Creation "Too Controversial"

The Darwins played by Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly

I’ve been writing about the history of religion in American mainly to set the context for my own spiritual quest. To that end I will soon resume my history of our spiritual heritage and the legacy of the native Pacific Northwest. But just now I’d like to leap ahead because it is absolutely astounding to me how singularly extreme some contemporary American Christians are when it comes to the theory of evolution.

The new British film Creation starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly opens in Britain on September 25th. The film opened the 34th Toronto International Film Festival but so far no distributors in the U.S.A. have picked up this 19th century costume drama about Charles Darwin and his family on the grounds that it is "too controversial".

The Second American Religion

Centeotl - Aztec Corn God

The first American religion was the shamanic hunting magic brought from the north by the ice age hunters. The second American religion came up from the valley of Mexico to the south. This younger spiritual tradition was an agricultural religion based on the cultivation of maize. Unlike the the hunting and gathering band's reliance on one or two shaman to interpret the spirit world the agriculturalists developed priesthoods and cults. Theirs was a ceremonial religion based on the fertility of the land. These two forms of religious expression intermingled for centuries among the tribes that populated the North American continent. Remnants of both survive in numerous variations throughout Native North American spiritual traditions.

reference: Atlas of the North American Indian by Carl Waldman

Blue Corn Maiden (Pueblo) by Gilbert Atencio

People of Faith for Obama

Obama in Church ~ Brooks Kraft / Corbis for TIME

What got me started writing about American religion was my participation in, People of Faith for Obama, during the Obama presidential campaign. As participants, we were asked to respond to weekly “values questions”. The purpose was to generate interfaith dialog and of course convince conservative Christians who may be more inclined to vote republican to support Obama.

It is not likely my participation convinced any conservative Christians to vote for Obama. In my life I have formally belonged to three different religions. I was raised as a Disciple of Christ, participated in a Wicca circle for twenty years and am now a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. I’ve have also had the honor of participating in Native American ceremonies, I've been a student of Zen, through yoga have learned and practiced Hindu chants and have celebrated the Mexican Day of the Dead. The American right to freedom of religion is not wasted on me.

As diverse as my religious explorations have been I have come to see my path as uniquely American. Religious freedom itself, the availability of information and teachers, a society that values religious tolerance and even my Protestant upbringing all contribute to my identity as an American seeker. I discovered through writing short essays for the Obama campaign that American religion was a topic I wanted to explore further both as an intellectual pursuit and as my own spiritual quest.

My People of Faith for Obama Houseparty
transforms into an Om for Obama Drum Circle.