Journal of Religion and Popular Culture最新文献

{"title":"God Rock, Inc.: The Business of Niche Music by Andrew Mall (review)","authors":"Paul A. Anthony","doi":"10.3138/jrpc.2021-0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2021-0050","url":null,"abstract":"In the summer of 1983, the rock band Petra was riding high, selling out larger venues than ever on the concert tour supporting their blockbuster LP, More Power to Ya. With its catchy guitar licks, soaring vocals, and slick concert performances, Petra—the Greek word for “rock”—fit comfortably within the musical milieu pioneered by such contemporary giants as Kansas and Foreigner. However, unlike those better-known bands, that summer Petra also released the first issue of a newsletter with the headline, “Arming Ourselves for Spiritual Battle,” printed below an illustration of a teen boy in a futuristic space suit, holding a sword and shield as he blocked a laser blast. As the masthead proclaimed, the publisher was Petra Ministries. The very phrase “Petra Ministries” reads like a non sequitur outside the world of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM), but within it, the marriage of music and ministry is assumed, even if the appropriate balance between the two is contested. Although most rock bands will never publish a Bible study on spiritual warfare, musicologist Andrew Mall argues in God Rock, Inc.: The Business of Niche Music that the underlying tension between subcultural ethics and musical aesthetics among CCM artists can serve as a useful case study for niche markets generally. Markets, according to Mall, are those “spaces in which the interactions of musicians, listeners, and cultural intermediaries . . . are grounded in the production and consumption of music” (3). While scholars in religious studies, cultural studies, and music history increasingly have found CCM a worthy area of research, none thus far has focused so strongly on the market itself and its influence on the artists who seek to conquer or transcend it. God Rock, Inc. pursues this argument in two main parts: The first four chapters focus on the CCM industry and its history, and the final three chapters analyze the tension between ministry and industry. The book also includes illustrations and four appendices that provide crucial contextual detail, as well as—in a fun twist—Spotify playlists of the songs and albums Mall discusses. God Rock, Inc. begins its story with the 1960s Jesus People movement that eventually birthed CCM. As Mall shows, artists almost immediately struggled to balance sacrificial ministry with seeking the profits that would allow their ministry’s expansion, sometimes adjusting lyrical content to reach audiences outside of the Christian market, adjusting musical styles to enhance radio airplay opportunities, or both. This “double marginalization,” in Mall’s words— too Christian for the mainstream, too mainstream for the Christians (16)—was unique to the formative decades of CCM. A prime example of attempting to overcome this dynamic, which Mall analyzes in Chapter 4, “Find a Way,” is Amy Grant’s infamous crossover into the general pop market from 1985–91. Grant, who for a decade had been touted as the Christian alternative to mainstream pop artists such as Madon","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"35 1","pages":"52 - 53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48497040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Watching Movies in Jonestown: A Cultural Interlocutor Approach to Visual Media and New Religions","authors":"Kristian Klippenstein","doi":"10.3138/jrpc.2020-0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2020-0027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article argues that new religious movements (NRMs) develop as cultural interlocutors. As emergent social bodies that respond to extant norms, structures, and values, NRMs can deploy cultural products as a shared vocabulary and grammar in their response to surrounding society. To demonstrate this approach's ability to parse NRMs' relations to popular culture while highlighting organizationally distinctive dimensions of such interactions, this article examines Jim Jones's references to visual media shown in Jonestown in 1978. Jones critiqued movies and television as tools of social control, repurposed documentaries and films as evidence to support his proffered doctrine, and creatively presented movies as analogues of the commune's perceived challenges. This threefold hermeneutic shaped the Peoples Temple's beliefs and behavior, as well as its own media productions.","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"34 1","pages":"53 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49209103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prayers for Ancestors, Spirits, and Gods: Focusing on the ritual combination of divine beings","authors":"I. Sim","doi":"10.46263/rc.41.4.","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46263/rc.41.4.","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83112694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Study on Korean Divinatory Prose-poetry: Transition and Development from Ch?ng’s Predictions to Divinatory Prose-poetry","authors":"Byoung Hoon Park","doi":"10.46263/rc.41.1.","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46263/rc.41.1.","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80072571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Religions of the Other Represented in the Novels of Annie L. A. Baird","authors":"Won-il Bhang","doi":"10.46263/rc.41.3.","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46263/rc.41.3.","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"29 6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88346072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Study on the Theory of the Ascension to the Throne of Cha Kyung-seok in the 1920s","authors":"Ingyu Park","doi":"10.46263/rc.41.2.","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46263/rc.41.2.","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83233461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What can Orthodox Christianity Learn from Postmodernism?: Merold Westphal’s Hermeneutics of Finitude and His Own Appropriation of Postmodernism to Religion","authors":"Dongkyu Kim","doi":"10.46263/rc.41.6.","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46263/rc.41.6.","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75354079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Liberal Prepping as Apocalyptic Eco-Religion","authors":"Juli L. Gittinger, William S. Chavez, Shyam K. Sriram, Ewan Bowlby, David Tuipulotu-Tuinukuafe, P. Anthony","doi":"10.3138/jrpc.2020-0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2020-0026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The term \"prepper\" or \"survivalist\" has long been associated with more conservative or politically right-leaning communities who have operated at the fringe of society for decades. Since the new millennium, this hobby of preparedness has increased and, most recently, shown a rise among liberal or left-leaning communities. This essay addresses the rise in liberal prepper culture not only as a political response to right-wing politics, but as a fear heightened by the realities of climate change and its impact on humanity, thus creating an eco-religion centred on ethical and moral responsibilities, with an overall apocalyptic hue.","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"35 1","pages":"1 - 20 - 21 - 35 - 36 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46607637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Religion and Media in America","authors":"Karlin Andersen","doi":"10.3138/jrpc.2020-0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2020-0053","url":null,"abstract":"From the fight over the addition of God to the Pledge of Allegiance to religious satire on late night television, Anthony Hatcher argues in Religion and Media in America that American media, popular culture, and Christianity are inextricably linked by their history, development, and mutual impact on one another. While the book’s title and introduction promise a history and examination of the deep ties between American media and religion, the book discusses a range of cultural artifacts and focuses solely on Christianity.","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"1 1","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69366114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Starstruck in the Promised Land: How the Arts Shaped American Passions About Israel by Shalom Goldman (review)","authors":"D. Levy","doi":"10.3138/jrpc.2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"This excellent cultural history of the special evolving relationship between the arts in the US and Israel, including music, theatre, dance, film, literature, and television is a tour de force. It shows how the role of artists’ relationships to Israel has influenced how Americans often perceive Israel. These intertwined cultural histories of the US and Israel have shaped one another and destined Israel’s image. Books, films, TV, and music have played a significant role in forming American public views of Israel by depictions with subthemes of socialism, imperialism, racial justice, and Christian missionary efforts. A strength of the book is that Goldman, in the process of writing an outstanding cultural history, reveals much knowledge in areas of political science, historical background of the Middle East, foreign policy and diplomacy, Israeli public relations, Israel’s perceived international image, and world religious history. The book superbly shows how American cultural forces in the performing arts are part of the process of the American-Israeli story that is the most consequential international alliance. While much has been written about the diplomatic, military, and religious aspects of the relationship between the US and Israel, Goldman reveals that the mediating role of the power of the arts has shaped and destined the US-Israeli special relationship of the world stage. Goldman demonstrates how American artists who have journeyed to Israel to perform, lecture, and rivet fans have not only expressed but influenced the American special relationship with Israel. The wide scope, not only chronologically but for its far-ranging noetic ken, that incorporates a wide net to help understanding of the special relationship Israel has with the US, is refreshing to see in an age of narrow academic specialization. While containing many important details, it does not lose sight of the forest for the trees and traces broad general trends. A second strength is Goldman’s piercing analytic penetration that brings to light the leftright political divisions that form a subconscious background to historical unfoldings since the foundation of the United States. With this analytical penetration, Goldman is able to demonstrate that Christian support for Israel—primarily amongst Protestants, and to a lesser degree amongst Catholics—was and remains the central and determining part of Israel’s establishment, support, and growth, founded on the central place of reading the world’s destiny and fate into the Bible through Christian interpretation of Biblical prophecy. Recently this Christian Right has played a role in support of moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, scrapping the Obama-era US-Iran Deal, and recognizing that Judea and Samaria are not illegal but the rightful borders of Israel as described in the reigns of King David and Solomon. Thirdly, Goldman is able to focus and identify clear turning points in US-Israeli relations through the political sea cha","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":"34 1","pages":"75 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42362910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}