Book Review: Visual Piety

David Morgan. Visual Piety : A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998.

In literature I often find this book mentioned alongside Colleen McDannell’s Material Christianity, R. Laurence Moore’s Selling God and Heather Hendershot’s Shaking the World for Jesus as a cornerstone in the field of researching the material reality that helps shape religious practice. Mr. Morgan is a very productive man but this book seems to have been a trailblazing one. Be that true or not at the very least I think it was breathtaking, and even at times unsettling.

            The first thing that makes this book stand out is method. I love both McDannell’s and Moore’s books, but there is still something that lacks. Both perform historic research. That’s fine of course and they do go to great lengths to try and reconstruct what all the material goods actually meant to people living at the time. But testimonies can only tell you so much about what people actually did with all these things (a limit McDannell in her book in a moment of honesty actually laments). This is however something that Morgan actually looks into by means of a modest research. He asked people about their personal experience regarding Sallman’s Head of Christ. This yields some interesting results that go beyond merely looking at the products and the testimony of its users from the past only. In a way one might say it’s even more real, because instead of having to second guess about what people meant when they wrote about their experiences in an unreachable past, you can just ask them. Of course you might still get it wrong, but at least you can go straight(er) to the source. Morgan is the first one I encounter that makes use of sociological method in addition to historical research in trying to understand better the reception of popular religious material culture.

            Another thing that struck me in this book is that it sometimes chilled me. This should really only mean two things: The world is a horrible place and Morgan is a damn good writer. I got the cold shivers running down my spine reading about the way that Christianity is turned from a lovely ideal of how to raise your children teaching them values of kindness, solidarity, forgiveness and compassion to a nazi-esque ideology of exterminating all members of the human race that aren’t “really” Christian. The reasoning goes that what starts as a good idea about raising your kids quickly turns into the idea that you can only make sure people turn out okay if you start from birth. If you don’t, it’s already too late. What does that mean? That you should be born into Christianity and if you aren’t then there is no hope. Therefore, it is reasoned, Christians should focus on raising good families and little by little try and exterminate all other rivaling people that are supposedly beyond redemption. It turns religion into family and tribe and takes away the idea of Christian by choice and turns it into Christian by birth (seemingly a very un-American idea by the way, usually preferring believer’s baptism over infant baptism, emphasizing personal choice over fate). Driving this point home both intellectually and emotionally is not an easy task and certainly in my opinion Morgan managed to do this and it hit me hardest since reading Jon Savage’s Teenage where he talks about the horrible and lonely death of Anne Frank.[1]

            Morgan’s ideas are innovating. His sharp observations, clever use of research results and his ability to tell stories like the one above and others, like that of Muscular Christianity, make this book a standard on the theme of material Christianity in the United States and in fact one of worth in its own right.

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[1] Might I add to this that it took a good English writer like Savage to finally break my native Amsterdam shield of cynicism about the fate of Anne Frank, making sure I actually heard it for the first time after having heard it already told uninspired by bad teachers a thousand times before.

Precious Moments Bible

I talked before about Precious Moments. But the book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, by Randall Balmer, made me see that there is besides the revoltingly sweet figurines also a Bible produced by this company. Kickass! You might want to crank the brightness/contrast settings on your computer to be able to see them though, given how nearly see-through the front covers are.

If you're not a Catholic, you'll explode if you read this one.

Book: Jimmy and the Atheist

This book caught my attention recently, called Jimmy and the Atheist by ... hmmm, interesting, the author doesn't seem to be mentioned in the product description. The product discription does tell me this: "Jimmie, caught in his burning home, is saved by an atheist at the risk of his own life. Jimmie, in turn, is used to bring his benefactor to the Lord Jesus Christ. Good salvation message." Quite an interesting system of economy there. The book is offered on a website called Christian Bible Club, another potential goldmine. Of note too is that I can't help but think Jimmy looks kinda like Cletus from the Simpsons. I suppose it's meant to be a shadowy effect but it looks like little Jimmy is sporting a mullet. A visit to the dentist might also be a good idea. Finally, the title sort of sounds like a rock 'n' roll band, like Bill Haley & His Comets. "Ladies and gentlemen, for your entertainment tonight, we bring you the legendary, the one and only, won't you please give a big hand to... Jimmy and the Atheists!"

Book Review: Consuming Religion by Vincent J. Miller

Vincent J. Miller. Consuming Religion. Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture. Continuum. New York, London, 2003.

This book was mentioned by Tyler F. Williams on his Codex blog in his Jesus Junk and Christian Kitsch article, when it first caught my attention. While reading Toying with God, I noticed that the authors also heavily referred to Miller and the references were interesting enough to actually make more of an impact than just recognizing the name. I wanted to see for myself what Miller had to say in this work. As a result, I end up with this lengthy book review. Lengthy due to disagreement.
        To be honest, I feel mislead by the title. The book “explores how consumer culture changes our relationship with religious beliefs, narratives and symbols.” (p. 3). True enough, but in particular, the author is interested in the way consumer culture has this effect on Roman Catholic beliefs, narratives and symbols. The last chapter is dedicated to tactics that aim to counter the commodification not of religion at large but of Roman Catholicism in particular. This is an important part of the book, one might even say what it has been working up to so far, and then as I read this chapter in which clergymen and laymen of Miller’s church are offered tactics to ward off the perceived corrupting influences of consumerism on their faith, I couldn’t help but wonder why I was reading this. That is just not the final chapter I expect in a book with a title like that. Ironically, I’d say it’s false advertising!
        Ironic why? Because advertising and marketing are two forces that the book deals with and in fact aims to if not counter then at least expose. Marx’s idea of alienation, described as “the product of the worker’s labor belong[ing] not to the laborer but to the employer” and “the estrangement of workers from self-realization in their labor” (p. 34), is used as an important tool that Miller uses in his analysis. Marx’s idea of the commodity fetish is another one, that Miller describes thus: “The commodity appears to us as intrinsically valuable, when in fact its true value is dependent on a number of factors that do not appear with it. In addition to its use value, the commodity’s value depends on an economic system in which commodities can be exchanged and on the labor that produces it. These sources of value, however, do not appear in the commodity. They are obscured by the aura of self-evident value.” (p. 36). Advertising and marketing make use of this obscurity. It can even go further than that, something Miller treats when he speaks about “misdirection”, which he describes as “the systematic association of other needs and desires with commodity objects and the resultant channeling of the drive to fulfill these needs into acts of consumption.” (p. 119). Think for instance of cosmetic surgery that is being advertised with the line “self confidence is now for sale!”, telling you nothing about the product but presenting a boost in self-esteem as a logical result from purchasing it. One way to unveil the (layers of) the commodity fetish that Miller proposes is through the craft ideal. He describes this as “the practice of handcrafts, not the consumption of handmade goods.” (p. 186). The idea is basically that when you try to make something yourself, you will realise the amount of work that goes into it. Personally I think this is a bit naive. I don’t think I will wise up to the ways of industrial food production by spending some time in a vegetable garden. Moreover, I don’t really think that the worth of anything is ultimately the hours of labor that go into it. Let’s say I learn to fully appreciate the effort it takes to make a music record. I really dive into it and find out about the smallest details of production that are required to get that product on the shelves. Will it change the way I experience that record? Unlikely. Generally I’d say that the direct experience of something determines it’s worth far more than it’s origin. Above all though, I wonder about this: What the hell is a theologian doing frolicking in the field with Karl Marx, king of atheists? I can see Marx standing there, going “well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in! Couldn’t do your dirty work without me, could you?” Then again, Marx is dead and Catholics can hijack his theories and apply them for their own benefit. So who’s laughing now?
        All this Marx stuff is distracting from some other central points of the book. I’m not going to talk about the final chapter, Catholic emancipatory issues don’t seem of much interest to me, but some of his central arguments do. I like for instance, his idea of the “dual dynamisms of commodification in religion” (p. 77). He describes them as follows: “On the one hand, there is consumer capitalism’s insatiable hunger for marketable stuff, which creates a world where everything is transformed into a commodity that can be brought to market, exchanged, and consumed: selves, others, culture, religion. On the other hand, we witness a great hollowing out. Exchange demands interchangeability, equivalence. Anything that stands in the way of exchange becomes a problem. Rough edges must be smoothed. Objects must now function outside of their original contexts.” (p. 77). I suppose that means that not only will there be a bobblehead rendition of Jesus, but also one of Buddha. I think this touches on a central theme of the book: rootedness. Whether it’s about commodities being abstracted from their circumstances of production or about belief being “systematically misdirected from traditional religious practices into consumption”, the uprooting of things seems to be a central problem for Miller. For this reason he also criticizes seeker religion, associated strongly with the idea of “spirituality” (p. 89) which Miller describes as “the personal, experiential dimensions of religion in opposition to its institutional forms” (p. 90), as a consequence of which “believers increasingly relate to religious traditions as repositories of insights and practices that they appropriate for their own personal syntheses.” (p. 90). His critique then is that “elements of tradition are interpreted, engaged, and used in abstraction” (p. 91). Understandable perhaps from a Roman Catholic perspective. But how real is this rootedness?
        The Marxist idea of reducing the significance of everything to it’s socio-economic origin I already expressed doubt about. But how about reducing all meaning of an article of faith to it’s theological origin? Miller actually touches on this when he juxtaposes theology and what he calls “lived religion” (p. 171). Miller first quotes Robert Orsi, who writes that “people appropriate religious idioms as they need them, in response to particular circumstances. All religious ideas and impulses are of the moment, invented, taken, borrowed, and improvised at the intersections of life.” and then concludes himself that “the term “lived religion” described this practical dimension of everyday religious belief and practice.” (p. 172). He argues that “lived religion involves a more multidimensional relation between belief and practice than is usually considered by theology. [...] Rather than the linear relationship between doctrine and practice envisioned by theology (elites adjudicating issues of orthodoxy that are then disseminated to believers for application in practice), here we have religion providing complexities to the cultural terrain that can be employed in a variety of ways. [...] Religious symbols and doctrines function in many less-direct ways as well. [...] They provide a space for agency as much as a set of beliefs. [...] It is true that such uses of symbols and doctrines often involve conceptual misunderstandings, but such uses have formed the building blocks for the complex and unplanned masterpieces of religious traditions for millennia, despite the protest of elites” (p. 172). Theology, on the other hand, “values conceptual clarity and strives to apply doctrines consistently and systematically across the range of their relevance.” (p. 173) Miller is quick to note in fact that “these rules bring obvious advantages, but they entail weaknesses as well. Clarity and consistency come at the cost of abstraction. Lived religion is, by its nature, engaged in practice. Academic theology is always in danger of succumbing to the comforts of theory by attending to its specialized rules to the exclusion of the practical concerns of the Christian community. Short of such extremes, by its very nature, academic theology transforms practical questions into intellectual ones.” (p. 173-174). Finally, he concludes that “for this reason, academic theology not only teaches and corrects but also learns from the everyday theology of lived religion.” (p. 174). This is where I actually disagree. I’d say in fact that academic theology can only learn from the everyday theology of lived religion. Theology to me seems like a desperate attempt to make sense of the dirty, muddy, inconsistent and incoherent religious practice. Theology is destined to always follow practice and try to clean up the mess it made. Religion is a problem child and theology is its incompetent mother. Therefore, if a use of a symbol or doctrine is conceived to be a conceptual misunderstanding, I would rather think that it proves the conceptual understanding itself to be wrong. If a religious belief is being theologically abstracted, I’d say that exposes those theological roots as artificial. Strangely this would turn religious commodification into a means with which to emancipate religion from theology.
        In a nerdy way, perhaps I can appreciate theology. In a cynical atheist way, one might even condescendingly think that theology is “cute” because it tries to make sense of something that is ultimately untrue and is therefore also perceived to be destined to fail. However, I appreciate most the weird, the bizarre, the spontaneous, the unforeseen and the extreme expressions of religion. The more incredible and born of despair, the more it radically contradicts itself, the better. I like my faiths ugly and chaotic. No explanations, no apologies, just the madness! This indeed is the lived religion with it’s strange practices and not the theological reflection upon it, which can actually only compromise religious extravagance. If Miller is correct in his thinking that commodification tends to abstract matters of faith from theology then I say level the field, away with all kinds of theological constructions, and let the games begin!

Book: Eyes Wide Open by William D. Romanowski

William D. Romanowski. Eyes Wide Open. Looking for God in Popular Culture. Brazo Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2001.

 One of the books frequently referred to by authors is William D. Romanowski’s Eyes Wide Shut. Romanowski also contributed one of the articles to Forbes and Mahan's Religion and Popular Culture in America, which was one of the better written and more interesting ones in my opinion. I had already enjoyed another one of his books, Pop Culture Wars, and Eyes Wide Open, which is often called a classic, often drew my attention. Moreover, I had gathered that it offered an explicitly Christian perspective on how to deal with popular culture. So anthropologically this book also seemed interesting to me. I felt it was time.

First of all I have to say that Romanowski has a very pleasent style of writing. It really takes you by the hand and guides you through what he has to say. Probably, aside from talent, he does this because he has actually something to say and wrote this book to say it, not to have his name on a book cover, although I’m sure that doesn’t keep Mr. Romanowski up at night. It just feels that he is careful to make sure that what he is trying to say is being said as clearly as he can say it. Some might think this is patronizing, but it isn’t. Romanowski doesn’t compromise his story but just tries to make sure all of it will receive the reader and he doesn’t shroud his narrative in clouds of mystery, an abundance of obsolete references or far-fetched theoretical sidetracks. Well, not too much anyway. He seems to put his ego on the shelf whereby (oh how Christian!) he might actually transcend himself as a writer. In any case he seems to walk the fine line of clarity that separates the realm of superficiality from that of over-analysis.

Now as I pointed out already, this book is written from a Christian perspective, so that didn't come as a surprise. I didn't, however, expect it to be... that Christian. Especially in the first part of the book, the emphasis on the Christian perspective feels heavy, reading lines such as “Christians cannot be selective in their responsibility to the God who lays claim to all of life and creation. We cannot try to be faithful when it comes to personal morality and church life but then employ ‘secular’ tactics, values, goals, and ethical standards for business, politics, education, art, and so forth. Our entire life is meant for service in God’s kingdom.” (p. 52). Ehm... amen?

Let me be quick to say that being a bit surprised at this emphasis is more my problem than it is one of the book. After all it was aimed at a Christian audience, so what would you expect? And let me then also say that Romanowski’s judgments are in fact well informed and nuanced and nowhere near a fundamentalist evangelical rant without end might be. But so if not fundamentalist evangelical, then what are his judgments?

Romanowski's position could be situated between two extremes of on the one hand the idea that “efforts to make the movie theater or concert hall into a revival tent invest the popular arts with powers they do not really possess.” (p. 81) while on the other, the idea that “critics were right to worry about the potential influence “‘the market-driven, therapeutic, narcissistic and entertainment-oriented culture’ can have on church and society” (p. 40). Romanowski claims that calling popular arts entertainment suggests “that the popular arts are somehow not really art or that they do not serve the same roles and purposes of art” and adds that he wants “to challenge such attitudes” (p. 91). So far I’m on his team! He then suggests the idea of maps of reality (p. 95). In his own words: “We all know that a map is not the reality it depicts, but is instead a representation of roads, rivers, landmarks, and distances that can give us directions, point out the sights along the way, and help us reach our destination. So popular art provides stories, symbols, images, metaphors, and melodies that depict cultural values and assumptions, behavioral norms, social roles, and gender roles. In this way, the popular arts mediate between culture and life, that is, our cultural conceptions and our social and environmental realities.” (p. 95). It is hard to find middle ground between the two paradoxical stigmas of superficiality and brain-rotting that popular culture often has to suffer, and the one that Romanowski proposes is at least both appreciative of popular culture and also somewhat elegant.

Sometimes Romanowski does tend to present ideas that seem like a bit of a stretch. For instance, he does seem to assume that because of mass technology that “dramatically increased the distribution scale of art” (p. 91), the “popular artworks are intended to reach mass audiences,” and “for commercial reasons, then, producers like to cast a wide net to reach and satisfy a large ‘popular’ audience” (p. 92). He adds to this that, to cater to that audience, popular arts also make sure to “not introduce new beliefs, but reinforce already existing ones” (p. 93). It could be argued, however, that popular arts can in fact be non-commercial and innovative, if artists seek the means of production themselves. Musicians for example might want to make a record just for the fun of making one, financing the production themselves and not really caring about seeing their money back. Sometimes his judgments seem even theologically biased, favoring a Protestant interpretation of scripture, when for example he writes that “in contrast to the Hollywood paradigm, scripture emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the human sinfulness and inadequacy that demands dependence on God’s grace alone, and the necessity of centering all of life on the goal of glorifying God.” (p. 170). I’d like to see him take that one up with the Pope. His cultural analyses sometimes are also debatable. When for instance he writes about a scene from the movie Pretty Woman where “the woman is doing the driving” and states that that “is a visual image suggesting that the traditional roles for men and women are reversed” (p. 191), he seems to treat symbols as having an absolute meaning that the viewer has no choice but to recognize, consciously or unconsciously. I’m not too sure the meaning of imagery or the reception of it can ever be that fixed though.

Still, I’m going to stick by my judgement that the book is indeed nuanced. Sure, Romanowski offers a great deal of critical judgments but ultimately he does leave the judgement up to the reader. The book doesn’t tell you what to think, it rather invites you to think for yourself and to apply critical thinking yourself. It offers examples, ideas and methods, but that’s where it ends. The questions at the end of each chapter I thought at first were a bit patronizing actually, but in fact, they also seem to give you the idea that in the end it’s really up to you to make up your mind about the value of popular culture. This democratic approach I would say is commendable.
 

Dieting Book: More of Jesus, Less of Me

Book: Religion and Popular Culture in America by Bruce David Forbes (Editor) and Jeffrey H. Mahan (Editor)

Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan. Relgion and Popular Culture in America. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2005.

This book popped up in a course on popular culture and religion. I thought I’d read it again now, in its entirety, since for the course only a few chapters were treated if I remember correctly. I liked it back then and still do, be it not without the necessary criticism.

The book proved to me to be a very helpful tool in distinguishing between the different types of relationships between religion and popular culture. In the introductory chapter, Bruce David Forbes describe four such relationships and especially the second one, popular culture in religion, that Forbes describes as “the appropriation of aspects of popular culture by religious groups and institutions” I find interesting. The book in fact is divided into four parts, each part consisting of various essays by different writers dealing with subjects that fit into the respective categories. The essays that fall into this category indeed I did appreciate the most. William D. Romanowski in his essay Evangelicals and Popular Music: The Contemporary Christian Music Industry argues that “the Christian music industry promoted an evangelical popular culture based on the rules of commercialism and not those of churches, elevating consumer values and taste at the expense of doctrine and tradition.” (p. 107). His perspective on religion as being personalized and commodified under the influence of, in the first place, the baby-boom generation is sympathetic to the way Stewart M. Hoover describes the development of religion in the United States when he looks into the functioning of the megachurch at Willow Creek. Hoover in his article proposes that “it is at [the] very direct and concrete level of practice, of actually touching and feeling objects, that a kind of piety can increasingly be invoked by, and satisfied by, commodity culture.” (p. 145). Hoover’s also talks about the idea of “seekers”, those whose “religious practice [is] oriented toward the self and conceiving of religion as a conscious search for a variety of inputs, which can then be coalesced into an identity for which the individual considers him- or herself responsible” (p. 144). This is in turn very sympathetic to the idea of the “questing” that Greg Peterson presents in his article The Internet and Christian and Muslim Communities, that he describes as “religious seeking motivated by dissatisfaction with existing answers.” (p. 127). All of these ideas are potentially very useful and also are in keeping with ideas that Moore and McDannell developed, to which indeed the authors heavily refer.

So what about the other three relationships? The first relationship is described as religion in popular culture that deals with such things as Madonna Videos and The Da Vinci Code. Products that make use of religious imagery rather than being explicitly religious expressions. The third relationship, popular culture as religion, explores the idea of popular cultural products functioning as religion like Star Trek, sports or even Coca Cola. It’s also about the question what religion really is or can be. If a definition of religion is broad enough to include Star Trek, does that mean that the definition is too broad or does it mean that we should acknowledge it? The fourth relationship then finally, religion and popular culture in dialogue, sort of concerns itself with “interactions between religious and popular culture [that] do not fit well in the three categories considered thus far.” (p. 15).

The results are mixed I’d say. Some articles seem well researched and have a good point, like the one by Romanowski. Others just seem far-fetched and seem to lose themselves in method and theory rather than properly researching a popcultural phenomenon, almost seemingly abusing it just to get a point across, quite like Bado-Fralick & Norris sometimes seemed to do. Still, I like the broadness of the range of topics that are being treated and the various methods that respective authors care to select to treat these topics with. The results may be mixed, but this mix seems healthy. It seems to present the reader with a good overview of what is going on in the field and it is a good introduction to some of the key authors that operate in it. It seems that Forbes and Mahan themselves were careful to set up an honest balance of representative work even when they mightn’t agree with all of the ideas that those works present. This makes it a fair work and leaves it up to the reader to make up his mind about it all. The variety of approaches indeed makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

It is in the very last part of the book that something surprised me. In the conclusion, Jeffrey H. Mahan notes that the audience for the studies is varied. He describes four diverse audiences. Audience one seeks description and analysis, audience two seeks methodological reflection, audience three seeks to clarify the religious life, and audience four seeks social or cultural reform (p. 291-293). Of the third kind, he writes: “The implied audience for these essays are thinking practitioners of religion who desire to more clearly understand the interactions between faith and culture, in order to enable lives of religious integrity.” (p. 292). This is debatable, because works like these can also serve an anthropological function. They can take you by the hand when you’re trying to make sense of a system of values that is alien to you.

The Secret

The Secret is a book written by Rhonda Byrne, published in 2006. The book description on Amazon is very much the perfect (self help) salespitch:

"Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it. In this book, you'll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life -- money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You'll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that's within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life. The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers -- men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible."

Doesn't tell you much about what the Secret is supposed to be though, does it? Bloody marketing techniques! From what I understand, the Secret is supposed to be about the idea that if you really want something it will come true. That sounds a bit obvious, but it has some more religious connotations. I believe it puts emphasis on imagination for example. If you can imagine yourself be rich and famous, that will bring the realization of it closer. Something along the lines of a Law of Attraction that will see to the actualization of the way you imagine things to be. This is how the manipulation of the physical world is thought to be possible. It seems to draw heavily from diverse currents in what is known as Western esoteric traditions. It might also be considered to be sympathetic to certain mainstream American ideas.

It is also turned into a movie and the trailer is just fantastic. It suggests a whole lot more myth than I was aware of in fact. Who doesn't love a good whoosh wham bam flashy montage video with arbitrary "great men" being stuffed an opinion down their throat while some Carl Orff knockoff music is playing in the background?

Self Help Literature

Christian best sellers

From the bestsellers list on christianbook.com.

Book: Toying with God by Nikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris

Nikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris. Toying with God. The World of Religious Games and Dolls. Baylor University Press. Waco, Texas, 2010.

While searching the internet for blog inspiration I came across this book, Toying with God, by Nikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris. Immediately I knew I had to have it! My birthday was coming up so I sent my sister on a mission and she got it for me. Thanks sis!

To be honest, what I didn’t expect was an academic book. But it is. I don’t know why but I expected it to be a tongue-in-cheek journalistic journey through the wonderful world of religious entertainment. Probably the topic just put me on the wrong track. In fact the authors themselves point out this tendency to underestimate the topic when they say that “when we started to research this book, we were told by many [...] that the study of religious games and dolls was not proper scholarship.” (p. xii) A prejudice I very much fight against yet still seem to hold myself. Nice glass of cold water in the face to begin with.

All the better for the academic character I’d say, since I like it best when a book cares to ask questions and seeks answers to those questions about the nature of what it is dealing with rather than to just give a freak show like overview of things that are out there. Yet, and this is turning into a bit of a mantra in all of my book reviews, it is at the same time a great source of inspiration. Lets get this out of the way first. Ladies and gentlemen, gather round and behold! The spectacular world of religious toys and games, such as Fulla the Muslim doll, Holy Huggables and Mormonopoly! You will not believe your eyes as you look up one2believe.com. Yes ladies and gentlemen, even though it is a book with serious analytical aims, the material it analyses is just too juicy not to enjoy.

Now then, what about the analysis? First a word on method. I am not completely sure, but this book seems to be somewhat immersed in theory that aims to expose dualistic ideas that are taken for granted to be cultural agreements. This is not exactly my academic cup of tea. First because the factual basis for an analysis with such an aim usually tends to be suggestive, which makes the actual worth of it debatable. Second, and more importantly, because it can turn the cultural product that is under scrutiny into a political tool with which to prove a point. The political agenda then can take over and mute what is being examined. Colleen McDannell in her book Material Christianity carefully avoided this trap but Bado-Fralick & Sachs Norris seem to occasionally fall victim to it.

The authors take on different perspectives throughout the book. Sometimes they seem (pop)culturally pessimistic when they write for instance “[We agree] with Postman [who says] that the ability to think deeply and rationally about a subject is hampered by superficial education and media geared toward novelty and easily digestible sound bites.” (p. 28) At other times the authors take on a more relativistic perspective, when they state for example that  “Children seldom stick to scripted actions in play, no matter how solidly both they and the script are rooted in religious values.” (p. 54) The ambivalence of their judgements is actually enjoyable. It adds some depth to the book, something the authors themselves, along with Postman, might take as a compliment.

I just highlighted some of the themes the book touches on but it is far more rich. Perhaps this is simultaneously both its strength and weakness for although the depth is enjoyable, at times the matter seems to be buried under theory. Still I enjoyed the book very much, it encourages critical thinking about the subject, and the the fact alone that it showed me the way to the Noah and the whale bible toy will make me forever grateful.

Book: Selling God by R. Laurence Moore

R. Laurence Moore. Selling God. American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture. Oxford University Press. New York, 1994.

A lot of times do I ask myself the question how things got to be the way they are. That is by no means a question I care to ask within the domain of religion alone. However that domain is one in which fascination prompts this question most urgently in my experience. An answer to this question then is presented by R. Laurence Moore in his book Selling God. 

Before I deal with the answer that I understand Moore arrives at in this book, let me first note that the tone of the book is very enjoyable. I don’t really know how to accurately describe it but scholastic wit might hit close to home. An example of this might say more than trying to describe it. In the introductory chapter he writes: “No one dares suggest that neon signs blinking the message that “Jesus Saves” may be false advertising.” (p. 7) Right away I knew I was in for a treat. 

Let this light tone that is chosen not be misleading though, it is by all means a thoroughly researched, profound and nuanced analysis of the way in which the market and religion have interacted and have influenced each other in the United States of America. It is in fact a dazzling voyage through American commercial history. Most perplexing seemed all the nineteenth century developments and figures. Religious figures that can almost do no else but amaze such as George Whitefield, Charles Grandison Finney, P. T. Barnum, the Fox sisters and Frances Willard. Not to be outdone almost by some other secular ones such as the writer Mason Locke Weems and the entertainer P. T. Barnum. 

 Arbitrary bewilderment aside though, what conclusion does his analysis lead him to? The answer seems to begin with the fact that the separation of church and state left all denominations unprotected and depending on charity. The pluralist situation then demanded that all denominations compete with one and other. By any means necessary. Those who embraced popular and commercial means in fact then fared better than those who didn’t. As Moore puts it in his epilogue: “Religious leaders perceived the decline of spiritual power and decried the loss in their sermons. Piteous breast-beating, however, was not an effective reaction. Along with everyone else, clerics were left with no choice except to slip by steady degrees into an affectionate embrace of the world. They were forced into postures of selling annually religious doctrines that could keep up with the competition. Religious leaders could either give in to the sway of the market or watch as their churches died.” (p. 269) 

It is a strong conclusion but by no means covers all the whys and hows treated in the book. The narrative is very broad and while being introduced to the fiction writers, entertainers, providers of recreation, prophets of health and even Muscular Christianity, things that you find in contemporary Christianity tend to fall into place. It would almost make one stand in humble understanding rather than burst out in laughter when faced with a painting of Stephen Sawyer. Almost.

Book: Material Christianity by Colleen McDannell

 
Colleen McDannell. Material Christianity. Religion and Popular Culture in America. Yale University Press. New Haven & London, 1995.

The book Material Christianity by Colleen McDannell had been staring at me from my bookcase for a few years now. I got it years ago while writing my thesis, but it never really made it into my bibliography, and ever since I always wanted to read it but never really got round to it. In the wake of this blog, I thought I’d finally pick it up.

They say never judge a book by its cover and to this sound advice I’d like to add: never judge a book by its opening chapter. When I read the line “Can the American city be read like a text?” (p. 3) I immediately thought “oh God, not this shit again!” Having suffered my share of academic trauma I feared that this book about a subject that I hold dear might spiral down into an incomprehensible and far-fetched analytical argument slapping you silly with terms like deconstructionalism and post-structuralist feminism. Academics can be very bad joke tellers like that. Luckily however, it turned out to be false alarm.

Even though it is an academic book, thus making the tone of the book be a bit dry, it is a very enjoyable read. In fact, the level of objective approach to the subject can be refreshing since it also aims to offer an explanation of why things grew the way they did. Not only might it shed some light on Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ, but even on why your jaw might drop to the floor when you see it. It adds some depth and meaning to the appreciation of religious imagery.

In spite of all the dry explanation though, McDannell sometimes tends to get political in a way I can appreciate, when writing things like “Buying Bibles, visiting cemeteries, using miraculous water, wearing religious clothing, and owning religious bookstores have been ignored because scholars deem these practices less spiritual or authentic. [...] Christians who use objects or images in their devotional lives or who feel that certain places are imbued with special powers, are seen as needing spiritual helps or crutches. [...] It is this perception, that only weak Christians express their faith by interacting with material culture, that this book hopes to counter.” (p. 8) I agree with this where I feel that religious imagery can be a powerful conveyor of meaning and is not necessarily just funny. Although I do think that it is mainly that.

This is also why I probably value this book most, because next to it being a good explanatory text, it is a source of inspiration for religious kitsch like almost no other. From the aforementioned work of Sallman to the Wisdom Tree Christian video games and from the John Wesley statues to the Gospel Trumpet merchandise. It is nothing short of a banquet!

Also slightly adding to the enjoyment of this book, however unintentionally, is that it was written in 1995. In terms of popular culture, that means it was written centuries ago. For example, the advertising style of old Bookstore Journal issues now not only looks stunning in its own right but also looks “so very 90s!” Items that are presented throughout the book are now enjoyable in ways that McDannell could not yet have imagined at the time of writing. McDannell however seems smart enough to realise the place of modern production methods in time and is careful not to present them as ultimate ones but just as the latest ones. This makes the book able to stand the test of time better.

Finally then, it is regrettable that the book is written just before the internet revolution because surely now the whole landscape of material christianity has changed because of it, also shaping a new world of virtual christianity that is just as fascinating, something to which this blog obviously also hopes to be a testament.

My Day With Jesus children's book