Religion in Plain View: Public Aesthetics of American Display

Promey (Sensational Religion), a professor of religion at Yale, delivers an ambitious exploration of the public nature of religion in America. Locating an overlap between Christianity and capitalism, she traces how the rise of modern advertising in the late 18th and early 19th centuries collided with Christian evangelism to help shape a “testimonial aesthetics” that finds expression in public displays ranging from 45-foot-tall Christmas trees to “Got Jesus?” bumper stickers. Such forms of display seek to proclaim, promote, and—implicitly or explicitly—to convert viewers, she writes. Yet they also serve to conceal by occluding other identities, histories, and religions, positioning white Christianity as “the default American religion” and contributing to the formation of a “white Christian nation.” Promey expresses hope that the dominance of this Christian system of display might be exposed for its harms, though her reasons are vague and rely mostly on the notion that the presence of these designs might invite public conversation that could lead to the creation of more inclusive civic spaces. Though jargon-filled, Promey’s study of the ways in which power is mediated via material culture fascinates. Scholars of religion will want this on their bookshelves. (Nov.)