{"id":955,"date":"2007-11-19T17:18:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-19T17:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=955"},"modified":"2007-11-19T17:18:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-19T17:18:00","slug":"an-immigrants-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=955","title":{"rendered":"An Immigrant’s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

So here I am at the final joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion<\/a> and the Society for Biblical Literature<\/a>. The book show is always one of the best parts. It is of the size that is usually measured in “football fields.” <\/p>\n

Naturally books relating to Christianity dominate, as is true of the many multiple sessions where people are presenting papers.<\/p>\n

I walk around, and I feel like an immigrant who has successfully integrated himself into his new country must feel. I recognize “the old country.” Sure, the pop songs have changed and the postage stamps look different now, but I remember how to understand the language and even to speak it sometimes. (It’s an effort.)<\/p>\n

“Revelation” “Prophet” “Authority” “Redemption” “Church” — I remember those words. But my new language does not need them.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there are plenty of other things to talk about. The new religious movements sessions are always fun–they attract those of us who enjoy religion as spectacle<\/em>. On Saturday, for instance, I was introduced to the international vampire self-study project<\/a>. Self-labeled vampirism — quantified!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So here I am at the final joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature. The book show is always one of the best parts. It is of the size that is usually measured in “football fields.” Naturally books relating to Christianity dominate, as is true of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-fp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":944,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=944","url_meta":{"origin":955,"position":0},"title":"Witches and Economic Decline in the American Midwest","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The GetReligion blog, which covers issues of religion and journalism, takes on coverage of the Witch School's move to Rossville, Illinois. (Full Chicago Tribune story and video here.)Jason Pitzl-Waters has posted repeatedly about the various Witch School controversies, so see his blog for the background.Maybe it is because I am\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":99,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=99","url_meta":{"origin":955,"position":1},"title":"The Revealer","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"When I left (I thought) journalism to go to graduate school in religious studies, I thought that one possible later career path would be to be journalist specializing in real religion reporting, as opposed to merely retyping churches' news releases. That path was not taken, but others have taken it,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7952,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7952","url_meta":{"origin":955,"position":2},"title":"More Links \u2014\u00a0Hand-Forged Ones At That","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 At Fay's Forge you may buy \"knives, swords, and do castings from the Celtic, migration, Anglo Saxon, and Norse cultures.\" Support your local shieldmaiden. \u2022 Probably it would be more accurate to say that the planned Black Mass terrifies some Christians in Oklahoma. And before you dump on Oklahoma,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/d2isyty7gbnm74.cloudfront.net\/unsafe\/646x646\/https%3A\/\/square-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/files\/503128fa04013403b87b1865a268b66a\/original.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=35","url_meta":{"origin":955,"position":3},"title":"‘Sacred’ but not ‘Religious’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"A school teacher in my former home of Ca\u00f1on City, Colorado, is in trouble with a cowboy-hatted pastor (his photo not on the web version) over alleged 'pagan' practices at the school. See how she employs the language of public-education casuistry.","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":642,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=642","url_meta":{"origin":955,"position":4},"title":"Why Men Really Hate Going\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Why Men Really Hate Going to ChurchWMHGTC, by Alaska TV writer David Murrow, is the umpteenth try to understand the \"feminization\" of American Christianity, The pro baseball player-turned-preacher Billy Sunday (1862-1935) was just one manly man who fought the same fight.Murrow is a little shaky on pre-Reformation church history: he\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3212,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3212","url_meta":{"origin":955,"position":5},"title":"Aiiee, the Dominionist Burning Times Are Upon Us!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Kenaz Filan brings a little perspective: \"In my experience to date (well over 20 years of same), every Pagan fraudster and exploitation-artist I have encountered has used 'Christian persecution' as a shield.\" And there is this: \"The prose is execrable: if the English language were Ed Hubbard's dog, he'd be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}