Item Details

Desacralizing Salvation in Straight Edge Christianity and Holistic Spirituality

Issue: Vol 5 No. 1 (2014)

Journal: International Journal for the Study of New Religions

Subject Areas: Religious Studies

DOI: 10.1558/ijsnr.v5i1.77

Abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork in the punk scenes of the UK, USA and Australia, this article critically examines Christianity and holistic spirituality within punk’s Straight Edge subculture, a movement rejecting alcohol, drugs, and casual sex. Focusing on conceptualizations of salvation within Straight Edge Christianity and Straight Edge holistic spirituality, this article engages Heelas and Woodhead’s notion of the “subjectivization’”of contemporary religious identities to compare and contrast these forms of new religious practice. Straight Edge Christianity and Straight Edge holistic spirituality are shown to demonstrate the double movement of the ‘desacralization’ of religion in late modernity. Straight Edge Christianity illustrates the emergence of religion in traditionally secular cultural spaces, while Straight Edge holistic spirituality illustrates a movement away from the transcendent and supernatural, towards the location of salvation within wholly material concerns and therapeutic practices.

Author: Ibrahim Bahige Abraham, Francis Stewart

View Original Web Page

References :

Abraham, Ibrahim. 2008 "Punk Pulpit: Religion, Punk Rock and Counter (Sub)cultures." Council of the Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin 37(1): 3–7.
Adams, Deanna R. 2002 Rock 'n' Roll and the Cleveland Connection. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
Azerrad, Michael. 2007 "Punk's Earnest New Mission." In The Rock History Reader, edited by Theo Cateforus, 331–335. New York: Routledge.
Beaudoin Tom. 1998 Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.
Beckford, James A. 2012 "Public Religions and the Postsecular: Critical Reflections." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51(1): 1–19.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2011.01625.x
Bielo, James S. 2009 Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study. New York: New York University Press.
Blush, Steven. 2001 American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Los Angeles: Feral House.
Bouma, Gary. 2006 Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the Twenty-First Century. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168526
Bovey, Seth. 2006 "'Don't Tread on Me': The Ethos of '60s Garage Punk." Popular Music and Society 29(4): 451–459.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007760600787515
Bruce, Steve. 1999 Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bruce, Steve. 2006 "Secularization and the Impotence of Individualized Religion." Hedgehog Review 8(1–2): 35–45.
Bruce, Steve. 2011 Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Durkheim, Émile. 2001 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in 1912.
Dylan, Bob. 1964 The Times They Are a-Changin'. Columbia, USA.
Fiscella, Anthony T. 2012 "From Muslim Punks to Taqwacore: An Incomplete History of Punk Islam." Contemporary Islam 6(2): 255–281.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11562-012-0225-8
Flanagan, Kieran. 2007 "Introduction." In A Sociology of Spirituality, edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter. C. Jupp, 1–22. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Frith, Simon. 1983 Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure and the Politics of Rock. London: Constable.
Frith, Simon. 1988 Music for Pleasure. Cambridge: Polity.
Garnett, Robert. 1999 "Too Low to be Low: Art Pop and the Sex Pistols." In Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk, edited by Roger Sabin, 17–30. London: Routledge.
Gottlieb, Joanne and Wald, Gayle. 1994 "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock." In Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture, edited by Andrew Ross and Tricia Ross, 250–274. New York: Routledge.
Grossberg, Larry. 1990 "Is There Rock After Punk?" In On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 111–126. London: Routledge.
Habermas, Jürgen. 2006 "Religion in the public sphere." European Journal of Philosophy 14(1): 1–25.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2006.00241.x
Haenfler, Ross. 2006 Straight Edge: Hardcore Punk, Clean Living Youth and Social Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Heelas, Paul and Linda Woodhead. 2005 The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality. Oxford: Blackwell.
Heelas, Paul. 2007 "The Holistic Milieu and Spirituality: Reflections on Voas and Bruce." In A Sociology of Spirituality, edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter. C. Jupp, 63–80. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Knight, Michael Muhammad. 2005 The Taqwacores. New York: Autonomedia.
Leblanc, Lorraine. 1999 Pretty in Punk: Girls' Gender Resistance in a Boys' Subculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Lentini, Pete. 2003 "Punk's Origins: Anglo-American Syncretism." Journal of Intercultural Studies 24(2): 153–174.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0725686032000165388
Levine, Noah. 2004 Dharma Punx. San Francisco: Harper Collins.
Lopez, Steve. 1999 "The Mutant Brady Bunch." Time, August 30: 40–41.
Lynch, Gordon. 2007 The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-First Century. London: I.B.Tauris.
Maag, Christopher. 2008 "Young Muslims Build a Subculture on Underground Book." New York Times, December 22. Online: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/23muslim.html.
Malott, Curry. 2009 "Christotainment in Punk Rock: Complexities and Contradictions." In Christotainment: Selling Jesus Through Popular Culture, edited by Shirley Steinberg and Joe Kinchlove, 247–268. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Marcus, Greil. 1989 Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. London: Secker & Warburg.
Martin, David. 1990 Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford: Blackwell.
2005 On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Minor Threat. 1981 Complete Discography. Dischord, USA.
Moberg, Marcus. 2009 Faster for the Master! Exploring Issues of Religious Expression and Alternative Christian Identity within the Finnish Christian Metal Music Scene. Turku: Åbo Akademi University Press.
Moore, Ryan. 2007 "Friends Don't Let Friends Listen to Corporate Rock: Punk as a Field of Cultural Production." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 36(4): 438–474.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891241607303520
OED Online. 2012 "Salvation, n." Oxford English Dictionary Online. Online: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/170276?redirectedFrom=salvation#eid.
O'Hara, Craig. 1999 The Philosophy of Punk: More than Noise, Second Edition. San Francisco: AK Press.
Partridge Christopher. 2004 The Re-Enchantment of The West, Volume 1. London: T&T Clark.
Peterson, Bryan. 2009 Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit and Sound. Huntington Beach, CA: Revelation Records Publishing.
Powell, Mark Allen. 2002 Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
Ragin, Charles C. 2000 Fuzzy Set Social Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sacirbey, Omar. 2006 "The Clash: Punk meets Islam in a Local Band." Boston Globe, April 18. Online: http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2006/04/18/the_clash/.
Sanneh, Kelefa. 2009 "Vegan Jihad: A Conversation with Sean Muttaqi." Bidoun: Art and Culture from the Middle East 16: 144–147.
Sex Pistols. 1977 Never Mind the Bollocks. EMI, UK.
Shuker, Roger. 2001 Understanding Popular Music, Second Edition. London: Routledge.
Stark, Rodney and Bainbridge, William Sims. 1985 The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stewart, Francis. 2012 "Beyond Krishnacore: Straight Edge Punk and Implicit Religion". Implicit Religion 15(3): 259–288.
Strongman, Phil. 2007 Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk. London: Orion.
Tawney, R. H. 1984 Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. First published in 1926.
Taylor, Charles. 1989 Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Charles.2004 Modern Social Imaginaries. London: Duke University Press.
Taylor, Charles.2007 A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Thompson, Stacy. 2004 Punk Productions: Unfinished Business. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Tschmuck, Peter. 2006 Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry. Dordrecht: Springer.
Voas, David and Bruce, Steve. 2007 "The Spiritual Revolution: Another False Dawn for the Sacred." In A Sociology of Spirituality, edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter. C. Jupp, 43–62. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Warner, Robert. 2010 Secularization and its Discontents. London: Continuum.
Weber, Max. 2001 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge. First published in 1905.
Wisdom in Chains. 2009 Everything You Know. I Scream Records, USA.
Wood, Robert T. 2000 "Threat Transcendence, Ideological Articulation and Frame of Reference Restructuring: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Subcultural Schism." Deviant Behavior 21(1): 23–45.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/016396200266360
Wood, Robert T. 2006 Straightedge: Complexity and Contradictions of a Subculture. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.