How is religion portrayed on prime time entertainment television and what effect does this have on our society? This book brings together the opinions of all the important factions involved in this important public policy debate, including religious figures (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Freethinkers—liberal and conservative), academics, media critics and journalists, and representatives of the entertainment industry. The debate provides contrasting views on how much and what type of religion should be on entertainment television and what relationship this has with the health of our society. Many contributors also offer strategies for how to reform the present situation. This is an important work that delineates the debate for the layperson as well as researchers, scholars, and policymakers.

This book examines the text of the CW network television series Supernatural, a program based in the horror genre that offers viewers myriad religious-based antagonists, through the portrayals of monsters which its two main characters “hunt” and destroy, as well as storylines based in the Bible. Even as the series’ producers claim a non-religious perspective, we contend that story arcs and outcomes of episodes actually forward a hegemonic portrayal of Christianity that portrays a good-versus-evil motif regarding the superiority of Christianity. The depiction of its protagonist brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester of Lawrence, Kansas, forwards a pro-American perspective to a more generalized fight against evil in contemporary times.

This contributed two-volume work tackles a fascinating topic: how and why God plays a central role in the modern world and profoundly influences politics, art, culture, and our moral reflection—even for nonbelievers. God—in the many ways that people around the globe conceptualize Him, Her, or It—is one of the most powerful, divisive, unifying, and creative elements of human culture. The two volumes of God and Popular Culture: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Entertainment Industry's Most Influential Figure provide readers with a balanced and accessible analysis of this fascinating topic that allows anyone who appreciates any art, music, television, film, and other forms of entertainment to have a new perspective on a favorite song or movie. Written by a collective of both believers and nonbelievers, the essays enable both nonreligious individuals and those who are spiritually guided to consider how culture approaches and has appropriated God to reveal truths about humanity and society. The book discusses the intersections of God with film, television, sports, politics, commerce, and popular culture, thereby documenting how the ongoing messages and conversations about God that occur among the general population also occur within the context of the entertainment that we as members of society consume—often without our recognition of the discussion.

For decades now, Americans have believed that their country is deeply divided by “culture wars” waged between religious conservatives and secular liberals. In most instances, Protestant conservatives have been cast as the instigators of such warfare, while religious liberals have been largely ignored. In this book, L. Benjamin Rolsky examines the ways in which American liberalism has helped shape cultural conflict since the 1970s through the story of how television writer and producer Norman Lear galvanized the religious left into action. The creator of comedies such as All in the Family and Maude, Lear was spurred to found the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way in response to the rise of the religious right. Rolsky offers engaged readings of Lear’s iconic sitcoms and published writings, considering them as an expression of what he calls the spiritual politics of the religious left. He shows how prime-time television became a focus of political dispute and demonstrates how Lear’s emergence as an interfaith activist catalyzed ecumenical Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who were determined to push back against conservatism’s ascent. Rolsky concludes that Lear’s political involvement exemplified religious liberals’ commitment to engaging politics on explicitly moral grounds in defense of what they saw as the public interest. An interdisciplinary analysis of the definitive cultural clashes of our fractious times, The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left foregrounds the foundational roles played by popular culture, television, and media in America’s religious history.

Education is about learning to think. Much of what we call thinking, however, is a hodge-podge of repetitious self-talk, opinion, and cutting and pasting of second-hand ideas. Moreover, thinking in the present has often been alien to scholars who were tempted to think abstractly. But life and thought belong together and require each other, as Plotinus pointed out many centuries ago: [T]he object of contemplation is living and life, and the two together are one (Ennead 3.8.8). Presently, many women and men in the academic world are thinking concretely within the context of their own lives and with acknowledged accountability to broader communities with whom they think and to whom they are answerable. The essays in this volume consider Christianity as an aspect of North American culture, bringing the critical tools of the academy to thinking about some of the perplexing and pressing problems of contemporary public life. Three interactive and interdependent themes traverse these essays: gender, the effects of media culture, and institutions. Each of these themes has been central to Margaret Miles's work for thirty years. Each understands corporeality as fundamental both to subjectivity and society. Miles finds that Christianity, critically appropriated, provides ideas and methods for thinking concretely about life in North American society.

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION: “A solid introduction to the dialogue between the disciplines of cultural studies and religion…. A substantive foundation for subsequent exploration.”—Religious Studies Review “A splendid collection of lively essays by fourteen scholars dealing with religion and popular culture on the contemporary American scene.”—Choice