The commercialization of religion, discussed in a detailed
historical survey that is also a critique of American religiosity.
When Bruce Barton stated in the 1920's that Christ picked up 12 men
from the bottom rungs of business and forged them into an
organization that conquered the world, he was expressing a
particularly American attitude toward religion. Here, Moore
(History/Cornell; Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans,
1986, etc.) attempts to trace its evolution from Independence to
the present day. He believes that its origin lies in the First
Amendment's rejection of an established church and the consequent
need for religions to seek popular appeal in order to survive.
Beginning with the challenge of the theater and the cheap novel in
the country's early years, Moore shows how preachers agonized
between condemnation of the growing popular culture and the idea
that it could be used for religious purposes: the latter approach
inevitably won, and religious leaders adapted all too successfully
to the demands of the marketplace. The author takes us through such
movements as Spiritualism, Mormonism, Chautauqua, the Jubilee
singers, and New Age. We learn that Central Park was designed to
induce "orderly and contemplative habits" among New York's poor and
that the graham cracker was part of a health program for spiritual
uplift. Moore observes that the preachers had a big problem with
the imagination and stipulated that recreation needed to have a
serious moral purpose. The religion that emerged was soft on dogma
and emphasized feeling good, with revival meetings taking the place
of European carnivals or modern rock concerts. Moore writes with
sardonic wit as he describes the image of Christ as a Rotarian, and
argues that commercialization is simply the American form of
involvement with the "secular" - and that if it strips religion of
its prophetic power, at least it spares us the strife of such
places as Ireland, Bosnia, and India. Likely to appeal to social
historians and cynics everywhere. (Kirkus Reviews)
This keenly intelligent and entertaining book provides a history of religion in America as it appropriated (and was appropriated by) commercial culture. The author reveals the centrality of religion, and the marketplace, in American popular culture.
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