Saturday, August 29, 2009

Net or gross?

This is from BeliefNet's appeal to advertisers. Do "Faith" and "Inspiration" correspond to "Religion" and "Spirituality," I wonder? Are there really only a few Americans who accept "Faith" but reject "Inspiration" (one in a thousand!) - or do they just know better than to frequent BeliefNet? As you know, I'm using Rupert Murdoch-owned BeliefNet's "Belief-O-Matic" and Knock Knock's Savvy Convert's Guide to Choosing a Religion to titillate and then trouble students as we begin "Theorizing Religion" on Tuesday. It will help me raise questions about definitions of religion (and what's not religion - worse or better), how the contemporary American religious landscape is like and unlike the religious landscapes of other times and places, and if religion is or should be a market. This is a new approach: grabbing the bull by the horns.