BU Today:
“Violence, Magic, and Bibleman”
CAS’s Frankfurter interested in religion’s practice, not theology
By Rich Barlow
September 22, 2010
The usual scholarly works of a religion professor on David Frankfurter’s bookshelf share space with some unexpected decorations: action figures ranging from St. Paul to Bibleman, the superhero of an evangelical Christian video series.
Scholarship and pop culture are inextricably linked for the new William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at the College of Arts & Sciences. Less interested in grand theological ideas than in the way religion is popularly practiced, Frankfurter studies rituals, belief in magic (asking saints’ intercession for some earthly goal, for example), “religious kitsch” (hence the action figures), and, more somberly, the link between religion and violence. Specializing in the Christianizing of ancient Egypt, Frankfurter hears dreadful echoes of religion’s violent past in the current debate over the Cordoba Initiative, the group seeking to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan.