21AR26-13

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AR 26:13 - Chaplains as "psychedelic shepherds"

In this issue:

CONSCIOUSNESS - spirituality as "the goal of therapeutic, psychedelic experience"

ISLAM - how television brought discernment to Muslims in Pakistan

ORIGINS - Stephen Meyer no longer "refraining from attempting to answer questions about 'who' might have designed life"

PENTECOSTALISM - tracking the abusive prophets of South Africa

Apologia Report 26:13 (1,518)
March 31, 2021

CONSCIOUSNESS

"We could perhaps think about chaplains as psychedelic shepherds, directing users through the strange, yet potentially meaningful pastures of the mind and beyond to which these chemicals may provide access." -- an idea born of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions' November 2 panel discussion "What is Psychedelic Chaplaincy?" <www.bit.ly/3eMYhMs> - reported by Hollis Phelps (Religion Dispatches, Mar 2 '21).

Welcome to the "psychedelic renaissance" - where "if one wants to have a religious experience on, say, psilocybin, there's a significant chance that one will."

Just don't be too picky about what kind of religious experience you get: "While some investigators are certainly sympathetic to a religious interpretation of the use of psychedelics, others have argued for a strictly secular approach." Panelist Jamie Beachy, <www.bit.ly/3w9J2U2> Director of the Center for Contemplative Chaplaincy at Naropa University "referenced, and the panelists discussed, a widely circulated article <www.bit.ly/3eQ0ff4> by Matthew W. Johnson, the associate director of the Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research <hopkinspsychedelic.org> at Johns Hopkins." According to Johnson, researchers should "take a thoroughly secular approach, leaving possible religious interpretations solely up to the participant. ...

"Symbolism specific to one tradition may, of course, be off-putting to those from other traditions or no tradition at all.... As Johnson puts it, 'It will ultimately interfere with the mainstream adoption of these treatments to help the greatest number of appropriate individuals if they are approved as treatments, e.g., coverage by insurance and government medical programs.' ...

"If 'spirituality' ... is the goal of therapeutic, psychedelic experiences, then it's difficult to see why chaplains shouldn't have a place at the table. ...

"As Vice's Shayla Love has rightly pointed out, how we understand psychedelic experiences, even in clinical contexts, is indelibly shaped by 'the psychedelic movement's forefathers, like Aldous Huxley.' <www.bit.ly/3fp2Exz> ...

A "mass of first-hand data from decades of mostly illicit psychedelic use is readily available, on sites such as Erowid...." <erowid.org>

Phelps concludes: "Broadening the discussion can only increase our understanding of what psychedelics can do." <www.bit.ly/2OwrL6P>

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ISLAM

Religious Television and Pious Authority in Pakistan, by Taha Kazi (Social Anthropology, SOAS University of London) [1] -- Indiana University Press explains that Kazi "identifies the sacrifices and compromises that religious scholars feel compelled to make in order to ensure their presence on television. ... Kazi maintains that these featured debates inspire viewers to reevaluate the status of scholarly edicts, thereby fragmenting religious authority. By exploring how programming decisions inadvertently affect viewer engagements with Islam, Religious Television and Pious Authority in Pakistan looks beyond the revivalist impact of religious media and highlights the prominence of religious talk shows in disrupting expectations about faith."

Amazon adds that Kazi "demonstrates how these shows led to a reduction in the authority of the ulama, the rise of the non-madrasa trained scholar of Islam, and an audience, often faced by conflicting opinions, which increasingly came to make its own decisions about religious belief and practice."

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ORIGINS

Stephen C. Meyer directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington <discovery.org>. He authored Signature in the Cell, a (London) Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. <www.bit.ly/3bTE4Tw> "Previously Meyer refrained from attempting to answer questions about 'who' might have designed life. Now he provides an evidence-based answer to perhaps the ultimate mystery of the universe." - from HarperOne's announcement of Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe [2] - and due out this week.

Harper also explains that "Meyer reveals a stunning conclusion: the data support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind - but the existence of a personal God."

What evidence? Well, Booklist (Mar 1 '21) describes it as "new evidence from cosmology, physics, and biology, especially as it applies to DNA research. Meyer knows how to take readers' hands and lead them through the history before showing how new discoveries can be used to undermine the cases made by anti-design theorists...."

Harper also marshals specialists (and at least one celeb from a distant part of the galaxy) to weigh in:

* - "When you don't understand living systems, ignorance permits discounting a Creator. But when the scientific details are thrust upon you, you're forced to ask: How on Earth did that happen? Thus, the God hypothesis returns. Stephen Meyer convincingly drives the point home: How could it be this way? Only God!" - James M. Tour <www.bit.ly/2rYyue7>

* - "The logic throughout is compelling and the book almost impossible to put down. A masterpiece. Easily the best, most lucid, comprehensive defense of the 'God hypothesis' in print." - Michael Denton <www.bit.ly/38MuRKL>

* - "No one in my experience can explicate such complex material with the grace and clarity that seem so effortless to Stephen Meyer. With meticulous rational analysis of the latest discoveries in cosmology, physics, and biology, Meyer confirms a truth [that] ideologues find too frightening to consider. Their ad hominem attacks on his brilliant work, confirm its importance." -- Dean Koontz <www.bit.ly/30UVloR>

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PENTECOSTALISM

For over a century Africa has been a playground for a multitude of cultic belief systems creating a diversity of emerging movements possibly unequaled elsewhere. Palgrave Macmillan's promo for Pentecostalism and Cultism in South Africa, by Mookgo Solomon Kgatle [3] <www.bit.ly/310iTZx> (Associate Professor at the University of South Africa, visiting scholar, Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, University of Birmingham), explains that "the growth of Pentecostalism in South Africa has faced some challenges, including the abuse of religion by some prophets. This book first names these prophets and the churches they lead in South Africa, and then makes use of literary and media analysis to analyse the religious practices by the prophets in relation to cultism. Additionally, the book analyses the 'celebrity cult' and how it helps promote the prophets in South Africa. The purpose of this book is threefold: First, to draw parallels between the abuse of religion and cultism. Second, to illustrate that it is cultic tendencies, including the celebrity cult, that [have] given rise to many prophets in South Africa. Last, to showcase that the challenge for many of these prophets is that the Pentecostal tradition is actually anti-cultism, and thus there is a need for them to rethink their cultic tendencies ... for them to be truly relevant in a South African context."

The book has earned a ringing endorsement from one of the top scholars in this field: "With his insider knowledge of South African Pentecostalism, Mookgo Solomon Kgatle is fast emerging as the pre-eminent scholar of this subject, and of the African prophets who are part of a new movement that has arisen in recent years. This study is a necessary read for understanding African Pentecostalism as a whole, for these movements are found throughout the sub-Sahara." (Allan Anderson, Emeritus Professor, Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham)

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Religious Television and Pious Authority in Pakistan, by Taha Kazi (Indiana University Press, April 2021, hardcover, 242 pages) <www.amzn.to/3bZuZbD>

2 - Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe, by Stephen C. Meyer (HarperCollins, 2021, hardcover, 576 pages) <www.bit.ly/3vAkKSS>

3 - Pentecostalism and Cultism in South Africa, by Mookgo Solomon Kgatle (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, hardcover, 244 pages) <www.amzn.to/3vDX00m>

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