ABSTRACT

Utilizing contemporary scholarship on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, and Jediism. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1990s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet. This book deals with immensely popular subject matter: Jediism developed from George Lucas' Star Wars films; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded by 26-year-old student Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools; Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius which retain strong followings and participation rates among college students. The Church of All Worlds' focus on Gaia theology and environmental issues makes it a popular focus of attention. The continued success of these groups of Invented Religions provide a unique opportunity to explore the nature of late/post-modern religious forms, including the use of fiction as part of a bricolage for spirituality, identity-formation, and personal orientation.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

Imagination, Fiction and Faith

chapter |26 pages

Discordianism

Chaos is a Goddess

chapter |30 pages

The Church of All Worlds

Science Fiction, Environmentalism and a Holistic Pagan Vision

chapter |30 pages

The Church of the SubGenius

Science Fiction Mythos, Culture Jamming and the Sacredness of Slack

chapter |28 pages

Third-Millennium Invented Religions

Jediism, Matrixism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

chapter |10 pages

Conclusion

Imagination, Fiction and Faith Revisited