Author: Eileen Luhr
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520255968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
"Down at the local God-mall there's a whole lot of shaking going on, and Eileen Luhr explains why we should all take notice. This is a highly original, witty, at times mind-boggling exploration of the strange interfaces between youth culture and suburban evangelicalism." —Mike Davis, author of In Praise of Barbarians
Witnessing Suburbia
Author: Eileen Luhr
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520943575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Witnessing Suburbia is a lively cultural analysis of the conservative shift in national politics that transformed the United States during the Reagan-Bush era. Eileen Luhr focuses on two fundamental aspects of this shift: the suburbanization of evangelicalism and the rise of Christian popular culture, especially popular music. Taking us from the Jesus Freaks of the late 1960s to Christian heavy metal music to Christian rock festivals and beyond, she shows how evangelicals succeeded in "witnessing" to America's suburbs in a consumer idiom. Luhr argues that the emergence of a politicized evangelical youth culture in fact ranks as one of the major achievements of "third wave" conservatism in the late twentieth century.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520943575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Witnessing Suburbia is a lively cultural analysis of the conservative shift in national politics that transformed the United States during the Reagan-Bush era. Eileen Luhr focuses on two fundamental aspects of this shift: the suburbanization of evangelicalism and the rise of Christian popular culture, especially popular music. Taking us from the Jesus Freaks of the late 1960s to Christian heavy metal music to Christian rock festivals and beyond, she shows how evangelicals succeeded in "witnessing" to America's suburbs in a consumer idiom. Luhr argues that the emergence of a politicized evangelical youth culture in fact ranks as one of the major achievements of "third wave" conservatism in the late twentieth century.
Religion and the Marketplace in the United States
Author: Jan Stievermann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190266570
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Alexis de Tocqueville once described the national character of Americans as one question insistently asked: "How much money will it bring in?" G.K. Chesterton, a century later, described America as a "nation with a soul of a church." At first glance, the two observations might appear to be diametrically opposed, but this volume shows the ways in which American religion and American business overlap and interact with one another, defining the US in terms of religion, and religion in terms of economics. Bringing together original contributions by leading experts and rising scholars from both America and Europe, the volume pushes this field of study forward by examining the ways religions and markets in relationship can provide powerful insights and open unseen aspects into both. In essays ranging from colonial American mercantilism to modern megachurches, from literary markets to popular festivals, the authors explore how religious behavior is shaped by commerce, and how commercial practices are informed by religion. By focusing on what historians often use off-handedly as a metaphor or analogy, the volume offers new insights into three varieties of relationships: religion and the marketplace, religion in the marketplace, and religion as the marketplace. Using these categories, the contributors test the assumptions scholars have come to hold, and offer deeper insights into religion and the marketplace in America.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190266570
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Alexis de Tocqueville once described the national character of Americans as one question insistently asked: "How much money will it bring in?" G.K. Chesterton, a century later, described America as a "nation with a soul of a church." At first glance, the two observations might appear to be diametrically opposed, but this volume shows the ways in which American religion and American business overlap and interact with one another, defining the US in terms of religion, and religion in terms of economics. Bringing together original contributions by leading experts and rising scholars from both America and Europe, the volume pushes this field of study forward by examining the ways religions and markets in relationship can provide powerful insights and open unseen aspects into both. In essays ranging from colonial American mercantilism to modern megachurches, from literary markets to popular festivals, the authors explore how religious behavior is shaped by commerce, and how commercial practices are informed by religion. By focusing on what historians often use off-handedly as a metaphor or analogy, the volume offers new insights into three varieties of relationships: religion and the marketplace, religion in the marketplace, and religion as the marketplace. Using these categories, the contributors test the assumptions scholars have come to hold, and offer deeper insights into religion and the marketplace in America.
Christian Punk
Author: Ibrahim Abraham
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350094811
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Christian punk is a surprisingly successful musical subculture and a fascinating expression of American evangelicalism. Situating Christian punk within the modern history of Christianity and the rapidly changing culture of spirituality and secularity, this book illustrates how Christian punk continues punk's autonomous and oppositional creative practices, but from within a typically traditional evangelical morality. Analyzing straight edge Christian abstinence and punk-friendly churches, this book also focuses on gender performance within a subculture dominated by young men in a time of contested gender roles and ideologies. Critically-minded and rich in ethnographic data and insider perspectives, Christian Punk will engage scholars of contemporary evangelicalism, religion and popular music, and punk and all its related subcultures.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350094811
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Christian punk is a surprisingly successful musical subculture and a fascinating expression of American evangelicalism. Situating Christian punk within the modern history of Christianity and the rapidly changing culture of spirituality and secularity, this book illustrates how Christian punk continues punk's autonomous and oppositional creative practices, but from within a typically traditional evangelical morality. Analyzing straight edge Christian abstinence and punk-friendly churches, this book also focuses on gender performance within a subculture dominated by young men in a time of contested gender roles and ideologies. Critically-minded and rich in ethnographic data and insider perspectives, Christian Punk will engage scholars of contemporary evangelicalism, religion and popular music, and punk and all its related subcultures.
The Business Turn in American Religious History
Author: Amanda Porterfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190280190
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Business has received little attention in American religious history, although it has profound implications for understanding the sustained popularity and ongoing transformation of religion in the United States. This volume offers a wide ranging exploration of the business aspects of American religious organizations. The authors analyze the financing, production, marketing, and distribution of religious goods and services and the role of wealth and economic organization in sustaining and even shaping worship, charity, philanthropy, institutional growth, and missionary work. Treating religion and business holistically, their essays show that American religious life has always been informed by business practices. Laying the groundwork for further investigation, the authors show how American business has functioned as a domain for achieving religious goals. Indeed they find that religion has historically been more powerful when interwoven with business. Chapters on Mormon enterprise, Jewish philanthropy, Hindu gurus, Native American casinos, and the wedding of business wealth to conservative Catholic social teaching demonstrate the range of new studies stimulated by the business turn in American religious history. Other chapters show how evangelicals joined neo-liberal economic practice and right-wing politics to religious fundamentalism to consolidate wealth and power, and how they developed marketing campaigns and organizational strategies that transformed the American religious landscape. Included are essays exposing the moral compromises religious organizations have made to succeed as centers of wealth and influence, and the religious beliefs that rationalize and justify these compromises. Still others examine the application of business practices as a means of sustaining religious institutions and expanding their reach, and look at controversies over business practices within religious organizations, and the adjustments such organizations have made in response. Together, the essays collected here offer new ways of conceptualizing the interdependence of religion and business in the United States, establishing multiple paths for further study of their intertwined historical development.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190280190
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Business has received little attention in American religious history, although it has profound implications for understanding the sustained popularity and ongoing transformation of religion in the United States. This volume offers a wide ranging exploration of the business aspects of American religious organizations. The authors analyze the financing, production, marketing, and distribution of religious goods and services and the role of wealth and economic organization in sustaining and even shaping worship, charity, philanthropy, institutional growth, and missionary work. Treating religion and business holistically, their essays show that American religious life has always been informed by business practices. Laying the groundwork for further investigation, the authors show how American business has functioned as a domain for achieving religious goals. Indeed they find that religion has historically been more powerful when interwoven with business. Chapters on Mormon enterprise, Jewish philanthropy, Hindu gurus, Native American casinos, and the wedding of business wealth to conservative Catholic social teaching demonstrate the range of new studies stimulated by the business turn in American religious history. Other chapters show how evangelicals joined neo-liberal economic practice and right-wing politics to religious fundamentalism to consolidate wealth and power, and how they developed marketing campaigns and organizational strategies that transformed the American religious landscape. Included are essays exposing the moral compromises religious organizations have made to succeed as centers of wealth and influence, and the religious beliefs that rationalize and justify these compromises. Still others examine the application of business practices as a means of sustaining religious institutions and expanding their reach, and look at controversies over business practices within religious organizations, and the adjustments such organizations have made in response. Together, the essays collected here offer new ways of conceptualizing the interdependence of religion and business in the United States, establishing multiple paths for further study of their intertwined historical development.
Orphaned Believers
Author: Sara Billups
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493439588
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Hope for the one who is weary, wandering, and wondering where things went wrong In the wake of the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, many young evangelical Christians found themselves untethered, disillusioned, and--ultimately--orphaned as they grappled with the legalistic, politically co-opted churches of their youth. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps, like Sara Billups, you have felt alone, misunderstood, and maligned in the American church, longing for a more loving, more biblical expression of the faith and discipleship taught by Jesus. Part spiritual memoir of an apocalyptic childhood and part commentary on growing up as an evangelical kid during the culture wars, Orphaned Believers follows the journey of a generation of Christian exiles reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. Because for all the baggage, we still belong, and a bigger, more beautiful story awaits. "As American Christianity changes, and as we change along with it, we need guides to remind us who we are and who we're not. Sara has been one such guide for me. She's brutally honest and hilarious, and her heart is wide open to the radical possibility that belonging to Jesus is identity enough for Christians. I couldn't be more grateful for her."--Jon Guerra, singer-songwriter and producer "Billups reminds us that no matter who we are or where we come from, God can move us from a place on the margins to a community of faith."--Foxy Davison, educator and activist "Sara helped me feel more 'found' than I did before--orphaned but also anchored in a much better story than the one the world's been selling me over the past decades. I needed this book more than I knew."--Chuck DeGroat, author, therapist, and professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493439588
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Hope for the one who is weary, wandering, and wondering where things went wrong In the wake of the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, many young evangelical Christians found themselves untethered, disillusioned, and--ultimately--orphaned as they grappled with the legalistic, politically co-opted churches of their youth. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps, like Sara Billups, you have felt alone, misunderstood, and maligned in the American church, longing for a more loving, more biblical expression of the faith and discipleship taught by Jesus. Part spiritual memoir of an apocalyptic childhood and part commentary on growing up as an evangelical kid during the culture wars, Orphaned Believers follows the journey of a generation of Christian exiles reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. Because for all the baggage, we still belong, and a bigger, more beautiful story awaits. "As American Christianity changes, and as we change along with it, we need guides to remind us who we are and who we're not. Sara has been one such guide for me. She's brutally honest and hilarious, and her heart is wide open to the radical possibility that belonging to Jesus is identity enough for Christians. I couldn't be more grateful for her."--Jon Guerra, singer-songwriter and producer "Billups reminds us that no matter who we are or where we come from, God can move us from a place on the margins to a community of faith."--Foxy Davison, educator and activist "Sara helped me feel more 'found' than I did before--orphaned but also anchored in a much better story than the one the world's been selling me over the past decades. I needed this book more than I knew."--Chuck DeGroat, author, therapist, and professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary
The Divine Institution
Author: Sophie Bjork-James
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978821867
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
The Divine Institution provides an account of how a theology of the family came to dominate a white evangelical tradition in the post-civil rights movement United States, providing a theological corollary to Religious Right politics. This tradition inherently enforces racial inequality in that it draws moral, religious, and political attention away from problems of racial and economic structural oppression, explaining all social problems as a failure of the individual to achieve the strong gender and sexual identities that ground the nuclear family. The consequences of this theology are both personal suffering for individuals who cannot measure up to prescribed gender and sexual roles, and political support for conservative government policies. Exposure to experiences that undermine the idea that an emphasis on the family is the solution to all social problems is causing a younger generation of white evangelicals to shift away from this narrow theological emphasis and toward a more social justice-oriented theology. The material and political effects of this shift remain to be seen.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978821867
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
The Divine Institution provides an account of how a theology of the family came to dominate a white evangelical tradition in the post-civil rights movement United States, providing a theological corollary to Religious Right politics. This tradition inherently enforces racial inequality in that it draws moral, religious, and political attention away from problems of racial and economic structural oppression, explaining all social problems as a failure of the individual to achieve the strong gender and sexual identities that ground the nuclear family. The consequences of this theology are both personal suffering for individuals who cannot measure up to prescribed gender and sexual roles, and political support for conservative government policies. Exposure to experiences that undermine the idea that an emphasis on the family is the solution to all social problems is causing a younger generation of white evangelicals to shift away from this narrow theological emphasis and toward a more social justice-oriented theology. The material and political effects of this shift remain to be seen.
Virgin Nation
Author: Sara Moslener
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199987769
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
"Sara Moslener sheds light on the contemporary purity movement by examining how earlier movements established the rhetorical and moral frameworks utilized by two of today's leading purity organizations, True Loves Waits and Silver Ring Thing. Her investigation reveals that purity work over the last two centuries has developed in concert with widespread fears of changing traditional gender roles and sexual norms, national decline, and global apocalypse"--
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199987769
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
"Sara Moslener sheds light on the contemporary purity movement by examining how earlier movements established the rhetorical and moral frameworks utilized by two of today's leading purity organizations, True Loves Waits and Silver Ring Thing. Her investigation reveals that purity work over the last two centuries has developed in concert with widespread fears of changing traditional gender roles and sexual norms, national decline, and global apocalypse"--
American Evangelicals and the 1960s
Author: Axel R. Schäfer
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299293637
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
In the late 1970s, the New Christian Right emerged as a formidable political force, boldly announcing itself as a unified movement representing the views of a "moral majority." But that movement did not spring fully formed from its predecessors. American Evangelicals and the 1960s refutes the thesis that evangelical politics were a purely inflammatory backlash against the cultural and political upheaval of the decade. Bringing together fresh research and innovative interpretations, this book demonstrates that evangelicals actually participated in broader American developments during "the long 1960s," that the evangelical constituency was more diverse than often noted, and that the notion of right-wing evangelical politics as a backlash was a later creation serving the interests of both Republican-conservative alliances and their critics. Evangelicalism's involvement with—rather than its reaction against—the main social movements, public policy initiatives, and cultural transformations of the 1960s proved significant in its 1970s political ascendance. Twelve essays that range thematically from the oil industry to prison ministry and from American counterculture to the Second Vatican Council depict modern evangelicalism both as a religious movement with its own internal dynamics and as one fully integrated into general American history.
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299293637
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
In the late 1970s, the New Christian Right emerged as a formidable political force, boldly announcing itself as a unified movement representing the views of a "moral majority." But that movement did not spring fully formed from its predecessors. American Evangelicals and the 1960s refutes the thesis that evangelical politics were a purely inflammatory backlash against the cultural and political upheaval of the decade. Bringing together fresh research and innovative interpretations, this book demonstrates that evangelicals actually participated in broader American developments during "the long 1960s," that the evangelical constituency was more diverse than often noted, and that the notion of right-wing evangelical politics as a backlash was a later creation serving the interests of both Republican-conservative alliances and their critics. Evangelicalism's involvement with—rather than its reaction against—the main social movements, public policy initiatives, and cultural transformations of the 1960s proved significant in its 1970s political ascendance. Twelve essays that range thematically from the oil industry to prison ministry and from American counterculture to the Second Vatican Council depict modern evangelicalism both as a religious movement with its own internal dynamics and as one fully integrated into general American history.
Golden States
Author: Eileen Luhr
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520399749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Whether they were utopian communitarians, sun-seeking gurus, or Protestant health reformers, Southern California's spiritual seekers drew on the United States' deepening global encounters and consumer cultures to pair religious and personal reinvention with cultural and spiritual revitalization. Through a rereading of the region's cultural landscape, Golden States provides an alternative history of California religion and spirituality, showing that seekers developed a number of paths to fulfillment that enhanced the region's lifestyle brand. Drawing on case studies as varied as surfing and yoga practices, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, and the only designated "Blue Zone" in the United States, this work explores the long-term impact of alternative beliefs on the region. In doing so, it highlights the ongoing tensions between privileging personal choice and pursuing social good as communities navigated whether the commitment to the emotional and therapeutic needs and desires of individual believers should be pursued at the expense of broader efforts to achieve collective well-being.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520399749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Whether they were utopian communitarians, sun-seeking gurus, or Protestant health reformers, Southern California's spiritual seekers drew on the United States' deepening global encounters and consumer cultures to pair religious and personal reinvention with cultural and spiritual revitalization. Through a rereading of the region's cultural landscape, Golden States provides an alternative history of California religion and spirituality, showing that seekers developed a number of paths to fulfillment that enhanced the region's lifestyle brand. Drawing on case studies as varied as surfing and yoga practices, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, and the only designated "Blue Zone" in the United States, this work explores the long-term impact of alternative beliefs on the region. In doing so, it highlights the ongoing tensions between privileging personal choice and pursuing social good as communities navigated whether the commitment to the emotional and therapeutic needs and desires of individual believers should be pursued at the expense of broader efforts to achieve collective well-being.
Neighborhood of Fear
Author: Kyle Riismandel
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421439557
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
How—haunted by the idea that their suburban homes were under siege—the second generation of suburban residents expanded spatial control and cultural authority through a strategy of productive victimization. The explosive growth of American suburbs following World War II promised not only a new place to live but a new way of life, one away from the crime and crowds of the city. Yet, by the 1970s, the expected security of suburban life gave way to a sense of endangerment. Perceived, and sometimes material, threats from burglars, kidnappers, mallrats, toxic waste, and even the occult challenged assumptions about safe streets, pristine parks, and the sanctity of the home itself. In Neighborhood of Fear, Kyle Riismandel examines how suburbanites responded to this crisis by attempting to take control of the landscape and reaffirm their cultural authority. An increasing sense of criminal and environmental threats, Riismandel explains, coincided with the rise of cable television, VCRs, Dungeons & Dragons, and video games, rendering the suburban household susceptible to moral corruption and physical danger. Terrified in almost equal measure by heavy metal music, the Love Canal disaster, and the supposed kidnapping epidemic implied by the abduction of Adam Walsh, residents installed alarm systems, patrolled neighborhoods, built gated communities, cried "Not in my backyard!," and set strict boundaries on behavior within their homes. Riismandel explains how this movement toward self-protection reaffirmed the primacy of suburban family values and expanded their parochial power while further marginalizing cities and communities of color, a process that facilitated and was facilitated by the politics of the Reagan revolution and New Right. A novel look at how Americans imagined, traversed, and regulated suburban space in the last quarter of the twentieth century, Neighborhood of Fear shows how the preferences of the suburban middle class became central to the cultural values of the nation and fueled the continued growth of suburban political power.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421439557
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
How—haunted by the idea that their suburban homes were under siege—the second generation of suburban residents expanded spatial control and cultural authority through a strategy of productive victimization. The explosive growth of American suburbs following World War II promised not only a new place to live but a new way of life, one away from the crime and crowds of the city. Yet, by the 1970s, the expected security of suburban life gave way to a sense of endangerment. Perceived, and sometimes material, threats from burglars, kidnappers, mallrats, toxic waste, and even the occult challenged assumptions about safe streets, pristine parks, and the sanctity of the home itself. In Neighborhood of Fear, Kyle Riismandel examines how suburbanites responded to this crisis by attempting to take control of the landscape and reaffirm their cultural authority. An increasing sense of criminal and environmental threats, Riismandel explains, coincided with the rise of cable television, VCRs, Dungeons & Dragons, and video games, rendering the suburban household susceptible to moral corruption and physical danger. Terrified in almost equal measure by heavy metal music, the Love Canal disaster, and the supposed kidnapping epidemic implied by the abduction of Adam Walsh, residents installed alarm systems, patrolled neighborhoods, built gated communities, cried "Not in my backyard!," and set strict boundaries on behavior within their homes. Riismandel explains how this movement toward self-protection reaffirmed the primacy of suburban family values and expanded their parochial power while further marginalizing cities and communities of color, a process that facilitated and was facilitated by the politics of the Reagan revolution and New Right. A novel look at how Americans imagined, traversed, and regulated suburban space in the last quarter of the twentieth century, Neighborhood of Fear shows how the preferences of the suburban middle class became central to the cultural values of the nation and fueled the continued growth of suburban political power.