Hillary Kaell - Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage

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WALKING WHERE JESUS WALKED

NORTH AMERICAN RELIGIONS

Series Editors: Tracy Fessenden (Religious Studies, Arizona State University), Laura Levitt (Religious Studies, Temple University), and David Harrington Watt (History, Temple University)

In recent years a cadre of industrious, imaginative, and theoretically sophisticated scholars of religion have focused their attention on North America. As a result the field is far more subtle, expansive, and interdisciplinary than it was just two decades ago. The North American Religions series builds on this transformative momentum. Books in the series move among the discourses of ethnography, cultural analysis, and historical study to shed new light on a wide range of religious experiences, practices, and institutions. They explore topics such as lived religion, popular religious movements, religion and social power, religion and cultural reproduction, and the relationship between secular and religious institutions and practices. The series focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on religion in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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the Family of Jonathan Edwards
Ava Chamberlain

Crossing the Water and Keeping the
Faith: Haitian Religion in Miami
Terry Rey and Alex Stepick

Suffer the Little Children: Uses
of the Past in Jewish and African
American Childrens Literature
Jodi Eichler-Levine

Religion Out Loud: Religious Sound,
Public Space, and American Pluralism
Isaac Weiner

Walking Where Jesus Walked: American
Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage
Hillary Kaell

American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage

Hillary Kaell

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org

2014 by New York University
All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that
may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

ISBN: 978-0-8147-3836-8 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-4798-3184-5 (paperback)

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I walked today where Jesus walked
In days of long ago.
I wandered down each path He knew,
With reverent step and slow.
Those little lanes, they have not changed,
A sweet peace fills the air.

American Christian hymn

This book is about global travel and life-cycle transitions, about a lucrative leisure industry and trends in contemporary U.S. Christianity. Fundamentally, though, it is about relationshipswith family and friends, with heavenly beings, and with people encountered abroad. It is appropriate, then, that I begin by acknowledging some of the relationships that have sustained me and made this book possible.

Because acknowledgements are inevitably a record of how a project is crafted, it is also an opportunity to clarify my approach. I was trained in history, began this project as a student in American Studies, and finished it as a faculty member in Religious Studies. I situate my discussion in cultural anthropology, especially in the subfield of pilgrimage studies. I also draw on work in American lived religion, a methodology first articulated in the mid-1990s that uses historical, anthropological, and sociological models to explore the creative working of real men and women. While I have found it at times challenging to speak across disciplinary lines, the resulting discussions have greatly enriched my own thinking. I hope they will do the same for readers of this book.

My research began in archives. I am indebted to the staff at the Billy Graham Center, the Catholic University of America, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Harvard University, the Moody Bible Institute, and Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery. The Southern Baptist Historical Archives awarded me a grant, for which I am grateful. I also conducted forty-six interviews with tour professionals and exchanged e-mails with many more. They shared insights and personal archival material and/or were whizzes of logistical organization. In particular, I thank Hani Abu Dayyeh, Andrea Anastasato, Pano Anastasato Jr., Patricia Broderick Callan, Sheila Coleman, Dick and Jean Damisch, Kathy Dehoney-Evitts, Dr. Charles Dyer, Anton Farah, Bob Faucett, Christy Fay, Eliesa Gallo, David Gotaas Jr., Liz Grinder, Father Daniel Harrington, Sharon Hunter, Father Eamon Kelly, Itai Lavee, Dr. Walter McCord, Dale Nystrom, Jeannie Presley, Wanda Webber Snyder, Kathy Swartz, Bob Terrell, Dr. Michael Vanlaningham, Father David Wathen, Enid Yopp, and Father Peter Vasko.

The bulk of my research was ethnographic. I took a multi-sited approach but concentrated on American rather than Israeli places, reflecting my interest in U.S. Christianity. I spent two months at Holy Land sites and subsequently traveled to Israel with two different groups. Over five years, I conducted conversational interviews and participant observation with 131 individuals before and after their trips, focusing on seven primary groups: a 2007 Crystal Cathedral tour, a 2008 Moody Bible Institute tour, a 2008 Catholic trip organized by St. Cecilia parish in Maryland, a 2009 evangelical/Baptist trip led by Pastor Jim from North Carolina, a 2009 Catholic trip led by Father Mike from Boston, a 2012 evangelical trip led by Pastor Derek from Vermont, and a 2012 Catholic trip with Father Joe from Raleigh.

Apart from a few well-known exceptions, I have used pseudonyms throughout. Though they remain unnamed, I cant thank enough the women and men who contributed to this project. It is their generosity that made this book possible. I should also add that I have not, of course, been able to describe all American pilgrims (notably I omit Catholic sisters and naturalized immigrants, who are present on the trips in small numbers), nor have I been able to fully portray the complete people pilgrims are. This is the limitation of any directed study, but one I nonetheless feel keenly. So I urge you: if you are given the opportunity, ask a pilgrim about his or her trip. It has truly been a pleasure and a privilege for me to do so.

Academically, I have had the good fortune to have excellent conversation partners over the years, including James Bielo, Tom Bremer, Jackie Feldman, Marla Frederick, Michael D. Jackson, Walter Johnson, Smita Lahiri, Burke Long, and David A. Morgan. Aliza Fleischer and Yaniv Belhassen helped me access statistics from the Israeli Ministry of Tourism (IMOT). John Seitz, Anna Corwin, Kevin ONeill, and Michael Oppenheimer offered valuable suggestions on different chapters. My colleagues at Concordia University have eased me into departmental life with unfailing kindness as I completed this manuscript, for which I am very grateful. I also owe a particular debt to my editor Jennifer Hammer and her team at NYU Press, and to the anonymous readers. Their helpful critiques made this a much better book.