The second of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book continues chronologically where the first left off. As with the first volume, this work focuses on the intersection of American history and popular religion and is intended as an introductory interpretive guide to major self-help figures and movements with origins in popular religious movements. This volume spans from Romanticism, the Gilded Age, and the history of Christian Science, with discussions of Mary Baker Patterson, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and Mary Baker Eddy, through Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Peale and Schuller, with the exception of Evangelist Billy Graham, constitute the public face of mainstream American Protestantism and bring this two-volume study to its conclusion in the second half of the 20th century.

This reference will serve as a valuable research tool for American religion and popular culture scholars. Together with the first volume, "Self-Help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture," these two meticulously researched volumes clearly define and present the broad scope of the self-help tradition as it pervades American culture and as it developed and was influenced by popular religion. An extensive bibliography is included.

One of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book focuses on early America, from the Protestant Ethic and Puritan New England through Revivialism and American Romanticism. The concept of self-help is a distinctive part of the American character of individualism. This volume provides an introductory interpretive guide to major self-help figures and movements with origins in popular religious movements. The opening chapter recounts the perspectives and conclusions of previous histories of American self-help and includes analyses of several important related works. The following chapters present a historical narrative that traces those junctures where American history and popular religion have reputedly and actually intersected. In surveying the historical and scholarly materials that depict the history of popular religion and self-help, this volume emphasizes the historiographical debates that shape the interpretation of the ideas and figures.

This reference will serve as a valuable research tool for American religion and popular culture scholars. Arranged chronologically, this volume discusses, in three major sections, the Protestant Ethic and Puritan New England; Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mather, and Individualism; and Revivalism, Religious Experience, and the birth of mental healing. An extensive bibliography is included.

"Religious" films don't tend to get much respect in Hollywood, but that doesn't mean that religion doesn't regularly find its way into the movies. In Beautiful Light Roy Anker seeks out the often-unnoticed connections between film and religion and shows how even movies that aren't overtly religious or Christian in their content can be filled with deep religious insights and spiritual meaning. Closely examining nine critically acclaimed films including Magnolia, The Apostle, American Gigolo, and M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake, Anker analyzes the ways in which these movies explore what it means to be human-and what it means, as human beings, to wrestle with an often unwieldy divine presence. Addressing questions of doubt and belief, despair and elation, hatred and love, Anker's work sheds "beautiful light" on some of Hollywood's most profound and memorable films.

Films have come to not only entertain modern minds but also inform and shape them. Many of the best cinematic works have profound religious elements -- some obvious, some more subtle. In "Catching Light Roy Anker examines nineteen popular films, showing how they convey a range of striking perspectives on the human encounter with God.

These selected films portray God showing up in different, surprising ways amid the messy circumstances of life. Anker looks closely at the plot of each film, especially at how characters, through their experiences, ultimately move "toward Light," toward recognition of a loving, redemptive deity.

The first section of "Catching Light looks at classic 1970s films that inspect personal, social, and cultural evil: "The Godfather trilogy, "Chinatown, and "The Deer Hunter. The second group of films depicts the ways and depths of specifically Christian notions of redemption: "Tender Mercies, The Mission, Places in the Heart, and "Babette's Feast. Some of the most successful films of our time have come as fairy-tale fantasies: the "Star Wars saga, "Superman, and three of Steven Spielberg's "lost boy" stories ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), each of which Anker interprets as a fable of search and redemption. The films in the last section of the book feature characters who, to their great surprise, are ambushed by a wholly unexpected God: "Grand Canyon, American Beauty, and "Three Colors: Blue.

In addition to focusing on the theological dimension of each film, Anker comments on its merits both as story and as cinema. Also included are sidebars that discuss each film's history andsignificance as well as the quality and special features of DVD editions. For anyone interested in the intersection of religion, art, and culture, "Catching Light offers a unique view of contemporary faith.

The authors offer an insightful analysis of the symbiotic relationship between the popular entertainment industry and America's youth, suggest principles for evaluating popular art and entertainment, and propose strategies for rebuilding strong local cultures in the face of global media giants.