Religion Dispatches
A new book by an iconic rapper, the Wu Tang Clan’s RZA, told in the voice of a street sage, tells the story of his ascent from the mean streets of Brooklyn to the pinnacle of success, and shows him to be the quintessential postmodern American spiritual seeker.
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Was Michael Jackson a supernatural magician or an icon of self-immolation? Both? The physical body is gone, the musical productivity has ceased, the capacity to speak for himself is no more, so now MJ is a wonderfully ambiguous figment of our imagination. Three religion scholars discuss the life, legend, meaning, and myth of one of the world’s most talented, successful, and perhaps tortured performers.
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Michael Jackson, pop theologian and transcendent performer, went from Jehovah’s Witness to Nation of Islam to Islam searching for the well-being embedded in so many of his songs. Farah Fawcett, who was so much more than a pretty face and healthy head of hair, courageously faced death on camera in a youth-obsessed culture.
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Has the Nation of Islam, a tradition hinged on separatism, evolved into supporters of the President of the United States? If so, how does that affect the Nation’s ground-up community networks and sociopolitical analysis of American society?
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