Shaking the World for Jesus

by Heather Hendershot

• ISBN13: 9780226326795
• ISBN10: 0226326799
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

In 1999, the Reverend Jerry Falwell outed Tinky-Winky, the purple character from TV'sTeletubbies. Events such as this reinforced in many quarters the common idea that evangelicals are reactionary, out of touch, and just plain paranoid. But reducing evangelicals to such caricatures does not help us understand their true spiritual and political agendas and the means they use to advance them.Shaking the World for Jesusmoves beyond sensationalism to consider how the evangelical movement has effectively targeted Americans--as both converts and consumers--since the 1970s. Thousands of products promoting the Christian faith are sold to millions of consumers each year through the Web, mail order catalogs, and even national chains such as Kmart and Wal-Mart. Heather Hendershot explores in this book the vast industry of film, video, magazines, and kitsch that evangelicals use to spread their message. Focusing on the center of conservative evangelical culture--the white, middle-class Americans who can afford to buy "Christian lifestyle" products--she examines the industrial history of evangelist media, the curious subtleties of the products themselves, and their success in the religious and secular marketplace. To garner a wider audience, Hendershot argues, evangelicals have had to carefully temper their message. But in so doing, they have painted themselves into a corner. In the postwar years, evangelical media wore the message of salvation on its sleeve, but as the evangelical media industry has grown, many of its most popular products have been those with heavily diluted Christian messages. In the eyes of many followers, the evangelicals who purvey such products are sellouts--hucksters more interested in making money than spreading the word of God. Working to understand evangelicalism rather than pass judgment on it,Shaking the World for Jesusoffers a penetrating glimpse into a thriving religious phenomenon.

Author Biography

Heather Hendershot is associate professor in the media studies department at Queens College, City University of New York. She is the author of Saturday Morning Censors: Television Censorship before the V-Chip and editor of Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America's Only TV Channel for Kids.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(16)
PART ONE COMMODIFICATION
1 For-Profit Prophets: Christian Cultural Products and the Selling of Jesus	17	(35)
2 Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? Christian Music and the Secular Marketplace	52	(35)
PART TWO SEXUALITY
3 Virgins for Jesus: The Gender Politics of Therapeutic Christian Media	87	(27)
4 Holiness Codes and Holy Homosexuals: Interpreting Gay and Lesbian Christian Subculture	114	(31)
PART THREE FILMMAKING
5 Putting God under the Microscope: The Moody Institute of Science's Cinema of Devotion	145	(31)
6 Praying for the End of the World: The Past, Present, and Future of Christian Apocalyptic Media	176	(34)
Conclusion: The End Is Near	210	(5)
Notes	215	(24)
Bibliography	239	(10)
Index	249