American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon
- ISBN-10
- 1466806052
- ISBN-13
- 9781466806054
- Category
- Religion
- Pages
- 376
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2004-09-18
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Author
- Stephen Prothero
Description
The Story of the Transformation of Jesus from Divinity to Celebrity The United States (it is often pointed out) is one of the most religious countries on earth, and most Americans belong to one Christian church or another. But as Stephen Prothero argues in American Jesus, many of the most interesting appraisals of Jesus have emerged outside the churches: in music, film, and popular culture; and among Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and people of no religion at all. Popular revisions of Jesus are nothing new: Thomas Jefferson famously took scissors to the New Testament to produce a Jesus he could call his own. In Prothero's incisive chronicle, the emergence of a cult of Jesus--as folk hero and commercial icon--is America's most distinctive contribution to Western religion. Prothero describes how Jesus was enlisted by abolitionists and Klansmen, by Teddy Roosevelt and Marcus Garvey. He explains how, in our own time, the proliferation of Jesus' image on Broadway stages and bumper stickers, on the cover of Time and on the Internet, in a Holy Land theme park and on a hot-air balloon, expresses the strange mix of the secular and the sacred in contemporary America. American Jesus is a lively and often witty work of history. As an account of the ways Americans have cast the carpenter from Nazareth in their own image, it is also an examination, through the looking glass, of the American character.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Il prescelto. American Jesus
By Mark Millar, Peter GrossIl prescelto. American Jesus
-
American Jesus Volume 2: The New Messiah
By Mark MillarAMERICAN JESUS returns with THE NEW MESSIAH.
-
The American Jesus?
By Douglas JohnsonCalvinist New England was influenced by the American concept of free will and personal responsibility, ... and stood for.5 As one would expect, he addressed the Unitarian rejection of the Trinity and of the two natures of Jesus Christ.
-
American Jesus Vol. 1: Chosen
By Mark Millar"CHOSEN.
-
Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession
By Richard W. FoxWhere else but America do people ask: What Would Jesus Do? What Would Jesus Drive? What Would Jesus Eat? "This book is for believers and non-believers alike.
-
American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen (New Edition)
By Mark MillarNEW EDITION CHOSEN.
-
Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment
By Prof. Mark OslerLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Osler, Mark William. Jesus on death row : the trial of Jesus and American capital punishment / Mark William Osler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
-
Chosen
By Mark MillarFrom the writer of the Universal hit, Wanted, comes his next graphic novel on the way to becoming a feature film! American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen follows a twelve-year-old boy who suddenly discovers he's returned as Jesus Christ.
-
Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion
By Bettye Collier-Thomas^17 /// effect, the WCFU: For information regarding Carrie Parks Johnson, see Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt Against ... Activities of women in church and civic groups are included in Dorothy C. Salem, To Better Our World: Black Women in ...
-
Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to "The Passion of the Christ"
By Stephen J. NicholsThey all influence the way we read the Gospels, adding distinctive color to the picture of Jesus that emerges. This bookis an attempt to unveil these pictures of Jesus in American evangelicalism, to tell the story of his American ...