On Saturday, March 2, I will be presenting a paper at the American Academy of Religion Western Region Conference at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
As part of the Religion in America section, I will participate in a panel on “Resistance and Complicity in American Religions.” The topic of my paper is “Rainbow Gatherings: Prayer as Political Resistance.”
This paper focuses on the model of religious resistance to pressures of corporatized or dominator culture provided by the Interdependence prayer, which takes place annually on July 4th. By examining the specific components that make up the silent prayer for world peace and the manner in which participants pray or meditate in accordance with their own traditions or lack thereof, she demonstrates how these religious practices are intrinsically resistant to attempts by the Federal Government to force a legal framework onto what is largely a semi-spontaneous gathering of individuals from diverse belief and non-belief systems.
For more information on the conference, visit the American Academy of Religion Western Region website.