Finding My Religion
We're a podcast that asks the question, "What do you believe?" We talk with people to find out how they grew up, what they think about today, and where they think they'll be in the future. Faith, religion, and spirituality are all such personal journeys. We're honored to be able to tell people's stories, no matter the belief.
Finding My Religion
Christina Ward: "The Culinary Impact of Religiosity"
Ever wondered how religion influences our food habits and day-to-day life? This week, we sat down with Christina Ward, author of Holy Food: How Colts, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat in American History to unravel this complex connection. Raised in a religiously diverse household, with a Roman Catholic mother and an agnostic father, Christina provides a unique perspective on the topic. As an atheist, her insights into faith and the cultural underpinnings of religious practices are profound and intriguing.
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Welcome to Finding my Religion. My name is Miles Phelps. Before we jump in with this next guest, I want to again thank everybody for listening and again remind people to subscribe, rate, review the podcast. It helps others in the entire world find this show and all I want to do is reach more people so I can tell more stories and bring them to your ear balls, and with that, let's jump into the show. Alright, welcome back. I am super excited to talk to this next guest. I forget how we had been connected, but you have a new book that's out. Christina Ward is joining me. She has a book that's called Holy Food how Colts, communes and Religious Movements Influenced what we Eat in American History. We talked earlier when, before we started recording. I haven't had the chance to read yet, but I'm so excited to dig into it. Christina, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I am very well on this cold Wisconsin day.
Speaker 1:We were talking about. We got to toughen ourselves up for the winter, so either one of us has our heat on as of yet, we're just bundling up and making it work. Love it Well again. Thank you so much for saying some time aside to talk here. I'm excited to hear more about this book, but kind of where I always start on these podcasts is you know what is your faith and religion at this point in your life?
Speaker 2:So I was so interested in speaking with you because I am atheist. Now, if you notice how I said it, I said atheist, not an atheist, because what atheism means is without God. That's so I am without God. Of course, as an American, as so many of us grow up on me, growing up in the 70s and 80s is there is a tradition of growing up with some sort of cultural religion In my family.
Speaker 2:My mother was Catholic, roman Catholic, and I went to actually Catholic schools for a few years, but my father was I guess the proper term would be agnostic. They are very old Americans, and what I mean by that is I can trace my paternal roots back to the 1600s Wow. And so doing a lot of that research is finding out that my family was involved in a lot of the Protestant religious traditions, from the very early founding of the United States to the Great Awakening and the Burnt Over Area, and were early Mormons of all things out of New York, and so we also grew up then with a very intellectual tradition and questioned many things, and so my dad was essentially just an atheist who believed that there was something but could never name it, and so in kind of growing up in that kind of environment and, being a curious person, I was always fascinated by religion and how people believe. But that exploration and study took me to the place where I have a very distinct view of religious practice, which is that it's very cultural based and the deity itself doesn't quite exist and so that is where I am.
Speaker 1:I love that. I'm excited to get into that. By the way, no need to move the cat. The cat is welcome on the podcast. We used to have a big orange cat like that, so it's like bringing back. I love to see it. He'll come back then. Love it, love it. What's his name?
Speaker 2:This is Eddie, who may be joining us, and there's a. There's a his brother, buddy.
Speaker 1:Love that, love that. Well, if you're listening in your car, you are missing out on a cat show here. So so we're, we're without God right now. Grew up in the in the Catholic faith, for better or worse, not even for ever worse, but for all intents purposes, what as a, as a kid like? Was it just something that you, you did, or was it like? When did you start to really think about? Like, what is my faith?
Speaker 2:My memory of it is from the earliest, from even as a child. I think it was mostly because of the disconnection of going to a Catholic school and even though it was post Vatican too, when it the Catholic Church became technically a little bit more liberal, our particular parish and school was very conservative, and so what I noticed right away was that disconnect, the hypocrisy, honestly, between what people said they believed and what those beliefs were and actually how they lived their lives, and I had a hard time reconciling that and that opened my mind to the idea of new ideas and new ways to seek a spirituality. So I was always very interested. Also, 1970s, late 70s, great television there was an extraordinary mini series when it would be akin to like a limited run series on Netflix, but it was every every night for a week on NBC and it was a very long documentary program, but fictionalized documentary program on the Holocaust.
Speaker 2:And, interestingly enough, if you're growing up in the Midwest, communities are very isolated and I didn't have a lot of opportunities to meet people of the Jewish faith and it was intriguing to see that history played out on TV and made me quite curious as to how that difference, how is it one God and two different practices. How is it that people could purport to believe something and treat other people so cruelly and so horribly? And so? So that really started this idea of what is religion and what. What do people believe and why do they believe it?
Speaker 1:So that's, that's fascinating, because I feel like a lot of kids go through that, not necessarily watching that same program. But there's something happens where it's like oh well, I was taught one God, especially in the Catholic faith, there's all these other things, but then you have the same God, essentially with a different faith. What, how did you square that as a kid? Like what? What was the outcome of that? Like almost awakening.
Speaker 2:You know, I credit my dad for that. You know that seven, eight year old kind of question, and he had a very simplistic answer that is theologically unsound but great for little kids, which is that Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha are all brothers of the same God, and they are. They are voices to help teach the message.
Speaker 1:So they're more of the vessel versus, like, the end point. The endpoint is all the same way.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so that's, that was where my and that's also a reflection of where my dad's spirituality was at and, interestingly enough, again, it very intellectually working class worked in a factory. So this is not, this is not all university garbage, this is just lived life of you know, exploring himself and figuring it out. And how did, how did you? If I think about it right, he's 28 years old and with a little, four little kids. The oldest is asking questions. And if you think about yourself at 28, what kind of answers are you going to give to a kid asking you? You know, fairly deep theological questions, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm thinking of like when I was 28,. Religion was not on my mind by any stretch of imagination so, and I didn't have kids. I can't admit like it's my dog's not coming up to me asking about God, so I can imagine what's like having kids at that age. What was the reaction from from your mom, like when you started having these types of questions because you said she was, she was heavily involved in the church at this point?
Speaker 2:She was very performative Catholic. As so many you know, people are in in any flavor and any denomination of spiritual practice. There's always varying degrees, but her particular brand of hypocrisy was profound and and made a made a huge impact that way. She was not really open minded in any way, shape or form and essentially embodied the worst type of stereotypes and negativity about someone being very close mindedly religious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's got to be tough, like it. So. So when you were watching this, this program, the, the document or not the documentary, but the program about the Holocaust and that kind of, starts it like did your relationship with faith and then with the Catholic Church and and seen as apocrisy not only play out in the church but at home? Like how did that, how did that work for you? Like, how did that, how did you square all these things that were happening all at once?
Speaker 2:It was a contentious. It was a contentious relationship there was. I remember we left Catholic schools at third grade, so about that that same one is 1978, 79 when the parish the, the head priest, one in my father to convert or that they were going to kick us out and he said we're leaving. And so it was that type of conservative church and she was not happy about that. But at the same time it was an extraordinary gift to us as kids because we got to go to public schools where you start meeting so many different people in that after leaving. I remember distinctly that, that tension of if you're in a Catholic school at that time we were going to mass every morning and yet I had to get punished at school because my mother didn't take us to mass on Sundays. Oh, wow, right, because that's a requirement, and so that there was always this attention filled with that, my experience of Catholicism.
Speaker 2:And that's never that's never gone away.
Speaker 1:Do you was there like any sort of shock or anything that you can remember as a kid, from going from a religious school to public school?
Speaker 2:Pants. You could wear pants, that's great.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:I didn't even own a pair of blue jeans. After the second day it was in tears. Everybody else just had jeans and t-shirts on and you know I'm wearing little dress pants. It was horrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just want to fit in as a kid. You don't want to be different.
Speaker 2:Absolutely right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what about from like just how school was structured? I mean, because I had friends that went to Catholic school and they think they came over to the junior high and like sixth grade or whatever, and they always talked about how Like it was different, like the, the way that people spoke about different teachings. Then like the science realm, where it's just different. It was Not all that was comfortable at first.
Speaker 2:I think I got out early enough that I was done by third grade.
Speaker 2:So in it, all that really stuck with me in the sense of what a differential was, is that it felt less judgmental. I remember you know we had nuns and yeah, sister Joseph, she could clock you in the back of the head with an eraser from across the room. She should have been pitching for the Brewers. Yeah, there you go. And so there was less violence in the classroom that way, as well as the fact that and the big difference is they in Catholic schools and I think this and I've seen other Christian teaching materials and for the Protestant Teaching is they actually will use biblical scenarios to teach other things. So if you're reading, you're using, you know, religiously inspired materials. If you're teaching math there, you're using religiously inspired Examples and, of course, in public school it you don't get that at all right, right, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So we get to public school. It's kind of a different vibe. There's not that religious aspect to it. What, if anything? I mean, do you remember about your faith at that point? Because you had that conversation as a younger person with with your father. But some time has passed now we're in, you know, grade school. Were you still quote-unquote, searching for something, or was it just like you were comfortable in that unknown and that explanation from your father made sense for that time being?
Speaker 2:that explanation made sense, but it didn't stop me from being curious about everyone else. I was often. If somebody at a sleepover, right, if somebody had to go to church on a Sunday, if you're sleeping over at a friend's house Saturday, I'd always want to go. Sometimes you always had that option, you know, dropped off before church or after. I'd always take the after because I wanted to see what was going on, what were other people doing.
Speaker 2:I also spent my summers on my grandparents remote farm in Northwestern Wisconsin, kind of in Jackson County, near Black River Falls.
Speaker 2:And Gee, I feel so old saying this, but there used to be small like revivals, like little tent revivals that would come through in the summer, and One popular one was always and I'll never remember the man's name, but he and his wife were working to start a new little you know kind of church and they were so smart in their recruiting is they had a children's crusade and a children's revival and so essentially the school bus would pick you up from all the farms, take the kids up. Somebody had let them set up their tent in one of the backfields and from a parental point of view, you're three hours without any kids. It's like free babysitting, right, right, yeah, and so it was great in the hot in summer. They made it fun, and so I remember that distinctly and being really interested in in that kind of experience and because it was so different than what I had learned already and that was, I'm one of those I was always asking why and I was a very curious kid still am that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. When when did you start to realize that you know there might not be something that I believe in or that I need to believe in? One of those thoughts take place for you.
Speaker 2:The curiosity never stops. I remember finding a little bit older like books, like box full of books from the early 1900s and they were Any descent, it was all theosophy, from the, that early theosophical movement, and again fascinating, this idea of there's the eye. That's part of the I am movement, which is, you know, the God is within you, and that's a different type of connectivity. And so if we think about different ways of being religious or seeing and being God, all of the, especially United States, these new religious movements are Essentially they're cutting out the middleman. That's really what they're doing and that's rooted in this German pietism that came kind of came to fruition in the from the 1300s, the 1500s and we get to 1600s.
Speaker 2:That's how all those fundamentalists come to the United States. But it's great because we have this rooted culture in Personal relationships with our deity. That's a very American thing, and so for me, reading all of this material going to different places and churches, for me just felt like I was having a conversation, a relationship with what could be God, what you know. So for me, the, the exploration, felt spiritual.
Speaker 1:That's cool. That's cool. You know what my wife is describes yourself as an atheist and we talked on Season one of this podcast about like what that meant for her. And I was like a Because my dad was a pastor growing up as I mentioned a couple times on here and the the fear factor behind calling Myself an atheist or knowing that someone else is an atheist is like very high for me. Just because of how I was raised, I would say I'm probably more like that agnostic range now. But atheism always interested me and I had this conversation with her and be interested in your thoughts of it seems like atheism. There's a point where you have to have as much faith that something doesn't exist as people who do believe have that same faith that something does exist. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Um, I have thoughts about that, because Modern atheism as it's being kind of projected in the what we'll call them public intellectuals we're thinking like the Dawkins and the Sam Harris. Right, I wouldn't say that's almost atheist, it's almost, it's an Anti-God, which is is a little different stance and that has it for Americans. A lot of times atheism has come to mean anti Theism, which I think is a different thing altogether to be a and that's why I'm very clear I'm not an, an atheist, because that would denote believing something. Being atheist mean it just means you're without God and it means that there's a possibility that you're open to having your mind changed. It just means that for the moment, for the forever, for whatever you are, just without God.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I like that explanation that makes a lot. That makes more sense than because it seems like there's something missing when we talk about religion. For those people like you know, you and me that might not believe in a thing there's. There's like a thing that's missing, like a term, and I think that you might have just filled it in for me, because you have agnostics, which is like I don't know, which is where I feel like I land most of the time. But then Just knowing that you're without God is Almost just as comforting. Like you've you figured it out? But you're not saying like whoa, no way, like there's definitely not a God. So it sounds like if you were presented with evidence, whatever that might be. Like it's impossible to say, but you, like you, would not be opposed to having your mind changed at some point.
Speaker 2:I've never opposed that. I think that's a key is to having that growth mindset they are. That is a popular teaching thing is to be open-minded once you close your mind off to something. And closing your mind off Is very different than learning, than having facts and being knowledgeable. Being closed-minded means that you're never open to any type of learning, regardless of the you know, whatever subject you close your mind to.
Speaker 2:And I fear that for a lot of modern Americans who who are professed believers in in a religious practice, that that is an element that they're not Conscious that they are doing. That they are. They have closed their mind off to the potentiality of any new information or a new ideas and and I think that that's a part of being human is to have that's the essence of faith right. If you have a faith in something, that faith should withstand questioning, that faith should withstand genuine Eagerness to find out something new. And again, that's the nature of faith I say it in the book is I'm always really Impressed when people have such a profound faith. That is unshakable, yeah it.
Speaker 2:To me that's an extraordinary state of being to be able to be that faithful. And what I mean to is faithful to the, their, their Religion of choice to their God of choice, without fear. That is an element that I think is been a Trend in American Protestantism, especially when it comes to fear-based. And when something is fear-based, I don't. I don't know if it's a genuine faith. If you're afraid of what your pastor thinks, of what something is going to happen, then I'm not sure that faith is really a true faith.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's where I was for a long time too is in that like like well, I gotta believe, otherwise the alternative like pretty much sucks. So we're just gonna stay along with what we believe and and then you know, hopefully work, it'll work out for the best.
Speaker 2:And I was gonna say is that I'm not sure if you're familiar with the bite model. Have you heard of the bite model? No, I haven't. So part of what my work and my research is in like new religious movements and cults and communes, and we're often very quick to say something is a cult, especially if it's unfamiliar or it's different than what we believe. But there's some researchers Stephen Hassan, dr Stephen Hassan, who is an ex-moony himself, has come up with a comprehensive called the bite model and it's an assessment tool to figure out if a group and doesn't have to be religious could talk about amway sales. Is it a high control group? And high control groups are considered cults.
Speaker 2:So are they trying? Is the group trying, to control your body in any way, shape or form? Are they trying to control your emotions? Are they telling you what you should be feeling about something? That is one method of control, the T thinking. Are they controlling what you think or telling you what you're thinking is incorrect? And are they controlling information? Do they control the information that you're allowed? There's a good control word that you can receive. Now a lot of religious groups will hit a few like one mark. You know they'll have one element on that bite model. But when a group starts hitting all four, they get the bite, the B-I-T-E when they're on all of those controls. Now we're dealing with a group, especially a religious group, that is veering on problematic because those folks aren't necessarily believing in something. It's not faith-based, it's control-based, and that's when we hear the most horrific stories of religion gone bad, where the worst outcomes it is within these groups that have very high control and tick all those boxes on that bite model.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I've never heard of that. But that makes sense, because when you think like I was just talking with my wife that day about how people always say when they get out of a cult, that every single person always says this is, anyone could be a part of it, and before you know it it's almost too late. And so having those warning signs of knowing that like hey, somebody's controlling the information I'm reading, or controlling like how to think about the information or whatever, like those are good, like yellow flags and red flags, you know, eventually to be like, hey, might not be the best thing to invest my time in.
Speaker 2:And it comes down to your God can tell you what to do, but he can't tell me what to do and to bring it to modern day. It is a great concern to me some of the political aspects of some of the religious groups that are highly active in book banning in schools, in libraries. That is antithetical to one, the United States, and how our First Amendment works, and it's also antithetical to most religious practices. It is only the real extreme and what we're seeing is an extreme kind of I use the return Protestant because that's their origination point. But some of these groups aren't even, you know, traditionally Protestant anymore. They are just their own entity.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's, it's scary, honestly, to think about that Like, and they said just the exact opposite of what this thing is supposed to be about, right, like freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of information, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Right when it comes down to so right. So when there are just a small, tiny group of people making decisions for everyone else and imposing their will on someone, that is definitely a high control. And they're trying again, trying to control information because, they happen to disagree with it.
Speaker 1:And you know that leads me to a question I wanted to ask you, which was how did so? How did you get to this point? Because you've mentioned a couple of times of some of the hypocrisies that you found in the Catholic phase and people that believe that, but, like today, how did you get to the point where you're comfortable in the fact that you are living without God?
Speaker 2:I'm a researcher, I have read most holy scripture and I say that you know, with the air quotes holy scripture of, from the Quran to the Bhagavad Gita, to most the Zen writings, to some of the more, again, new religious, the book of Yarancha. I could not get through it, nobody should get through it it is. And so even the Book of Mormon. When you look at these groups and you read their word, and if you study the history, you'll see to me it's so fascinating is a lot of overlap, and I mean overlap not only in scripture, in belief, in practice, but actual overlap where a lot of the leaders of these groups knew each other and it's a very you know as close practice, and so what I've learned, so where I am now is learning that most of this is, you know, cultural and it's invented. We are a long, long way from when you know the book was written. You know, and we start, the Abrahamic religions, the people of the book, that is, judaism, christianity and Islam, and so these ideas have so changed from when they were conceived that they are, I think, almost unapplicable to modern living. And that's where I'm at today, to see that you can pull wonderful things from an inspiration from the translations. Nobody's reading Aramaic these days either, and we can take the good that out of what our modern religious practice is, which is community, which is the idea of mutual aid.
Speaker 2:Again, the history people forget, american history prior to about the 1930s really is there was no social security, there was no social welfare system. There was nothing. The only thing available for people in need was the churches, any type of churches and temples. They served as the social safety net and that was a critical service, and I think that a lot of the churches, especially post World War II, have gotten away from that idea of service to community. There's some nominal service, like you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, somebody's taking a mission trip to Guatemala for their senior year. That is not mission. Go walk down the corner and go find someone to help. You don't have to fly somewhere exotic to do that. So, again, those are the good things, and so where I'm at now is trying to communicate this message of like. This is a very American belief system. What we have now, today, whether you're going to call yourself a Jew or Muslim or Mormon or Christian, we have more in common. We have more shared based on our American-ness than we do on our beliefs and the specificity of the dictates of that religion.
Speaker 1:Wow, that was well stated. As a researcher, as you're going through and you're reading all these texts, I feel like I would be the type of person that would be like I'd read one and be like, hey, that's a good point, you read the other one, but like that's also a good point. You're like that and then I feel like I would be like just bogged down with all of these ideas where I wouldn't be able to come up with like okay, this is what I think. Now, how do you avoid just being bogged down by different texts and different things, different ideas, different beliefs with, and then having this like very middle of the road research hat on. I didn't state that, I didn't state that very well, but I think you can connect.
Speaker 2:I know I get totally. It's the idea of synthesis and discernment and we all come, everyone, everyone has a point of view and there's no true neutrality. There really isn't. We're humans, we have beliefs about one thing or another. We're both drinking the Coke once, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's a choice.
Speaker 2:We're Coke people and so the skill and that's where the skill is and that's a learned skill over time and again. Sometimes school can help teach. How do you honestly assess a piece of information, how do you correlate that, how do you place that in a timeline with other pieces of information and how do you find and discover where the commonalities, where the similarities are? And that's the skill of a historian and that's the skill of a good researcher to not get bogged down by that minutia and by the details.
Speaker 2:That's not to say there are times when it can be overwhelming and times you have to step back and times you have to have a couple glasses of wine with a good friend and kind of talk it all out and see that we're the revelation where you can put things together. And you have to be a little brave with yourself to be wrong, to take the wrong path for a little bit in the research, to go down the wrong road and definitively say you know what? That was a good idea at the time, to follow that thread, to put those two ideas together. But it's not real. And that's a key thing too is to have a sense of detachment from the material when you're researching, and that can be really hard with religious study things because there's so much baggage along with it. So you have to be detached a little bit and not take it personally and not take it on board, and have the goals in mind, the goals being finding out something.
Speaker 1:I think what we learned is that you're just smarter than I am, that's what the answer was.
Speaker 2:I'm just tenacious.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. So talk about your work today. I mean you're very involved in the Milwaukee area with food. I mean I think I've seen that you were labeled a food expert. Like how did you combine this love for food and then this religious studies aspect of it? Like how did those things come together?
Speaker 2:So I think first comes from history, Going back to that 1977 special. I did not finish all the college because, you know, working class poor people don't always have that chance. But I was fascinating by that history of fascism and that history of the Holocaust and was doing some research work for a professor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, just as an assistant to low level but always fascinated by that. That started that history, as well as then the religious aspects of the history. And then food is always, you know, hungry kids become interested in food and also a farm background.
Speaker 2:In the summers Again, I was, you know, very common in my age, you know, if you were, I had farm people. All the kids got shipped up to the farm and if your farm people were down south, you got shipped down south to the farm because that was not summer vacation, that was extra hands for labor, you were doing work, and so one of the things that I took to in the farm was food preservation. I'm a canner, so I became the actually master food preserver for Milwaukee County and so those things combined American history, the history, the intersections of religion and history and of course then food and food history. It all comes together as now at you know, when it started a few years ago in my mid 40s, to really start thinking about the intersection of how American history is told through religious food.
Speaker 1:What was the most bizarre? Not even bizarre, but was the most interesting thing that you learned as you're going through this research and writing this book.
Speaker 2:Again the interconnectivity and the similarities. And if something worked, I'm not sure I'll go deep into American religious history for a second and if any listeners you know, whip out the Google machine, you might have to look up a few names. So the beginning of the Great Awakening, which is considered, you know, the time of in the early 1800s, when most people were not religious actually in the United States it was a low percentage of people that claim they were religious and a few inspired preachers decided that it was time to convert. And Finney Joseph Finney was the most famous and he rode on horseback all throughout Western New York preaching, and samples of his preaching would not fly today. It's. It actually reads as little funny, because it is not. It's not a gentle loving God that he talks about. He talks about, you know, the famous, one of the most famous sermons he gave was called the spider sermon, where we are all spiders hanging over the flaming gates of hell and God is disappointed with us and we are spiders going to be dropping into hell if we don't change. But the thing is as. So Finney's crossing through New York and a number of people hear him speak and are inspired.
Speaker 2:William Miller, who in 1844 predicted the end of the world. Of course that didn't happen. But the genesis of that is the roots of Seventh Day Adventism. Joseph Smith heard him. Joseph Smith then founded Mormonism and there were many others who went on to found American religions.
Speaker 2:Who heard Finney preaching, and so when you're, that's what's the biggest revelation again, because the interconnectivity and not just the interconnectivity of ideas but actual overlap of people who and we go back to more modern 20th century people may be familiar with the idea of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles. It was considered the birthplace of Pentecostalism and many preachers who were again at that time too exploring and interested and would go and hear other sermons and go to other parishes I'm using the Catholic word, but you know other churches to hear what someone else's message was. So many went to Los Angeles that they then brought Pentecostalism to the rest of the United States. It spread out from the West and it also then morphed and changed and became different things. Out of that the assembly of gods were created, the Church of God and Christ. All of these religions then have almost a genealogy in the United States and that to me was I think for me personally was my big discovery that it's writ small. It's not large, it's very small and has a very outsized influence.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm assuming that there's a lot of things going on in history at that point that allows this thing to be essentially explode. At that time in American history, what was there? A desire, I guess, for more Jesus in people's lives, and why do you think people were so driven to believe in a God? That was, for lack of a better word, old Testament. You know, like Ra Ra, believe or don't, but you're going to hell if you don't.
Speaker 2:Right, and it started with that. But as it starts to gentle along the way and the message gets changed and morphed. And so, william Miller, less angry God. Joseph Smith, angry God with a different kind of message. The Pentecostalism, a joyful God. And so the message changes a little bit. Each person puts a little different imprint on it, and so the impetus wasn't so much people trying to decide they needed Christ, it was preachers deciding to bring Christ to the people.
Speaker 2:If we think about that, at the time, in the early 1800s, really, the Western frontier was the Mississippi River, and so you know that's the famous the trail for most of, if you're listening and you're a midwesterner dollars to donuts your people came from. You know, if your people were here for a while, they came from New York and then they were in Ohio and in Indiana, and then they keep moving west, right, and the preachers did the same thing. As more people converted, as more people decided to become pastors and preachers, they were looking for congregations and they too moved west, and it was the era of the great camp revival, and so that's how the word was spread and that is how we went from being and again I'd have to check the numbers, but going from like a 25% self-identified religiosity in the early 1800s to almost I think it was 69% in 1890.
Speaker 2:Oh shit In the span of like 100 years, which is, you know, a speck of time in a scope of history. And that was the effectiveness of not just the Great Awakening, as I called the Great Awakening, but also because you asked about how did we do this? How did it get here? So it was expanding frontiers, new potential believers, lots of extra preachers and the First Amendment there was no state religion, like in the UK, like in Germany, like in France.
Speaker 2:We speak a lot about the, you know, european immigrants coming over at that time period. They also have state religions and a lot of our religious immigrants came because they were banned. Their belief was banned in their home country and and this is, you know, the history part is these countries were not interested in having these, this disruptive religious groups, in their country. But if you could send them off to the United States and have them occupy, it was a much cheaper way than having an army, and so that's people may remember the Homestead Act. So an entire village that was a religious community could immigrate to the United States, stake out land that was not occupied by anyone except the indigenous people and claim it as their own, and that is how a lot of communities got started in Illinois. That's Bishop's Hill and that is kind of the Western Northern Illinois.
Speaker 2:People may be familiar with the Ammana Colony in Iowa because it's a national heritage site. Now, the same thing they. They came over from Germany. They started their community free to practice their religion as they wanted, and got the land for free. That was a great incentive. So First Amendment free land, lots of preachers traveling around that was the formula. That was the recipe for how the religious explosion in the 1800s, the United States, came about.
Speaker 1:That's wild. I love history and I I'm just starting to get into the religious aspect of it because, like you said it is. This is stuff you don't learn about in school, like you have to really want to know it to go find it. I just find this stuff fascinating, just that, like you said, the interconnectedness of the entire thing and then just like all these different pieces falling into place at exactly the right time for this explosion to happen is just what.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I'm of course giving a real high level, broad view. So if people are interested, there are so many wonderful books out there. My own goes down just like a small rabbit hole about that intersection of food and the religion and how that shapes American history. But there's some really great books out there and they're not all academic. So readers, people, shouldn't be afraid to pick up a nonfiction book. You can do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's the tough part, right, is it? That's there's got to be, there's got to be some sort of intrigue in it. What, what is next, I guess, for for you and your journey as you continue to? To read, like, are you at a point where you're that comfortable and like whatever information comes at you, digest it, like you mentioned earlier, does that openness? But like how, how do you live as without God in this world? That we've all talked about heaven and hell, like that? That's like heaven and hell is so part of our culture now where it's almost you can't even get away with it, even if you're not religious. Like what's what's next for for that? And like just discovering and that learning.
Speaker 2:So from for me personally, I was working on this particular book for five years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does take time to do that reading and the interviewing and the exploration and the thinking that sometimes you know there's time, it takes time, so there's no magic overnight.
Speaker 2:And so for anyone who's exploring on their own, give yourself that grace of time and see, look at I used a very religious type notion and I said that on purpose, because we have grown up in this culture. So what does the future hold for me personally? I'm not sure. My brain is pretty full right now. So for me, I'm just trying to kind of go easy and not kind of purposefully on board and take on board any more information and, because I need to give my brain a little pause, what I am discovering, which is really delightful and is more of the personal aspect, so people, as I've been traveling around the country doing interviews and talking to people, is hearing people's personal stories about their journey, which I find fascinating, either away from belief or to belief. That happens as well, and so that's where I'm at. I'm open and I'm just enjoying more the personal interaction and people's stories of faith and food.
Speaker 1:Love that. Yeah, that's what this podcast is all about. So we've had people that grew up Catholic and aren't now, and we've had people that grew up Catholic and now believe in a completely different thing, and even non Catholics, and so it's all over the place, and that's that's what I love, and I'm happy that other people are interested in that as well. A couple more questions for you, if you've got time. What advice would you have for someone? So I've heard a lot of people that have talked to me or have messaged me and said, like, hey, this is it's just a really comforting conversation to know that some people don't know, and also people that have also done the research and done the work, like yourself. What do you tell people that are maybe stuck in that fear that we talked about earlier? Like, how do you get? How do you get through that? Like, is it just research, is it just reading and reading, or like, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:You know I'm going to give two different pieces of advice, because it really depends on where the person's coming from, if they're. If you're coming from where you're doubting your faith in a particular religious practice or spiritual path, I would say you need to go inward a little bit and think about what are you thinking and believing and why are you believing it. That's your time to go take walks in the forest and talk to your God, and there's rules for that too. If God's talking to you, if you're feeling that spiritual, this is a really critical thing, because too many people have done that work to think about. I'm going to think about what pathway I'm doubting. I'm with fear. I'm not sure. If God tells you something that is contrary to what, like the scripture, is what any of the scripture is, then you should doubt what that message is. Always same thing with a preacher or a minister. So, but go within yourself and think about what your faith is and think about how it's manifested. How is your God manifested for you? Is it in the forest, in the trees? Do you find the miraculous every day, do you? I mean and I sound very, very religious when I talk about it like that, but I can find the miraculous in the world, but I can do that without God. Some people find God in the miraculous, in the nature, in just the nature of existence. So go within yourself and figure out your faith.
Speaker 2:If you're already, you're looking at it for a different pathway and you're unsure of what practice to follow, then that's a great time to start reading. And start reading the source books. Start reading the core biblical. Quranic Tanakh is the combined Jewish books, the Bhagavad Gita, the anything. Start reading more and find out if anything kind of connects with you those ideas. What you may find is a lot of those ideas overlap. And start looking to community, looking for like minded people and I don't mean this to close off, but to find like minded in the sense that they share a value system, not a belief system, a value system. They have shared values. Then the spiritual practice will come naturally and next, and you will, you may find your God within that. Thank you.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that. It's uncomfortable, I mean, like I mentioned earlier, like my dad was a pastor and I lived in that like super, like fearful, ambiguous way for a long, long time and it's tough and it's like you at some point just have to like go inward and be like all right, what is it that I believe? Versus like what am I being told and what did I grow up with? Or indoctrinated for some people. So I think that's great advice.
Speaker 2:I think that too I just want to point out is a lot of people feel that fear is because of that. The community aspect, because if you leave a certain practice, you often lose your community.
Speaker 2:And that is. That can be really heartbreaking for a lot of people, and a lot of people stay within a religious practice or a belief system that they may not have 100% belief in or may disagree with, but they stay for the community. And so again, find your values, find people with like values and you know, you can build a new community and then build the spirituality and find the belief from that.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said that, because I do think that's probably the number one thing for a lot of folks, especially, you know, my mom, I think, is going through this right now. Or it's like she's belong to the same church because it's been in the generation, like it's like the fourth generation of people that have belonged to this church, and like if you leave it, you lose not only your community but that history behind it as well, which is incredibly terrifying.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. This is not easy work, you know. This is it and never is. Being human is challenging, it's, it's, it's hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is. My wife always tells me to ask this question. Sometimes I forget, but I'm glad I remembered what, what didn't we talk about? That maybe you were interested in sharing, or that you just wanted to convey anything that we, that we missed?
Speaker 2:Yes, actually something pops in my mind right away, which is, I mentioned, joy and but humor. I think that discussions about religion, religious practice, personal belief and spirituality can get really heavy, but there's joy there and there's humor and I would say that we don't talk about the humor enough and we don't talk about how just even some of the things that we believe in some people believe in is kind of silly and that. But that's okay. It is okay. Again, we're human and we have a sense of humor for a reason, you know, because Aristotle's book of the second book of poetics I'm thinking about Umberto Echo and the famous the Name of the Rose. You know, I think we're human and we are designed to laugh and we shouldn't forget that.
Speaker 1:Talk more about humor and religion. I'm interested in this. Like what say more about that? Like how, how do you enjoy? I think people you know that that makes sense, but like you don't ever hear about, like when I was going to church there was no laughing. You know, like, how do you? How do you find that humor in what you believe?
Speaker 2:Um, you know there's a. It's always cited as like one of the jokes in the Bible, in the New Testament of Peter. Right, the name Simon, I will call you Peter and upon you know, and of course I'm misquoting it I will you know, if you're the rock, I'll build this church. Okay, petra rock, I mean it's a pun.
Speaker 2:According to the book, jesus made a pun, the lowest form of humor. But there's instances of wordplay and in all books to talk about. To talk about that then, when we talk about later, when interpreters there's some really funny commentators say, in the Catholic tradition, st Augustine and I cite the early Catholics because they were great writers and great meaning prolific, they wrote a lot, so there's a lot of material to draw from. I'm thinking I think it was St Augustine famously made a joke when he was in a debate with a heretical group who were vegetarians. Then it said something about you know, god told you to. You know, I'm not remembering the joke, we might have to cut this out, but essentially, you know, god told you to eat plants, not worship them.
Speaker 2:So yeah so I mean without so the commentary. In the scripture there is humor, and even in Judaism there's great humor, and I think the humor comes, you know. So I'm citing a few instances from, you know, revered books and revered church leaders, but I think that you'll see it if you look for it in all the writing, in the commentary, I think, because it's natural to humans and so we can't help but put humor into our spiritual practices.
Speaker 1:I love that. I've never even thought about it, honestly, until this exact moment. So that's, that's really cool. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on here. Where can people find your book?
Speaker 2:It Holy. Food is available at all online retailers and find bookstores. I was just on a book tour, doing some book tour on the West Coast, so if your local bookstore doesn't carry it, they can get it, they can order it or you can order it online.
Speaker 1:Love it Again. That is called Holy Food how Cult Commune's and Religious Movements Influence what we Eat in American History. I'm excited to read it. Thank you again for sending it to me. I'm super pumped.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're very welcome. Oh, I need to mention one more thing about this book, which is it has recipes. Oh, perfect, all the many of the groups because they were very food oriented had a very distinct food culture, and so I included many recipes in this history because I thought that it's one thing to say read about the you know, seventh Day Adventists or the new Wabians, but it's another thing to like make their favorite dish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Hopefully there's not like a Kool-Aid recipe or anything in there.
Speaker 2:No, only things that are. All the recipes were tested and we rejected all of the really, really terrible ones.
Speaker 1:Perfect Only the good ones Love that Well, christina, thank you so much for coming on, and I wish you all the best on whatever you do next.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you so much for the opportunity to have this kind of discussion. A lot of my other ones had been about the food. It's fun to talk about the religious aspects.
Speaker 1:Of course, I learned a lot. I'm excited to do some research on all the names you mentioned. Thanks again to Christina for coming on. It's so much fun talking with people that are smarter than me, and now we're going to do a sneak peek into next week's episode with none other than Heidi Phelps, my mom, what's your, what's your spirituality or faith right now? Mother?
Speaker 2:I right now am struggling with my faith, but I still would say that I'm a Christian.
Speaker 1:What? So I think it's. It's interesting because dad has come on here and you guys are not obviously married anymore. It's been years since you guys have been together, but you were a part of his life during, like, when he was in it, going to school to become a pastor, being a pastor, being a pastor's wife. So I'm interested to hear about that. But right now, like what, what aspects are you struggling with? Is it because so background you have been a part of the same church for years? Like you were not in your hometown for 20 plus years, but then when you came back, you joined the same church which my dad was the pastor of, and so you were the third generation of people to go to St John's. And I'm curious, what, what aspects of faith are you struggling with? Is it just the church or is it the actual like God part? It's more the church. That's next time. On Finding my Religion.
