Popular Buddhism with Taylor Swift

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Popular Buddhism with Taylor Swift

At the time of publishing, Taylor Swift is leaving Australia after being all anyone has talked about for two weeks.

I’m no exception. After hearing that Drs Hannah Gould and Anna Halafoff were presenting at the Taylor Swift symposium (“Swiftposium”) about Taylor’s song ‘Karma’ and Buddhist ideas among young Australians, I pestered them for months until they agreed to be on Soul Search.

Success! Hannah was kindly able to make time to talk to Meredith about “Buddish”ness, when people believe in Buddhist ideas (like karma) that are commonly subscribed to, even by people who aren’t Buddhist (like Taylor Swift). Dr Jeffrey Cupchik also came on the show to talk about the history of Buddhism in Western pop music over the years, putting Taylor Swift’s work in its historical context. Please listen! If you like the episode, let someone know (seriously, it really helps).

This episode kicks off a short series about pop music and contemporary religion we're doing on Soul Search. Next week I’m examining the history of the Contemporary Christian Music industry and the week after, we’re doing Christian music by queer musicians. I’ve been working on this material in some form for well over a year (here’s my reflection on Taylor Swift and ’Karma’ from December 2022) so it’s really exciting to get it out there.

Satan's crimes

Give us biblically accurate sheep

My husband found this amazing thread on X about desert-dwelling mammals like camels and how they will store energy in the form of fat in particular parts of their body so the rest can stay cool.

One of these mammals is the fat-tailed sheep, which is mentioned in the Bible. User @Kairo_Anatomika says these were the primary type of sheep in the ancient world, and so biblical art should have big-booty sheep if it really wants to be accurate.

I'll leave it up to a biblical historian to say if this is true or not. I just want big assed sheep in my Bible art. Read the whole thread it's fun.

Origen of Alexandria would have made an excellent shitposter

I'm probably massively oversimplifying, but Orthodox theologian Origen of Alexandria taught that everyone goes to the same place when they die, and people who love God will be into it and everyone else will hate it. Like when a student loves to learn the classroom is a good place to be, but a bad student thinks it's torture. Anyway, even the bad students learn a thing or two.

He also said that everyone in heaven will have orb-shaped bodies.

Disney adults, again

Reading this article from the New Statesman about Disney adults, I’m struck that it also can’t help but describe the phenomenon in religious terms.

From New Statesman:

In many ways, Disney is a religion that one is born into, the same way a 15th-century English baby was predestined to be baptised Catholic. Choice doesn’t necessarily come into it — we see Mickey Mouse around us like our ancestors saw the cross; a symbol that both 18-month-olds and 80-year-olds recognised.

Long-term readers will recognise this theme from Julie Eichler-Levine’s tweets from June 2022 and when we spoke with her for Soul Search, and again when I wrote about the whole thing for ABC Digital.

Addressing the witchcraft accusations

This AI Jesus isn't quite right... or is he PERFECT??

Moose posted this tweet from Hank Green in the Modern Relics Discord. Zootown Church (fantastic name) is bragging about how they used an AI image generator to make their advertisements I guess?

Moose says, "confirmed: A.I. is Chalcedonian and believes that Christ has two natures."

Chalcedonian Christology asserts that Jesus has a divine nature and a human nature, and "the natures are unmixed and unconfused, with the human nature of Christ being assumed at the incarnation without any change to the divine nature." (Wikipedia)

This is what most Christians believe, and is an idea famously depicted in the Christ Pantocrator icon. Maybe Moose is right about all of it.

Twilight vampires are angels

Bueller is an ex-Mormon TikToker who makes a lot of content about storytelling in books and movies. Anyway he says that the vampires from Twilight actually align much better with how angels are described by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I don't know how the blood drinking factors into this, but Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is a member of the LDS Church, so it's not a crazy idea that the descriptions would be influenced by that in fairly significant ways. Sparkle away, bloodthirsty angel guys.

Oh I guess it's 29 Feb

This has nothing to do with religion but you should probably watch the Leap Day 30 Rock episode it's the only day you can (this isn't strictly true). Here's a preview: