(RNS) — If today’s high schoolers don’t know John Green from his bestselling young adult novels, like “The Fault in Our Stars” or “Looking for Alaska,” they might recognize him as the host of that YouTube series their history teacher plays for exam review.
In 2011, Green and his brother, Hank, created Crash Course, an educational YouTube channel that now has almost 16 million subscribers. Since then, Complexly, the production company behind the channel, has produced 57 courses, including series on astronomy, economics and film criticism.
After taking a hiatus from Crash Course while advocating for maternal health and tuberculosis care, John Green has returned to host a Crash Course on religion, joking at the start of the 24-part series that he was first introduced to the academic study of religion as a college freshman, because “it fit into my schedule of not wanting to get out of bed before noon.”
Green went on to major in religious studies and then to serve as a hospital chaplain, which convinced him not to go to divinity school. Of the series, Green tells viewers, “Religion seems like something firm and concrete, but it oozes out of your grasp as soon as you think you’ve got a hold on it.”
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, which provided just under $400,000 to produce the series, said they did so in part after a 2019 survey by Pew Research Center revealed low levels of religious literacy among Americans. “Ignorance or misconceptions about the religion of others leads to increased hostility and intolerance that contributes to anti-Muslim bias, anti-Semitism, and other forms of religious discrimination,” the foundations wrote.
As Green notes, “Religion is like glitter — it gets in everything!”
Crash Course executive producer Heather DiDiego explained some of the process behind creating the Crash Course religion series in an email interview with RNS. The interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity.
The Crash Course YouTube channel is releasing a 24-part series on religions. (Video screen grab)
What prompted you all at Complexly to decide to do a series on religion now? Why is this an important educational topic?
In early 2023, we applied for a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and Pew Research Center to create a Crash Course religion series. It’s a topic our audience has requested for a long time, and John Green majored in religious studies, so there has been a lot of interest within Complexly to create a religion series, too. We were thrilled when the grant was approved and began recruiting a board of advisers right away to start scoping out the series.
As for the topic itself, religion addresses many of life’s greatest mysteries (What is the meaning of life? What happens when we die?). There is so much to dive into. We were excited to tackle these big questions and help audiences understand similarities and diversity within different religions.
What role did John Green have in shaping the script and plans for the series? What can you tell us about the advisory board of religious scholars who worked on the series?
The Crash Course editorial team is made up of writers, researchers and editors who collaborate for each series with subject matter experts, fact checkers, producers and, of course, the host! One of our favorite ways to work with hosts is by identifying portions of the script where their personal experiences add something funny, poignant or relatable. For John, we were excited to incorporate his personal relationship to Christianity, his experiences as a chaplain and a religious studies student and his near-religious love of Diet Dr Pepper. John reviewed every script to add his personal touches, share ideas and suggest new directions the series could take.
For this series, we were also honored to work with an advisory board of exceptionally smart religious scholars with expertise in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, African diasporic religions, African American religions and more. They advised on the curriculum underlying the series, reviewed episode outlines, scripts and videos. We learned so much from them and are so proud of the level of nuance that the series achieves thanks to their contributions.
Many of the first episodes deal with how tricky the definition of religion is and how nebulous the borders are between religions/cults, religion/magic, etc. Why did you decide to start there?
One of the first things we learned in conversations with religious scholars is that the framework of the field is being radically reimagined in universities today. While religious studies used to largely focus on the concept of five major world religions (or the “big five”), many scholars argue today that this is a misguided approach. (More on that in episode 2!)
By beginning with more thematic topics that transcend individual religions, we were able to get into really juicy questions about the human experience. Many people, regardless of religion, have some experience with or knowledge of magic, cults, the paranormal and so on. So, this was a way both to connect with audiences on topics of broad appeal and to examine the diversity not only across but also within particular religions.
Host John Green talks with the devil’s advocate in the Crash Course religions series. (Video screen grab)
With only 24 episodes, how did you decide which topics within religion to cover and which ones to leave out? Was there anything in particular you were disappointed you couldn’t include?
Deciding how to cover the many ways that humans practice religion in only 24 episodes was a big challenge. With Crash Course, we always strive to create content that is useful to students and teachers and that can also catch the attention of general audiences and lifelong learners.
From the first few episodes establishing a definition of religion and exploring how many religions there are, to the episodes diving into some of the most widely known and most studied faith traditions, to the thematic episodes that explore topics like race and gender across faiths, we hope that we created a series that helps a broad range of viewers. There are always topics we’re sad to leave out.
We are a curious group of people on the Crash Course team, so I don’t think we would ever say no to learning more about anything, but a few things sourced from the team that didn’t make it into the series are apocalyptic Christian sects, Zoroastrianism, modern-day witches, religious practices that help people process death and grief, and the list goes on!
Do you have a favorite episode from this series?
Choosing favorite episodes is challenging, so I’ve passed this question along to the script editor for the series, Gary Reddin, and the producer of the series, Stan Muller, who led editorial and production, respectively.
Gary said: “Mine has to be Religions and the End of the World. It was a last-minute addition to the series, and one that helped fill in some knowledge gaps for me personally. I don’t want to give away spoilers since it hasn’t aired yet, but the episode has a great message about hope and renewal. It’s not nearly as dire as its name would suggest.”
Stan said: “My personal favorite is the episode on the Hungry Ghost Festival that has grown out of Chinese and Indian religious traditions. I thought the episode came out great and was a lot of fun. I also loved learning about the Ghost Festival. It’s celebrated across Buddhist and Taoist communities all over the world, and it just seems like such a wonderful tradition. It’s a moment to reflect on and revere ancestors and family connections, to think about the ways you want your life to change and improve, AND a time for fun snacks. What more can you ask for from a festival?”
The field of religious studies is broad, and occasionally you all have done multiple seasons in one field. Any chance there’d be a follow-up to Crash Course religions?
It certainly is possible, and now we have a list of all the things we didn’t get to talk about and want to! So far the audience response to the first several episodes of this foundational religion series has been very positive. We are grateful for the support from our series advisers, subject matter experts, fact-checkers and our Crash Course team members who all put such great care into this project. We never have a shortage of topics to create Crash Courses for, and we also never rule out diving deeper into topics we’ve already covered.
