Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast · Profs. Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin

PENULTIMATE EPISODE: Where Did We Come From? Where Do We Go?

·50 min·2 clips

Most religions in the world are votive: they emphasize what you do, not what you believe.

1. The penultimate episode of Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion replays the show's first episode, "what the heck is religion?", after a new intro marking 5.5 years and 100-plus episodes. 2. Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American religions, race, gender, and politics who directs Sacred Rights at Northeastern University, co-hosts with Elyse Morgenstein-First, a University of Vermont historian of Islam, race, and South Asia. 3. The hosts' thesis is that "religion is what people, not one person, what people do," and the new intro asks listeners to judge how much they have learned since that first episode. 4. They challenge the idea that religion means holy books, noting that Catholics and Protestants have different Bibles with the Ten Commandments in different orders, and that Hinduism has hundreds of texts, none of them "number one." 5. On belief, Megan notes that the Supreme Court has said it cannot evaluate the sincerity of belief, while Elyse contrasts creedal religions such as Christianity with votive religions, which are most of the world's religions and prioritize practice. 6. Elyse points out that Sikhs are the fifth largest religion by demographics but are routinely left off the "major religions" list while Jews, at roughly 1-2% of the global population, are always on it, and the hosts conclude that "the answer is always racism and colonialism." 7. Megan's primary source is the prayer card from the funeral of her aunt Sister Mary Elaine Ann Williams, a Sister of Mercy who joined at 19, which she carries in her wallet despite no longer being Catholic. 8. Elyse describes her mother Flo keeping two sets of plates at home while eating bacon double cheeseburgers outside it, and argues that judging her against the text alone would erase the history of post-Holocaust American Jews assimilating into a white, Christian-centric America. 9. The nerd text is Robert Bellah's Habits of the Heart, where a nurse called Sheila Larson names her faith "Sheilaism," and the hosts reject the implied "235 million American religions" because "Sheila didn't build that" and her ideas come from communities and a long history. 10. Suited to listeners wanting an introductory framework for studying religion critically.

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