BOOK REVIEW: Kitschy Christ?

Mr. Radosh is a mid-thirties, liberal, New York Jew who hadn't a clue about Christian pop culture (entertainment, leisure, shopping) and set out to expand his horizons in this area. What he came up with is a funny, frequently sarcastic, informative and hugely entertaining book.

Being a 51-year-old, agnostic, secular humanist (apparently in some circles, the bad guy), I understand quite a bit about American evangelicalism and how it historically evolved but I knew absolutely nothing about its insular pop culture. Mr. Radosh did a very good job covering many of these areas. The patrons of this stuff are almost exclusively white and fall into three sects. There are the traditionalists (fundamentalists), centrists and modernists. The author visits Christian trade shows, theme parks, book and magazine sales, gives a darned good assessment of the widely popular "Left Behind" book series, a superhero named Bibleman, Christian extreme skateboarding with Stephen Baldwin, rock music, raves (no kidding), comedians, pro wrestling (huh?), sex advice councelors, abstinence-only school programs and, finally, creationism and the quackery of Ken Ham's Creation Museum.

Mr. Radosh is correct when he states that insularity breeds intolerance and much of Christian pop culture lives within that bubble. The book reenforces my belief that bridging the gap between Fundamentalists and secular humanists is an absolutely lost cause. However, the author does see some postive signs in all this stuff because of the Christian centrists and modernists and gives a pretty convincing argument that the times are a changin'. I can only hope so. I highly recommend Mr. Radosh's book. I real eye-opener.

(Meyers - A few years ago, I started writing book reviews under the pseudonym Franklin the Mouse at Amazon's web site. This is my most recent review. #281)