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Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism (Studies in Church and State)
Daniel H. Levine
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0691024596 |
Book Description
Throughout Latin America, observers and activists have found in religion a promise of deep and long-lasting democratization. But for religion to change culture and politics, religion itself must change. Such change is not only a matter of doctrine, ritual, or institutional arrangements but also arises out of the needs, values, and ideas of average believers. Combining rich interviews and community studies in Venezuela and Colombia with analysis of broad ideological and institutional transformations, Daniel Levine examines how religious and cultural change begins and what gives it substance and lasting impact. The author focuses on the creation of self-confident popular groups among hitherto isolated and dispirited individuals. Once silent voices come to light as peasants and urban barrio dwellers reflect on their upbringing and community, on poverty and opportunity, on faith, prayer, and the Bible, and on institutions like state, school, and church. Levine also interviews priests, sisters, and pastoral agents and explains how their efforts shape the links between popular groups and the larger society. The result is a clear understanding of how relations among social and cultural levels are maintained and transformed, how programs are implemented, why they succeed or fail, and how change appears both to elites and to ordinary people.
Amazon.com
It's tough to be devout and kitschy at the same time, but Colleen McDannell strikes that delicate balance with admirable poise in Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. Her book is an argument that "American Christians ... want to see, hear, and touch God. It is not enough for Christians to go to church, lead a righteous life, and hope for an eventual place in heaven." This argument is amply defended by smart essays about family Bibles, gravestone design, and Lourdes Water, as well as hundreds of illustrations of vestments, churches, portraits of Jesus, rapture T-shirts, and backyard statues of Our Lady. Where Material Christianity gets really interesting, however, is in its assertion that "Christian material culture does not simply reflect an existing reality. Experiencing the physical dimension of religion helps bring about religious values, norms, behaviors, and attitudes." For example, the warmth and intimacy of Warner Sallman's painting "Head of Christ," which hung in almost every Protestant Sunday School classroom in America until the 1960s, was probably every bit as influential as any given phrase from the Sermon on the Mount in determining the personal nature of Protestants' relationships with Jesus. Material Christianity covers a lot of ground--from Mormonism to fundamentalism--and every chapter is as theologically wise as it as aesthetically astute. --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
This lavishly illustrated book investigates the history and meaning of Christian material culture in America over the past 150 years. Drawing on a rich array of historical sources and on in-depth interviews with Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Colleen McDannell examines the relationship between religion and mass consumption.
Book Description
William Dyrness explores the roots of Reformed theology from sixteenth-century Geneva to seventeenth and eighteenth-century Puritan New England. Though this tradition impeded development of particular visual forms, Dyrness argues that it encouraged others, especially in areas of popular culture and the order of family and community. Exploring the theology of Calvin and others, Dyrness demonstrates how the tradition created a new aesthetic of simplicity, inwardness and order to express underlying theological commitments.
Book Description
The connection between American popular culture and religion is the subject of this multifaceted and innovative collection. In fourteen lively essays whose topics range from the divine feminine in The Da Vinci Code to Madonna's "Like a Prayer," and from the world of sports to the ways in which cyberculture has influenced traditional religions, this book offers fascinating insights into what popular culture reveals about the nature of American religion today. Revised throughout, this new edition features three new essays--including a fascinating look at the role of women in apocalyptic fiction such as the Left Behind series--and editor Bruce David Forbes has written a new introduction. In addition to the new textual material, each chapter concludes with a set of suggested discussion questions.
Customer Reviews:
A Religious Experience?.......2002-03-29
This text, which is , in fact an anthology of academic papers on the topic of religion(s) and popular culture is limited by the fact that it only deals with the United States while claiming to deal with America? Other than this, however the essays are for the most part informative, intelligent and lucid in an easily accessible diction and content. Not being a huge fan of abstract theoretical constructions myself, I found the articles well-organized and significant in their content. At the same time, the extensive annotated bibliographies that accompanied each article were useful for myself in tracking down relevant data with regards to the articles about the internet, Pale Rider and Rap music and would, I assume, be likewise for those interested in pursuing other subjects such as the presence of sports and religion or weight loss as a soteriological undertaking.
While I definitely feet that there is a tremendous amount to be gained from reading these articles as far as their in-depth analysis of the interrelationship between Religion and Popular Culture in the United States, I also was intrigued by the fact that. The editors of the volume as well as the vast majority of their contributors felt compelled to support, or rather accepted as a foregone conclusion the concept that religious and popular cultures constitute two areas of thought and endeavor that are, more or less, mutually distinguishable. It seemed to me, even before reading the text, that religion is, primarily another manifestation of popular culture. One of its unique characteristics is the attempt of its supporters to construct an immutable facade which belies the extreme volatility and changeability of even its most cherished and central concepts and practices.
Book Description
Wherever and whenever they appear, new religious movements always produce conflict. Even as they attract members who enthusiastically embrace their innovative teachings, new religions often provoke strongly negative reactions, often because they challenge established notions of proper religious action, belief, and morality. Opponents of new religious movements often brand them as "cults" and urge their fellow citizens, their own religions, and even the government to take action against what they see as suspicious and potentially dangerous movements; the members often complain that their motives have been misconstrued and argue that their groups are unfairly persecuted. The New Religious Movements Experience in America outlines the conflict between representatives of the status quo and new religions and examines how these groups appear both to their members and to their cultural opponents. This work is ideal for anyone--students, parents, and teachers--who wish to gain a deeper understanding of new religious movements in America. New religions have always been part of the American religious landscape, and this book moves beyond the contemporary period to discuss examples of new religions that have originated, survived or died, and sometimes prospered throughout U. S. history. Among the groups discussed are the Mormons, the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Church Universal and Triumphant, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Soka Gakkai, the Nation of Islam, Wiccans and neo-Pagans, the Church of Satan, the Church of Scientology, Heaven's Gate, and the Raelians. The New Religious Movements Experience in America includes a glossary and a list of resources for those interested in doing further research on the experience of the followers of new religions.
Customer Reviews:
Very interesting and readable book.......2005-02-01
This is an engagingly written and interesting book. I read it in three sittings. If you want to know about new religions. How do they start? Who started them? Why do they continue? What do they believe in and why they generate so much interest in the media - then this is the book for you. You don't have to be an academic or have any experience in religious studies to find this book fascinating. I am a chemist and read this book as a change of pace from my normal murder, blood and gore thrillers, and enjoyed every page.
Book Description
As immediate and relevant as today's headlines, this book sets forth a bold argument with direct implications for political life in America and around the world. Combining incisive cultural analysis and keen religious insight, Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence maintain that American crusading — so powerfully embodied in popular entertainments — has striking parallels with Islamic jihad and Israeli militancy.
According to Jewett and Lawrence, American civil religion has both a humane, constitutional tradition and a violent strand that is now coming to the fore. The crusade to rid the world of evil and "evildoers" derives from the same biblical tradition of zealous warfare and nationalism that spawns Islamic and Israeli radicalism. In America, where this tradition has been popularized by superheroic entertainments, the idea of zealous war is infused with a distinctive sense of mission that draws on secular and religious images. These crusading ideals are visible in such events as the settling of the western frontier, the World Wars, the Cold War, the Gulf War, and America's present war on terrorism.
In exploring the tradition of "zealous nationalism," which seeks to redeem the world by destroying enemies, the authors provide a fascinating access to the inner workings of the American psyche. They analyze the phenomenon of "zeal" — the term itself is the biblical and cultural counterpart of the Islamic concept of "jihad" — and address such consequential topics as the conspiracy theory of evil, the problem of stereotyping enemies, the mystique of violence, the obsession with victory, and the worship of national symbols such as flags.
This critical book, however, is also immensely constructive. As Jewett and Lawrence point out, the same biblical tradition that allows for crusading mentalities also contains a critique of zealous warfare and a profound vision of impartial justice. This tradition of "prophetic realism" derives from the humane side of the biblical heritage, and the authors trace its manifestations within the American experience, including its supreme embodiment in Abraham Lincoln. Isaiah's "swords into plowshares" image is carved on the walls of the United Nations building, thus standing at the center of a globally focused civil religion. Grasping this vision honored by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike includes recognizing the dangers of zealous violence, the illusions of current crusading, and the promise of peaceful coexistence under international law.
Instructive, relevant, and urgent, "Captain America and the Crusade against Evil" is sure to provoke much soul-searching and wide debate.
Customer Reviews:
An unwanted common ground?.......2007-04-07
This is a book with many important points to make. Other reviewers have done a fine job, so I'll point out just a few.
OK, here's the disclaimer first. I am not saying we should not fight terrorism, nor am I denying that "jihad" is a term usually used in reference with making the "world of war" submit to the "world of Islam". That said, I still find the central points of this book very much worth considering, since it seems our nation's foreign policy is in some ways mirroring the jihadist's foreign policy.
The book's cases in point? OBL and Bush both have these commonalities in terms of foreign policy. One, both see God as blessing their worldviews. Two, both have enemies in grip of the devil (Great Satan is us for OBL, Iran etc and the Axis of Evil is OBL, NK, Iran, Iraq and everyone who doesn't help us). Three, victory is measured by killing or converting the Other. Thus four: violence is a means to do this, and God blesses it as in some way redemptive.
With much of the Republican Party being a wing of the conservative, pro-Israeli Christian movement (no longer interested in "Reaganesque" small government), Captain America is revived from the dusty pages of the comics to fly again, this time for the cause of God- are we not the city on the hill?
These and other points raised in the book should cause us to pause for a moment, and question both our real motives for our policies and to really think about their affect upon the rest of the world. This doesn't excuse terrorism's evil reality, but it may help us be more thoughtful in our response to the underlying causes of "why they hate us" so much, instead of a muscular, steroidal reaction which is actually playing right into the hands of the Islamist revolutionaries' playbook with a "see, I told you so" response leading to 1000 more OBLs.
Book review.......2006-07-04
Captain America and the Crusade against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism; Book Review
Extrapolation
September 22, 2004
No. 3, Vol. 45; Pg. 320; ISSN: 0014-5483
Kapell, Matthew
As I sit writing this, American troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of those troops have recently been implicated in the possible torture of Iraqi citizens and the President is quite sure that the decision to invade these two countries was the correct one.
I believe that the President should read Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil very carefully. (Assuming he reads, that is.)
Jewett and Lawrence have brought together some of their most powerful arguments from the previous book, The Myth of the American Superhero (see my review in Extrapolation, 44, 2: 247-249), and an excellent knowledge regarding American foreign policy to produce a book that, though written before the current conflict, seems almost prescient. The authors undertake this project by examining American popular culture as part of an American civil religion that has as its central theme that only America can redeem the world.
Jewett and Lawrence see American civil religion in comic books, television shows, films video games, political discourse and a host of other mediums. Their thesis is, as they put it, "to explain why America, in the wake of September 11, seems so proudly resolute about repeating the errors of the Cold War" (5). To do this they trace the American conception of itself though the repeated use of biblical language and rhetoric, holy war, crusades (against Native Americans, Communists, terrorists, Iraqis, you name it) through all of American culture. Obviously, this is a large-scale task and one that can only be accomplished through a strong central thesis and theme holding the entire project together. They use as their central metaphor for this American cultural belief the character of Captain America. For the authors, Captain America represents the American hero who comes in as a lone fighter for the American way, destroying the "evil doers" because it is so obvious who they are: the non-Americans. Repeated references to films such as the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises as well as other sf films make this a useful book for Extrapolation readers. Jewett and Lawrence have presented a thesis useful not only for understanding how Americans think, but how the classic representation of the hero (especially obvious in sf) is problematic in that it is antithetical to small-d democratic ideals. Jewett and Lawrence find the stories in popular media that Americans enjoy are too often centered around "a cool and reluctant killer willing to forsake love and law to rescue a decent life for the community" whose democratic institutions are incapable of working well enough to save itself (31). And, of course, this model is present in a host of sf works, and it is worthwhile to reflexively think about that.
But to accomplish this feat they must go back to the early days of the English colonies, noting the specific sense of mission that those early settlers had, and how those beliefs shaped the way we think about ourselves as a nation today. From Cotton Mather to Timothy McVeigh, from the nineteenth century frontier ideology that effectively destroyed so many Native American cultures, to the current so-called "war on terror" for Jewett and Lawrence all find themselves with a similar cultural, rhetorical and narrative structure. This structure is specifically Biblical in nature, and was transplanted to these shores by the Puritans. For the Puritans violence would be "redemptive, it would convert the world" (250). This violent tendency with American culture weaves its way through the developing cultures on the continent from that time until today, providing an ideal cultural justification for the destruction of other cultures, other nations, other ways of life.
I happen to collect old history textbooks. One that I have from the middle of the 1920s has as its final chapter title, "America Enters the Great War to Make the World Safe for Democracy." That title might do more to explain what Jewett and Lawrence are attempting to understand and explain than would anything I could put into this review. Captain America is a wide-ranging book, as you would expect from the authors. They have been working with this topic in one form or another since the 1970s, and it shows: they have a clear, clean style, and obvious mastery of their topic, and the willingness to explain their thesis in a variety of ways. Thus, the conquering of the American West is as an important topic of the Cold War, the first Gulf War, and September 11th. Their backgrounds are complimentary for this work as well. Jewett is a religious scholar teaching in the American Studies program at the University of Heidelberg, Lawrence an Emeritus professor of Philosophy from Morningside College. Thus Jewett brings a wonderful knowledge of Biblical texts and their interpretation by Colonists and, after the revolution, by Americans. His interpretation of the eschatological beliefs of the Puritans brings much to the text. Lawrence wonderfully traces the effects of such beliefs through the culture--especially popular culture--and its effects of the American philosophy of itself over time.
But in the final analysis what Jewett and Lawrence are trying to do is not disable the paradigm of American heroism, but only to modify it. It is, they write, "not an alien vision, though it is vastly different from the one America has recently been following" (314). In the end Jewett and Lawrence do see a shining city on a hill, there is no question of that. But it is a shining city that demands no war to build. It is a city of peace, where all are welcome, where individuals and groups can work through problems without resorting to the removal of democratic conditions. It is a city in which I would very much enjoy living.
Interesting.......2005-10-15
These two author's earlier work "The Myth of the American Superhero" explored the presentation of Justice as needing a redeemer figure replete with an arsenal of `righteous' weaponary and how this image has affected the US idea of politics. This earlier book represents the `secular' aspects. In "Captain America and the Crusade against Evil" Jewett and Lawrence show how this mindset coupled with the US's puritan backdrop has made this monomyth into a national obsession bearing all the hallmarks of Civil Religion (Civil that is unless you disagree with it)!
When I first heard the thesis of this book in a presentation by one of the authors my thoughts were dismissive. While the hegemony of the US is something I abhor for the thesis to work the US must be full (en masse) of some incredibly stupid and gullible people. After reading the first installment this impression remained. However, in this book, particularly in their discussion of the various forms of zeal, a more nuanced and convincing portrayal is offered. Even where people clearly don't believe the hype US foreign policy is locked into a mindset that cannot accept any inference of inferiority without the collapse of the American Ideal.
As such I found this book generally convincing and therefore extremely depressive. If the world social forum is correct in its hope that `another world is possible' this book makes clear that this is only with a radical re-assessment of the US self-understanding.
Interesting thesis.......2004-01-07
The idea of this book is that comic book superheros are an ideal character in how America solves its foreign policy crisis. The authors want to show that America feels that it has a do it alone mentality to save the world much like comic books.
The authors do not say that comic books make policy, but that they reflect American thoughts regarding its place in the world.
Overall, the authors present their thesis and give adequate material to back up their ideas. However, it seems at times that the superhero motif gets stretched thin. This book is interesting if one wishes to see how popular culture reflects that ideas of government and religious ideologies.
Book Description
The 1950s and 60s were times of extraordinary social and political change across North America that re-drew the boundaries between traditional and progressive, conservative and liberal. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the history of Catholic nuns. During these two decades, nuns boldly experimented with their role in the church, removing their habits, rejecting the cloister, and fighting for social justice. The media quickly took to their cause and dubbed them `the new nuns,' modern exemplars of liberated but sexually contained womanhood.
With Visual Habits, Rebecca Sullivan brings this unexamined history of nuns to the fore, revisiting the intersection of three distinct movements -- the Second Vatican Council, the second wave of feminism, and the sexual revolution -- to explore the pivotal role nuns played in revamping cultural expectations of femininity and feminism.
From The Nun's Story to The Flying Nun to The Singing Nun, nuns were a major presence in the mainstream media. Charting their evolving representation in film and television, popular music, magazines, and girls' literature, Sullivan discusses these images in the context of the period's seemingly unlimited potential for social change. In the process, she delivers a rich cultural analysis of a topic too long ignored.
Customer Reviews:
Cultural History of A/G.......2006-02-28
Blumhofer's analysis of pentecostalism and American culture is thoughtful and poignant and far outshines her historical work on the Assemblies of God, which is weighed down by over-attention to the 'Reformed' roots of the Assemblies of God, which in turn relies heavily on her dissertation at Harvard. This work is not intended as a history of pentecostalism but as a reflection of how pentecostals of one denomination related to the broader culture, and in this she is most insightful. Histories of pentecostalism tend to be narrowly defined within one denomination without reference to the larger culture, and Blumhofer's work here is a needed correction to this oversight. Perhaps the best cultural analysis is Grant Wacker's more recent Heaven Below, but that work relates to individual pentecostals and not to movements. Blumhofer's contribution here is highly readable and shows more balance than her earlier history, with helpful suggestions as to the direction classical pentecostalism ought to take in the future along with its critical understanding of the past.
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- Serious students of the Holidays phenomenon take note:
- America's values and conflicts as seen through Christmas.
- I read it in manuscript.Finally makes sense of American Xmas
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Christmas in America: A History
Penne L. Restad
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195109805 |
Book Description
The manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.
Customer Reviews:
Serious students of the Holidays phenomenon take note:.......2001-06-05
Restad knows her stuff and doesn't hesitate to engage controversial aspects of the season. This is part of an ongoing conversation, and should be read in dialogue with the (in my mind) better book, The Battle for Christmas by Nissenbaum. However, Restad's book is an excellent one for anyone who seeks to understand the "whys" of the cultural traditions that bombard us. As well as get some handle on the "hows" of doing things differently in your own life.
America's values and conflicts as seen through Christmas........1998-11-25
Author Penne Restad has written an excellent historical account of how the evolution of Christmas in America since colonial times parallels the evolution of the American collective mind. Going beyond the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, America's favorite holiday has been molded in the last 300 years by the idiosyncracies and anxieties of the American people, these being reflected, for example, in gift-giving customs, the use of evergreen trees, or more poignantly in the nation's portrayal of Santa Claus. I was truly fascinated with the wealth of information Ms. Restad presented in this serious, objective book. Think for a moment that Christmas was not observed universally in America until well into the nineteenth century, especially after the Civil War; before then, a rather lukewarm observance of the holiday was not public and basically was determined by religious and ethnic background (a reflection of the days when our country's idea of nationhood was still in its formative stage). The book also covers in detail the changes Christmas brought to the celebrations of Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Ms. Restad's narrative of our celebration of Christmas brings to light the complexities of the American psyche; we become enmeshed in conflicts between the sacred and profane, the spiritual and material (the celebration of Christmas in the antebellum South could not escape the dichotomy of freedom and slavery as well). Even as it prompts us to confront and come to terms with these conflicts, "Christmas in America: A History" also acknowledges the feeling of generosity, good will, and universal brotherhood the holiday inspires in us as a people; it is a work of great scholarship.
I read it in manuscript.Finally makes sense of American Xmas.......1995-08-28
This is a really accessible and entertaining book about the
holiday. Recommended very highly
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