superherologists” like Dr. Travis Langely were around to teach a class on Batman and psychology. Even now I wish the sorting hat would put me into a Harry Potter themed course.

Holy Academic Questions, Batman!

Whenever I learn of classes that feature pop culture, my initial enthusiasm is always tempered by wondering how any of these courses can truly be academic. I had the opportunity to wrestle with this issue when Vanderbilt Divinity School allowed me to teach The Bible in American Culture.

Students in the course search for Hebrew Bible references in books, movies, television shows, political speeches, comic books, etc. Although the course had the inherent coolness factors of fun clips, discussion-inducing images, and an eclectic playlist, I had to address several important questions:

• What will make this course academic? 
• How can students effectively manage so many bible and pop culture artifacts? 
• How can I justify the academic value of this course to the administration? 

Popular Culture as Reception History 

In order to ensure that academics concerns don’t get lost in our exploration of popular culture, I incorporate various readings, lecturers, and parameters into the course. Most importantly, I reinforce the idea that pop culture manifestations and interpretations of the Bible are part of reception history. As we study reception history from the ancient to the modern world, I continually ask students to analyze their pop culture references from academic perspectives.

Tracing the webs of various biblical characters, themes, and ideas throughout time reveals key points about the biblical text and its history that are not covered in most other classes. For example, a discussion of Cain and Abel reveals Abel as a vengeful figure in Jewish and Christian literature. Byron uses the first murderer to create the Byronic hero. The two brothers appear in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Jon Bon Jovi’s ode to Billie the Kid, Blaze of Glory.

In the search for pop culture references, I especially love finding the ones that take us back in time and offer fascinating examples of exegesis. The show Hell on Wheels is set during Reconstruction and focuses on the building of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. In the episode “A New Birth of Freedom,” the local minister challenges everyone to avoid war with Native Americans, quoting Isaiah’s peaceful metaphor of swords being turned into plowshares (2:4). The head of the railroad counters with Joel’s call to rouse the mighty men of war and turn plowshares into swords (3:10).

In their own searches, students find multiple pop culture examples. To help them catalogue the vast and often inexhaustible pop culture references, I created a wiki for each student that proved invaluable for writing the final paper. My previous post “The Wonderful—Yet Misunderstood—World of Wikis” offers more insight into this great tool.

The League of Extraordinary Students 

The class proved to be a tremendous success because students effectively balanced their love for pop culture with academic concerns. Students engaged in fascinating discussions about the Jewish and Christian origins of Superman, Lilith and vampires in True Blood, and the modern day graphic novel theodicy Will Eisner’s A Contract with God.

Still, I wondered what would happen if an administrator walked by while the class was watching “A Rugrats Passover.” I know that the students would respond with an answer about the importance of genre and reimagining biblical stories in Sunday School literature and children’s programs. They would champion the course as both academic and practical.

One student even elevated the significance of the class to a level I had not envisioned: “This should be a required course for MDIV and MTS. The Bible in American Culture is a topic anyone who is going to work in the field of religion needs to explore.” I agree with this assessment. As academics we often focus on what scholars say about a text, but we also need to be aware of the influence of popular ideas about the Bible on our students and their present and future parishioners. 

The Bible is How Many Degrees from Kevin Bacon?

Many people have not read the story of Noah since their days in Sunday School, but they certainly have an opinion about the recent feature film—even if they have vowed not to see it. Knowledge of Ecclesiastes often focuses on the Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn” and Kevin Bacon’s plea for a “time to dance” in the original Footloose.

Perhaps some people leave church and forget the sermon they just heard. But they are likely to see multiple biblical references once they kick off their Sunday shoes and start watching a movie.

Top Ten

While a class on the Bible and pop culture can be both academic and practical, it is also extremely enjoyable to teach. I never know what fun new fact or insight I will glean from my students.

I particularly enjoyed a presentation on The Ten Commandments. After providing a scholarly introduction to the topic, the student showed clips from an episode of Arrested Development that pondered the need for a set of rules to guide us through life.  He also shared a wonderful story about Cecil B. Demille encouraging donations of Ten Commandments monuments to courthouses to promote his 1956 film. That fact certainly adds a new dimension to discussions about church and state.

The Bible in American Culture will probably always occupy the preeminent spot in my list of top ten favorite courses. The class is academic, practical, and culturally relevant. Plus, I know that my research doesn’t end when I put down a scholarly book article and start watching television or reading a comic book.

Editor Note:  For more on pop culture and the academy check out these posts from the Seminarium archive.

Photo Credit: “batman reflects” by greg westfall– CC by 2.0

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