Blog 2

For this post, I will be focusing more on the lived religion aspect of my topic about the relationship between religion and politics, more specifically how the public views that relationship. My case study really doesn't focus on any one religion in particular, however in American politics, in general, Christianity seems to be the most prevalent. Although sometimes other religions can make a presence, for example, in this election year, of of the top candidates was Bernie Sanders, a Jewish man. While the Jewish faith is atypical for a presidential candidate, I think he represented a significant portion of the American population. Although my research doesn't focus on one specific group or sect outright, it tends to be people of more radical belief systems who care enough about religion and politics to create something like a meme to get there point across. The meme culture focused around my topic tends to be more on the sarcastic/satire end of the spectrum, while keeping to the notion that religion and politics don't belong together in politics due to the fact that religion is often used as a re-election technique. As I stated before, while my research of this topic isn't focused on one religion over another, most examples of religion interfering with politics deal with Christianity
and how Christianity is used in political operations.

BLOG 1 ABSTRACT

I plan, through my research, to explore the genre of memes depicting the disdain by the contemporary American population =, of the idea that religion and politics should be integrated together. The inclusion of religion in government and politics can be seen at all levels, and many times religion is used as a tactic by politicians to sway people into supporting them. Through this research I hope to find out such things as whether or not the left and right hold the same values regarding religion's place in politics, what the major examples of religion interfering with politics are, and how those cases are represented in meme culture, and what images are used most when these memes are created and why that would be significant. This topic interests me because the issue of religious interference in politics is a growing issue in America, despite the inclusion of  "separation of church and state" in our national constitution under the first amendment, and it can be something that people feel very strongly about., including myself.

Example 1                                                                   Example 2