{"product_id":"the-book-of-jerry-falwell-fundamentalist-language-and-politics","title":"The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics.","description":"\u003cp\u003eNational polls show that approximately 50 million adult Americans are born-again Christians. Yet most Americans see their culture as secular  and the United States is viewed around the world as a secular nation. Further  intellectuals and journalists often portray born-again Christians  despite their numbers  as outsiders who endanger public life. But is American culture really so neatly split between the religious and the secular? Is America as \"modern\" and is born-again Christian religious belief as \"pre-modern\" as many think?  In the 1980s  born-again Christians burst into the political arena with stunning force. Gone was the image of \"old-fashioned\" fundamentalism and its anti-worldly  separatist philosophy. Under the leadership of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and allied preachers  millions broke taboos in place since the Scopes trial constraining their interaction with the public world. They claimed new cultural territory and refashioned themselves in the public arena. Here was a dynamic body of activists with an evangelical vision of social justice  organized under the rubric of the \"Moral Majority.\"  Susan Harding  a cultural anthropologist  set out in the 1980s to understand the significance of this new cultural movement. The result  this long-awaited book  presents the most original and thorough examination of Christian fundamentalism to date. Falwell and his co-pastors were the pivotal figures in the movement. It is on them that Harding focuses  and  in particular  their use of the Bibles language. She argues that this language is the medium through which born-again Christians  individual and collective  come to understand themselves as Christians. And it is inside this language that much of the born-again movement took place. Preachers like Falwell command a Bible-based poetics of great complexity  variety  creativity  and force  and  with it  attempt to mold their churches into living testaments of the Bible. Harding focuses on the words--sermons  speeches  books  audiotapes  and television broadcasts--of individual preachers  particularly Falwell  as they rewrote their Bible-based tradition to include  rather than exclude  intense worldly engagement. As a result of these efforts  born-again Christians recast themselves as a people not separated from but engaged in making history. The Book of Jerry Falwell is a fascinating work of cultural analysis  a rare account that takes fundamentalist Christianity on its own terms and deepens our understanding of both religion and the modern world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44949617082421,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691059896","price":72.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691059891.jpg?v=1770083876","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-book-of-jerry-falwell-fundamentalist-language-and-politics","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}