Exploring Spirituality in Angels in America

It was not until the twelfth century that homosexuality started to be condemned. This condemnation proved to live through then until now. Due to the fact that America incorporated these early views into its early laws, even the most bland of today's sex acts were seen as unlawful (“Homosexuality and Mental Health”). Since then, these laws have changed, however, there is still a primarily negative connotation on homosexuals when coming from a church or legal standpoint concerning the masses of America.

People and religion are a part of everyday life. The world is sure to be empty without the existence of God’s creation. When people and religion are viewed as different, the history, beliefs, and practice are formed unrealistically by outsider, more so than an insider. In an interview with a LDS, the author attempts to write and summarize a Mormon‘s journey through life with God and others.

This book Pray the Gay Away by Bernadetta C. Barton discusses about certain areas in the United States called Bible Belts were they have made absolutely no progress in securing rights for gay people. They lag behind the rest of nation were people are accepting homosexuality (Pray the Gay Away 15). Barton argues that in small towns were Christian institutions serve as a foundation for both passive and active homophobia in these areas (Pray the Gay Away 19). This article is related to the play because the two dominant religions discussed in the play was Judaism and Mormonism and both religions strongly oppose homosexuality and this lead to homophobic attitudes and themes within the play.

David Foster Wallace investigates the confliction of religion’s black and white expectations with the sin of premarital sex throughout his work “Good People.” On one hand, Lane Dean Jr. and Sheri Fisher’s strong affiliation with religion creates a commitment to each other and the well being of the unborn child. However, this commitment becomes offset with the guilt creeping into Lane’s mind. He wanders towards temptation consistently: premarital sex, leaving Sheri on her own to raise their child, and refusing to talk to the religious figures in his life. Without religion, these actions do not sign the contract for eternal damnation. Lane’s religious nature, therefore, creates a level of insanity that originates in fear. That growing insanity snowballs with each internal incident: “Two days before, he had awakened very early and tried to pray but could not. He was freezing more and more solid (Wallace 151). Lane’s perception that he has an inability to pray lengthens the distance he feels has been created between himself and God. Religion does not resolve the conflicts Lane and Sheri have created. Instead, religion creates a new accountability and guilt that intensifies the sin the two students have sunk into.

Since the beginning of time we Americans have always fought for what we stand by. The Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War is just one example; the Union was fighting to end slavery and the Confederacy was fighting to keep it. In order to fight you need people, us Americans had the choice of joining/volunteering or if not enough civilians joined there would be a draft. There will always be a price to pay when going into battle as is shown in The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, which gives you an insight to the point of views of both sides and the struggles in the military. Robert E. Lee, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and John Buford are just a very small portion of the military personnel who suffered the price/hardships.

“We live in a completely interdependent world, which simply means we cannot escape each other. How we respond to AIDs depends, in part, on whether we understand this interdependence” Bill Clinton spoke these words to an ever-changing, and ever-accepting nation. This idea of interdependence, no matter how evident, was a concept many people In the late 80’s could not grasp. The war on AID’s first started in 1981 when the first case of aids was diagnosed in the U.S. but it wasn't until Clinton took presidency in 1993 that the nation took this epidemic to heart. For over 10 years this outbreak that killed over 70 million was overlooked by many religions and government officials that turned there heads due to the judgment they would receive when affiliating themselves with the lgbt community.

…to have and to hold, from this day forwards, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. These are the standard wedding vows and though, they are a married couple, these vows still play a role in any serious relationship. It is the promise of two people that they will be there, no matter what happens. However, things happen and, suddenly, that promise turns into a broken agreement. For instance, in the play Angels in America written by Tony Kushner, the character Louis leaves Prior because he has a terminal illness: AIDS. Therefore, their vow breaks the stable relationship. While the illness can break a vow, it can form one. In the musical movie version of Rent directed by Chris Columbus,

Within modern society when a character strays away from what society depicts as morally right, the individual is frowned upon as if he or she doesn't belong. In “Angels in America” a gay fantasia on National themes, characters struggle to be themselves upon fear of whether or not society will accept them as an individual. The characters not only struggles with whether or not society will accept them, but they also struggle with their inner demons, and ultimately the question of what is truly good or evil. In this paper several characters will be analyzed and discussed from several different viewpoints.

Most of the characters in Tony Kushner's Angels in America struggle with their sexuality. Reflected in this struggle, the homosexual characters are flawed to the degree at which they hide their sexuality. Prior, Belize, Louis, Joe, and Roy all deal with this issue in the course of the play. Prior is the least closeted homosexual while Roy is the most. Prior is chosen to be a prophet, is morally upright, and represents good. Roy, the unlawful lawyer, represents evil. Belize, Louis, and Joe fall in between Prior and Roy on the scale. By having these particular characters represent what they do, Tony Kushner places a negative stigma on those in the closet and emphasizes his negative opinion on closeted homosexuals.

Religion also plays an important function in allowing the authors to comment on society and faith’s role in it. For example, both authors seem to be suggesting that our religion is only compatible in society as we know it, that is to say that it is not compatible with other situations. In The Children of Men a major disruption to the working of society, mass infertility, has led to a total destruction of the Christian faith. In Brave New World, an unstoppable surge of machinery and technology has led to the disregard of religious moral and the introduction of a new set of hedonist attitudes, both scenarios being deplored by the reader. This could also be seen as the authors’ asserting that a civilized society desperately needs stable religion and morals, given that the utter breakdown in The Children of Men is arguably as shocking as the superficial worship of machinery and pleasure in Brave New World.

Though we are led to a religious history of strong Catholic background, Marquez shows us that things have changed. “…the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel without the slightest reverence…(442)” Marquez is telling us that despite the early beliefs that angels were to be put on a pedestal and extremely respected and even awed that this is not the case now. In earlier Catholic beliefs angels were believed in, without question.

We journey through three different acts, each capturing a time in history where political forces were blurring the lines between the church and state. We have 1575 England; the year where Queen Elizabeth banned all religious plays from the country in an effort to better control her empire. Hitler visits Oberammergau Germany in 1934, attempting to use the Passion play performance as propaganda for his own political endeavors. And then we have South Dakota in 1969 to present day, when Reagan was pushing to restore

In the Antebellum time period, there were four voices that carefully discussed and showed their beliefs of sex to the society. One of the voices was known as Evangelical Christianity. Christian ministers and Lyman Beecher’s, strong ideas and passionate efforts were shown to try and get society to follow their ideas of sex. In their eyes, lust was known to be a deadly sin during the Nineteenth Century (Horowitz, 8). In order for them to control society members, they expressed and advocated that if one goes against the Christian view of sex and lacks morality, then he or she will be lead to the devil (Beecher, 45). Evangelical Christianity supporters such as Lyman Beecher believed in using the church, Bible, law and institutions to control how individuals acted upon sex as well as how sex was seen in society as

It isn’t a coincidence that Sarah Ruhl set the final act of the play in the present day, because many of the themes found in the piece are still very present within our society today. We are living in a time where those possessing political power are indeed wandering too far into the religious sector of America, stripping away freedoms that should belong to the people. Just as Elizabethan England and Nazi Germany, the separation of church and state that this

Nelson, Jeffrey A. (2009). "Sex Abuse in the American Catholic Church and the Attempt at Redemption". Communication & Theater Association of Minnesota. Summer: 37–51. "From a review of the New York Times, January 9 through April 18, 2002."