Preface

When it was released in 2004, The Passion of the Christ was one of the world's most pirated films. Before its release, the New York Post showed a bootleg copy of the film to a panel of five reviewers—a rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Baptist reader of the paper, the Post's film critic, and a professor of religious studies—and published their reactions. With large numbers of pirated DVDs available in the United States, the press and Internet bloggers speculated that Christian churches clandestinely screened The Passion. Although the film was banned in China, both Catholics and Protestants there reportedly viewed illegal copies of it. The company in Israel with distribution rights declined to distribute it there, but Palestinian Christians, foreign Christian pilgrims, and Muslims in the West Bank nonetheless watched pirated copies of the film. Passion bootlegs also circulated in Saudi Arabia, presumably in part because of the controversy over the film in Israel. And unable or unwilling to pay to watch the film in theaters or on legitimate DVDs, Mexicans in both Mexico and the United States purchased cheaper pirated copies instead. These consumers both highlighted economic inequality between Mexico and the United States (as one Mexico City bootlegger told the Los Angeles Times, "the two countries aren't equal") and implicitly challenged director Mel Gibson's ownership of the Christ story.¹

For his part, Gibson struggled to protect his intellectual property rights. Shortly before The Passion was released, he screened it for religious leaders, government officials, and media pundits, including the late president of the powerful Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Jack Valenti, who hosted the event in his Washington, D.C., office. By the time of the screening, Valenti had effectively enlisted the U.S. government in a war on media pirates, testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that bootlegging funds terrorism. After the screening, Valenti reportedly praised the film for the way it made "the tears flow easily," and he deflected charges of anti-Semitism by asserting that "people of all religions will find this truly an impressive (and respectful) piece of art and realism." Several months later, Valenti publicly applauded the LAPD when it arrested a man for attempting to videotape The Passion during a theater screening.²

This brief history of piracy and The Passion of the Christ suggests many of the organizing themes for this special issue of American Quarterly, including the intercultural and global dimensions of religious politics; the complex relationships between religion and state power; the sometimes conflicted, sometimes compatible aims of religious elites and multitudes; and the politics of religion and media representation. While the United States has long been viewed as a religious nation, the essays in this volume all suggest the importance of these themes for any critical history of the present. The issue brings together an exciting collection of essays on religion and politics in the contemporary United States that incorporates a range of methods and perspectives across the humanities and the social sciences. As might be expected, given recent history, the topic of the Religious Right is well represented here, but so are plenty of other topics that together foreground the political significance of diverse religious traditions in the United States and their implications for our understandings of nationalism, geopolitics, political economy, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and race. In all of these ways, this special issue attempts to advance vital conversations between the vibrant fields of American studies and religious studies.

This issue of American Quarterly was truly a collective endeavor. Initial planning for it was done by my predecessor, Marita Sturken, and I am also grateful to her for her subsequent advice and guidance. Guest editors R. Marie Griffith and Melani McAlister brought their tireless commitment and intellectual brilliance to the project's realization; it has been a pleasure to work with them. I would also like to thank the members of the AQ managing editorial board, who read and extensively commented on various manuscripts, including Ruth Bloch, James Kyung-Jin Lee, John Carlos Rowe, Shelley Streeby, and Daniel Widener. Other members of the managing board also provided important...