Contemporary cultural and media studies have been increasingly interested in redefining the relations between religion and culture (and particularly popular culture). The present study approaches a series of theories on the manner in which religious aspects emerge and are integrated in contemporary cultural manifestations, focusing on the persistence/resurrection of religious patterns into secularized cultural contents. Thus, the analysis departs from the concept of implicit religion, coined and developed by Bailey and the theories following it, as well as other associated concepts, (...) influential for the evolution of debates in the recent period, such as invisible religion , as approached by Luckmann, civil religion , by Bellah, folk religion, residual religion , by Davies or ‘wild’ religion, by Borg. In order to discuss the relations between religion and popular culture in contemporary U.S. and particularly the presence of certain religious patterns in popular culture messages, symbolism and rituals, the study uses an interdisciplinary approach, based on approaches currently used in media studies, film studies, cultural studies, visual culture perspectives, religious studies, and sociology. The article discusses, through different theories (and in its second part, a case study on James Cameron’s cliché masterpiece Avatar) the manner in which contemporary popular culture (and cinema in particular) recycles, integrates and reinterprets religious patterns, symbols and behaviours. (shrink)

Recent studies have been increasingly interested in the connections between popular culture – cinema in particular – and religion, and most particularly in how traditional mythologies and religious frameworks and practices are recycled and reinterpreted within modern media. These interactions can be ranged from opposition to dialogue and move towards appropriation and even replacement, in terms of functions and impact. Departing from a series of theories – mainly that of “implicit religion”, coined by Bailey but also developed by theorists like (...) Lyden – the article examines the issue of recycled myth and religious pattern in contemporary cinema, focusing on the Russian “New Wave” and more specifically on discussing Zvyagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie [The Return]. The article aims to decode the religious layers and symbolism of the film, which can find a coherent explanation in Eliade’s theories on the pattern of initiation, but also in those on the sacred camouflaged into the profane and most particularly on the hierophanies and initiation religious patterns. The paper also focuses on the function of religious archetypes and rituals as employed by contemporary storytellers like cinema, especially when such religious scripts are as articulated, although implicit, as in Zvyagintsev’s narrative. The article concludes that this return to religion and the sacred as worldviews and manners of understanding of the world can be explained as employed for their persistent function of myth structures as meaning and coherence providers. (shrink)

This study aims at chronicling current aspects and transformations in the relationship between the Jehovah's Witnesses religious minority and the Romanian state (1989-2010), focusing on this religious group's changing official status. Considering both previous contributions and debates on the relations between state and religion, and the distinction between the concepts of denomination versus sect, the present work analyzes the key issues of the long-lasting conflict between the state and this particular religious minority, as well as the factors influencing these relations (...) in Post-Communist Romania. It will be argued that the latest improvements concerning the recognition of religious freedom (Jehovah's Witnesses were officially recognized as a religious denomination in 2003) owes less to internal factors than to an external influence, namely the pressure exerted by the international community at the time of Romania's accession to both NATO and the EU. Furthermore, the study concludes that the evolution of the relation between the state and the Jehovah's Witnesses has influenced the background on which this relation has evolved, as well as the internal evolution of the religious minority. (shrink)