Spiritual Pop Culture Trends of the Past 10 Years

Latter-Day Domination

The 2000s proved that Mormons could be funny (Napoleon Dynamite, 2004), sexy (Twilight, 2005), and dancin' machines (Osmond siblings Donnie in 2009 and Marie in 2007 tore up the "Dancing with the Stars" floor). Bookended by the Mormons of MTV's "The Real World"--Julie of "Real World: New Orleans" (2000) and Chet of "Real World: Brooklyn" (2009), who set out to prove that Latter-day Saint teens could party sober along with the best of 'em--the pop culture of the decade felt the influence of stereotype-busting artists such as The Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers and "Napolean Dynamite"/"Nacho Libre" writer/director Jared Hess. At the same time, we couldn't help rubbernecking as the polygamist practices of the Utah family on HBO's "Big Love" (2006), disavowed by the mainline LDS church, got more and more complicated. And is there a hallmark of pop culture more important than having a dedicated "South Park" episode (2003's "All About the Mormons")?

While Fox News's teary Glenn Beck, a convert to Mormonism, may have been the loudest, it's stay-at-home-mom turned blockbuster writer Stephenie Meyer, author of the "Twilight" book series, who has had the most influence. In a "Girls Gone Wild" era, her tale of an incredibly erotic but decidedly chaste relationship between human Bella Swan and vampire Edward has not only displaced "Harry Potter," but introduced a 21st century flavor into the vampire mythology and new terms ("Team Edward," "Team Jacob") into the lexicon.

Red String Days

Yes, celebrities sported religious tattoos: Britney Spears with her misspelled Kabbalah-inspired ink (2004) and Angelina Jolie with her Buddhist Pali protection script (2005) are perhaps two of the best known; and yes, blinged-out crosses were hanging from necks of every size and shape. But the must-have faith fashion accessory of the 2000s was the Kabbalah red string bracelet.

The peek-a-boo red of the bracelet has been absolutely ubiquitous over the last decade--hanging from the wrists of celebrities and coeds alike. A sighting would immediately stoke rumors that the wearer was: a) a new member of Los Angeles's controversial Kabbalah Centre, b) angling to be part of Madonna's inner circle, or c) both.

Gracing the wrists of everyone from Britney Spears to Lindsey Lohan to Paris Hilton, and athletes such as Olympian Sasha Cohen and New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, even the absence of the bracelet made news when test audiences' reactions prompted Sony to digitally remove it from Ashton Kutcher's wrist in 2005's "Guess Who."

Ghost in the Machine (The Television, That Is)

If you were a ghost, spirit, or demon in the '00s and you weren't on TV, then you needed a better agent. (The same could be said for movies: "The Ring," "The Grudge," "Dark Water.") Sure, there were groundbreaking shows with spiritual and religious themes such as Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries; 2004 series), Joan of Arcadia (2003), The Book of Daniel (2006), and even Lost (2004), but the search for the afterlife gave life to ratings and ad revenues alike. No EMF meter was necessary to find your favorite manifestation. For those who favored drama, "The Ghost Whisperer" (2005) and "Medium" (2005) fit the bill, while the reality genre offered up plenty for the rest. "Beyond with James Van Praagh" (2002) and "Crossing over with John Edward" satisfied new millennium spiritualists, while cable channels turned out ghost-hunting show after show.

SyFy's (nee SciFi) "Ghost Hunters" (2004) may be the most popular, but you couldn't flip through your local listings without happening upon paranormal programming: "Fear" (2000), "The Scariest Places on Earth" (2001), "Most Haunted" (2002), "Paranormal State" (2007), "Ghost Adventures" (2008), "Ghost Lab" (2009), "Extreme Paranormal" (2009), and even Animal Planet's "The Haunted" about paranormal pets (2009).

A New 'Passion' for Cinema

In 2004, "The Passion of the Christ" shattered all box-office expectations, pulling in $76.2 million during opening weekend and, at the time, landing at number seven in the top-opening movies of all time. In fact, "Passion" remains the highest-grossing non-English language movie of all time. Yes, the controversial "Passion" gave audiences an inside look at writer/director Mel Gibson's unique brand of Catholicism, but it also allowed other performers to release filmic testimonies to their faith, or lack thereof. Would the popularity of Bill Maher's "Religulous" (2008) have been possible, or even necessary, without the success of "Passion"? What about Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" (2008)?

Perhaps more importantly, it popularized a grassroots marketing strategy of previewing films for or targeting religious communities, specifically Christians, which the big studios soon began imitating. In fact, the usually staid Disney embarked on such a campaign with its release of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" (2005), and more recently Dimension Films courted conservative Christians with 2009's "The Road."

But just as "Passion" proved there was an audience for spiritual celluloid, it also proved it wasn't without controversy, and other popular films with religious themes felt the same double-edged sword. Ron Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" (2006) drew widely covered protests by the Catholic Church, Steven Spielberg's "Munich" (2005) and Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" (2009), both part of a mini-trend of "tough Jew" movies along with "Defiance" (2008), rankled segments of the worldwide Jewish community. The distributors of "Jesus Camp" (2006) threatened to pull the documentary from filmmaker Michael Moore's film festival, fearing the neutral film would be labeled as "liberal," and Sony dropped the distribution of Albert Brooks's "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" (2005) after demanding that the title be changed for fear that the very mention of the religion in the title would cause repercussions.

Tabloid Treatment

You couldn't flip through a copy of Us Weekly, In Touch Weekly, or OK! Magazine in the 2000s without seeing some tasty tidbit about Kabbalah, Scientology, or some celebrity's latest Buddhist home shrine. Stars' religions shared the page with stories of their sordid relationships and helped fuel the tabloid industry that exploded during this decade.

While Kabbalah got plenty of attention from the gossipmongers—"Did Kabbalah ruin Madonna's marriage?", etc.—Scientology really filled the pages of the supermarket aisle staples. From Tom Cruise calling "Today" show host Matt Lauer "glib" while discussing the history of psychiatry (a bugaboo of Scientology's dogmatics) to wife Katie Holmes's supposed silent birth, the formerly under-the-gossip-media-radar Church of Scientology found itself and its beliefs getting the tabloid treatment. But it wasn't just TomKat getting all the attention: Isaac Hayes's leaving "South Park" after an episode lampooning Scientology aired ("Trapped of the Closet" 2005), defections of high-profile celebrity practitioners such as actor Jason Beghe and writer/director Paul Haggis, and speculation about who might be joining (Will Smith) or who might be leaving (John Travolta), garnered the church regular coverage on gossip blogs and media sites.

Blockbuster Books

Who could have imagined that the New York Times best-seller list for the decade would have been dominated by a boy wizard, a save-sex-for-marriage vampire romance written by a Mormon housewife, and a book about a supposed conspiracy by the Catholic Church to cover up of the existence of the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. But that's exactly what happened. J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series—books 2 through 7; Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight Saga"—all four books; and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (and "Angels & Demons") not only dominated major best-seller lists for years at a time and probably staved off the death knells of the publishing industry, but spawned hit movies, knock-off book series, television documentaries, classic "Saturday Night Live" skits, and even themed worship services. Just as readily, the "Harry Potter" and "The Da Vinci Code" books spawned controversy: "Potter" with its Pagan witchcraft and wizardry and "Da Vinci" with its supposed slandering of the Catholic Church and Opus Dei, the powerful personal prelature featured in the book.

But it wasn't only thousand-page tomes that conquered the best-seller list of the 2000s: a little book called the "Prayer of Jabez" (2000), based on a single Bible passage (1 Chronicles 4:9-10), kicked off the millennium by topping the Times list, becoming an international best-seller and opening the door to inspirational self-help mega-sellers such as "The Secret" (2006).

Miracle Foods

There's feeding the soul, and then there's feeding the soul.

While many of us spent the past decade "mindlessly eating," there were those that were mindfully eating the next in the line of newly commercialized "Super Foods," vaguely exotic products touted for their extraordinary health benefits. From pomegranate juice (POM Wonderful 2002) to Hunza golden raisins to Tibetan Goji berries and now Acai, these "It foods," extracts, and berries are said to go beyond simple nutrition to nurturing the spirit. If, however, you were looking to cut down on your caloric consumption, there were plenty of eating plan options out there, including the extremely popular Christian "Weigh Down" program (2002) and the "Maker's Diet" (2005).

Just feeling thirsty? Then a bottle of Kabbalah water, said to be imbued with healing energies, might just fit the bill.

Celebrity Clerics

Plenty of past clerics have obtained celebrity status: Aimee Semple McPherson, Billy Graham, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (who died in 2007), Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who died in 2008), and the late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, just to name a few. But the past decade saw an unprecedented glut of spiritual leaders becoming media stars, releasing multiple best-selling book series, starring on reality TV shows, and attracting gaggles of celebrity devotees.

Take, for instance, self-appointed "America's Rabbi" and Beliefnet contributor, Shmuley Boteach. Boteach began earning his pop culture bona fides with "Kosher Sex" in 2000, and continued to do so by virtually churning out a book for each year of the decade, eventually earning his own TV show on TLC--"Shalom in the Home." He was even mentioned on the TV series "30 Rock" this year by Tracy Morgan's character Tracy Jordan. ("Have I lost touch with my roots? I'd better talk to Rabbi Shmuley about this.")

Meanwhile, Rick Warren, author of the best-selling "Purpose Driven Life" and pastor of California's Saddleback Christian Church, was named to Forbes' 2006 100 Most Powerful Celebrities list, coming in at a respectable number 60, even before he was asked to host a 2008 Presidential candidates' discussion on religion and give the opening prayer at President Obama's inauguration. Fellow Christian pastor Joel Osteen, best-selling author of "Your Best Life Now," was named one of the 50 most influential men under 45 by Details Magazine, thanks in part to his skills as a "pastorpreneur" and his "hot wife.”

The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, seems to have achieved celebrity status thanks to his association with so many celebrities. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times noted that the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader and statesman "comes pretty close to being the entertainment industry's unofficial spiritual guide." But the best-selling author's 2003 Central Park teaching, which attracted an estimated 65,000 people, showed that he's pretty popular with average Joes, too.