Hi!

I'm John Green, and welcome to the  final episode of Crash Course Religions!

By the way, I'm wearing my lifelong learner shirt  because I am a lifelong  learner and you can be one too, by watching Crash Course or by getting this shirt, available now at complexly.store.

So, I want to save most of my reflections for the end, but I want to start today with a question we asked at the very beginning of this series: What makes religion … religion?

Like, imagine a child born to a  virgin, destined to save the world.

A struggle between good and evil.

A mysterious, powerful  energy connecting everything.

And mystics who devote their  lives to understanding that  force—even if that means brown robes and celibacy.

Am I talking about Christianity?

Buddhism?

Daoism?

Well, to answer that, we need  to go to a galaxy far, far away… [Star Wars theme] [THEME MUSIC] In 2001, over seventy  thousand people on Australia’s  national census identified  their religion as “Jedi”.

And so did about one-and-a-half  percent of New Zealand’s population.

And in England and Wales, Jediism was the fourth most-reported religion on the census that year, thanks to 390,000 people who  said the Force was with them.

It started with a chain email  that claimed if at least  ten thousand people identified  as “Jedi” on the census, the Australian government would have to officially recognize it as a religion.

But if you think all of those Jedis  were just committing to the bit,  well: “You must unlearn what you have learned.” Wait, Stan, is that a lightsaber?

Oh, yeah!

Oh yeah!

I’m living the dream!

I’m a Jedi!

Stan, I want to say thank you  for letting me live my Jedi dream  on the last day of the Crash  Course Religions shoot.

So, I know it’s tempting to think of “religion”  as fundamentally separate from pop culture,  like two items in your closet  that just do not match.

This shirt with those pants?

Absolutely not.

But religion and pop culture aren’t separate.

And they never really have been.

In antiquity, religious culture  circulated through dances,  and songs, and stories that  could be thought of as “secular.” Like, it’s fair to think of  Homer’s Iliad as “religious,”  since it’s full of gods and supernatural heroes.

But to ancient Greek audiences,   it was their Showtime — full of murder, revenge, and sex.

All the elements of good TV.

Greetings young people.

So, television was kind of like TikTok, except some so-called TV shows were an hour long.

They were like 75 TikToks stitched together.

And get this, there were even  more ads than there are on TikTok.

It was a crazy time that went  from like 1953 all the way up  until the third to last  episode of Game of Thrones, at which point TV ceased to exist.

And to this day, supposedly “secular”  stories borrow religious elements.

I mean George Lucas himself,  the creator of “Star Wars,”  admits to drawing from existing  religions in his worldbuilding.

He said that he wanted the  film to “awaken a certain  kind of spirituality in young people [...] so that [they] would begin to  ask questions about the mystery.” The point is, we find  religious influences in movies,  and music, and fashion, and memes, and art, and sports, and TV shows.

And some of those representations  are obviously better than others.

Like, the 1984 movie “Indiana  Jones and the Temple of Doom”  pushes racist ideas about  Hinduism and India in general, portraying it as a place where  monkey brains are on the menu  and worshippers of the goddess  Kali conduct human sacrifices.

Which, for the record: they’re not.

And they don’t.

All that belongs in a museum’s…trash can.

Compare that to the reaction many Muslim viewers had to the TV show “Ms.

Marvel,” about a Pakistani-American,  Muslim girl with superpowers.

It shows the main character,  Kamala, saying the Arabic  prayer“bismillah” before taking her driving test, performing a pre-prayer  cleansing ritual called wudu,  and speaking a mix of Urdu  and English with her family.

The response to these  details was largely positive,  but some Muslim viewers didn't  see Kamala as religious enough, especially because she doesn’t wear a hijab.

Even when a form of media portrays  an “accurate” version of a religion, it can never represent or  speak for all of its followers,  with their wildly diverse beliefs and practices.

And it’s not just religion  that influences pop culture.

Pop culture influences religion right back.

Like, contemporary pagans have  been known to draw inspiration  from “The Lord of the Rings” to  inform their own religious practice.

Or take the Rapture — that  sudden yeeting-off-the-planet  of Christians at the end of time.

It’s a fairly new—and somewhat fringe—belief, originating in the early nineteenth century and held mostly by conservative American Evangelicals since the Cold War.

But Rapture theology really took off  with the rise of prophecy fiction, a genre of popular novels and movies about the  apocalyptic end times from  a Christian perspective.

Especially the “Left Behind” novels published in the mid-nineties to the early-aughts— a series that got so popular,  they made some movies.

Not necessarily good movies, but movies.

And pop culture can also  inspire whole new religions.

Like, since the 1950s, there’s  been a surge of UFO religions—  and no, we’re not going to  call them UAP religions now.

They’re diverse movements that  involve belief in mysterious  aerial objects, extraterrestrial  beings, or visits to other planets.

Often, they’re influenced  by theosophical movements  that date back to the late 19th century, which emphasize supernatural  phenomena and psychic powers.

But UFO religions have also been heavily inspired  by the boom of alien sci-fi  that consumed pop culture starting in the mid-20th century.

Like, the idea of reptilian alien invaders disguised as humans infiltrating the government has made its way into the thinking of  religious groups like Heaven’s Gate.

And it makes sense that a belief in UFOs or  extraterrestrial life  overlaps with religion, right?

The possibility of mysterious beings in the sky taps into profound existential questions like, “Are we alone?” and “What  does it mean to be human?” These are questions that religions  can help offer answers for— helping people wrap their  heads around uncertainties  and make sense of the world around them.

And when you think about  it that way, it makes sense  that Jediism has filled that  purpose for some people, too.

After the release of the  first Star Wars movie in 1977, fans from all over the world  connected with each other  through snail mail, zines,  and—eventually—the Internet,  debating the nature of the Force and wider religious themes in the series.

And from the start, Star Wars  fans found parallels between  the Jedi perspective and Daoism,  or Buddhism, or Christianity.

Some immersed themselves in Jedi identity through role-playing games and online forums.

And for others, lightsaber practice  morphed into religious practice.

Do I get to do it again?

I get to do it again.

[John making lightsaber noises] The force is strong with this one.

Alright, I hope that wasn’t offensive to members of the Temple of the Jedi Order, “an international church of  Jediism” whose members take an oath  to uphold Jedi teachings and  cultivate understandings of the Force.

I wasn’t trying to appropriate,  I was trying to, like, honor.

The Temple has clergy; three tenets of focus, knowledge, and wisdom; and — at least in the United States — legal recognition as a tax-exempt charity, just like a Baptist church or a Buddhist temple.

And like any religion, there’s debate!

Some think of Jediism as a fusion of new ideas and older religious traditions.

But others are canon purists, who take the Star Wars movies as the only gospel.

[cell phone vibrates] Alright, for old-time’s   sake.

Hey, bud.

How’s it going?

[DEVIL’S ADVOCATE] I’m ready to convert, Johnny boy.

[JOHN] I think you’d   be more of a Sith Lord, but, you know what?

If this is the framework that  helps you build a foundation  from which to view the world, then I support it.

May the Force be with you.

[DEVIL’S ADVOCATE] And also with you.

[JOHN] You know it’s funny,  I thought I was teaching him.

But maybe he was teaching m– hold on… Oh!

He … just sent me an AI-generated photo of the Pope with a lightsaber.

I don’t think he understands Jediism …or, for that matter, Catholicism.

But, wherever you go from here, Devil’s Advocate –Godspeed, my friend.

Godspeed.

Sociologists call Jediism and other pop culture-inspired movements hyperreal religions — “hyperreal” because they blur the line between simulated reality, like a fictional piece of  media, and… real reality.

Practitioners act on the desire to experience the  simulated reality in daily  life—basically, making it real.

Practitioners of Jediism attempt  to make Jedi real by becoming Jedi.

Practitioners of Matrixism,  or “the path of the one,”  look to The Matrix movies as core texts, maintaining that reality is more  multi-layered than it appears,  and a messianic figure is  destined to save the world.

These movements blend pop  culture and the everyday,  shaping practitioners’ experience of reality.

But where do the boundaries  around hyperreal religions lie?

Like, you could argue Disney World is a hyperreal fantasy brought into physical existence.

How many trips on the  spinning tea cups does it take  before you’re engaging in a religious experience?

Is singing Taylor Swift lyrics with 50,000 other fans at a concert a form of prayer?

When does cosplaying as your  favorite anime character  become not just participation in  a subculture, but something more?

As always, the lines here are fuzzy.

With the rise of mass media,  social media, and virtual reality, the way religion is created and practiced is changing and will continue to change.

Religions are emerging from pop culture—  from the work of novelists,  filmmakers, influencers, and more.

And all of this lays bare the truth that religions Just aren’t separate from the rest of culture.

The stories we tell, the ideas  we absorb, the meanings we make  —they’re all woven into the same fabric.

I started this Crash Course on  Religions by asking what a religion is.

And, of course, after twenty-four  episodes, I…still don’t have an answer.

But I would offer that this feeling  of uncertainty actually is an answer.

In this series, we’ve really grasped at that  “ultimate concern” we  mentioned in our first episode.

We’ve found that religions can be responses to the uncertainties we all wrestle with, the sense of belonging we all crave.

And they can act as a kind of  trellis for the vines of curiosity  to wrap themselves around as we  search the universe for meaning.

But I think it’s also important to consider the harm that religion has caused.

In my faith tradition, there are four accountings of the life of Jesus called the “Gospels.” And “Gospel” means “good news.” But of course, religiously motivated actions and movements aren’t always good news– my own religion has been  responsible for tremendous  suffering and death, from  crusades to inquisitions.

It has caused a lot of spiritual trauma  in the people it professed to help.

It has created outsiders of  the already marginalized.

And yet it has also been a source of consolation and inspiration for billions of humans.

Religion can provide us with  an ethical framework that  challenges us to be more inclusive,  more expansive, more empathetic.

It can also cause great harm by centralizing power and claiming divine authority to wield that power.

There is strength in an ultimate  concern, and there is danger in it.

I find hope in the stories we’ve learned in this series, and I also find much to lament.

Religion, like the rest of  us, contains multitudes.