With the much-anticipated Return of the King—the last of the three films based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book trilogy—due in theaters December 17, Lord of the Rings—related titles dominate the growing subcategory of books on religion and pop culture. Five new books ferret out spiritual meaning in the half-century-old epic, written by an Oxford University philologist who resisted allegorical interpretation of his Middle Earth universe despite his Catholic Christian beliefs. And while those five explore books made newly popular by movie adaptations, many other fall titles by academics and cultural critics prospect for a vein of theological significance everywhere from movies to music to TV to sports to the mall.
"The field of the study of religion has loosened up a bit and is not so tied to what we would call 'high' or 'elite' culture," says Gary Laderman, Emory University professor of American religious history and culture and chair of the pop culture section of the American Academy of Religion. "So you can study popular music or The Simpsons, and embedded in these pop culture forms of expression you can begin to see more serious considerations."
Following a trail blazed by scholars over the past few years, the newest books widen the path. "Popular culture is religion for a lot of people, and I think publishers are beginning to realize it," says Henry Carrigan, publisher at T&T Clark International, which in October released Reading the Gospels in the Dark: Portrayals of Jesus in Film by Robert Walsh under its Trinity Press International imprint. Walsh is a religion professor at Methodist College in Fayetteville, N.C. "Now that scholarly ground has been laid, I think publishers realize they can spread their wings a little bit," Carrigan adds.
Religion books that interpret film form the established core of this widening examination of pop culture. "In our very busy, overly hectic lives and society, people don't pause for any kind of contemplation or second thoughts about what's the meaning of life except in places like movie theaters," says Rodney Clapp, editorial director at Brazos Press. "At my church we have people who see films together and then talk about it."
Brazos is publishing Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings by Matthew Dickerson (Oct.), who teaches computer science at Middlebury College, as well as Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces: Putting God in Place by theologian Jon Pahl (Dec.). Clapp says a growing readership is interested in reflecting on popular culture, and younger readers in particular are less interested in compartmentalizing "religion" apart from their other interests. He and others publishing on the topic also say that the field of pop culture offers challenges when translating a phenomenon from screen or compact disc to page. There's a difference between the audience for a movie or concert and the readership for books about movies or music. "Most people who go to films don't necessarily read about them," says Carrigan at T&T Clark. "That's the challenge in writing about film."
Looking for What Lasts
Another challenge is sorting the transient from the transcendent. Westminster John Knox spotlights Tolkien for the newest volume of its The Gospel According to... series, The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth by Baylor University theology and literature professor Ralph Wood (Oct.). The book aims at fans of Tolkien's writings as well as newer ones drawn by the film adaptations. Things that are popular are not necessarily ephemeral, as Tolkien's enduring popularity proves. That's one hallmark of a pop culture subject that invites serious treatment.
"One of the things we've been very intentional about at Westminster John Knox is to make sure when we do a book in The Gospel According to... series is that it will endure, that it won't just capitalize on the latest fad in pop culture," says David Dobson, senior editor and product manager. Two years ago, WJK helped plow the ground with its The Gospel According to the Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family by journalist Mark Pinsky, which has sold more than 100,000 copies. That book followed, albeit by 35 years, The Gospel According to Peanuts by Robert L. Short, a 10-million-seller since its 1965 publication.
Dobson agrees with others that film is filled with subjects ripe for the writing "because it tends to endure more than TV." In that vein, WJK has Scripture on the Silver Screen by Adele Reinhartz (Oct.), who teaches religion and culture at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Dobson also has under contract The Gospel According to Disney by Simpsons author Pinsky, due in 2004, and the ambitious-sounding The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on the God Blessed, Christ Haunted Idea by cultural critic David Dark for spring 2005. The latter will range over popular music, fiction, film and TV as well as American symbolic expressions of patriotism.
Other fall Tolkien titles provide comparative or biographical context. Faith Journey Through Fantasy Lands: A Christian Dialogue with Harry Potter, Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings (Augsburg, Sept.) by Russell W. Dalton, who teaches at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, travels across three fantasy universes to find Christian themes and includes questions suitable for study group use. Frodo and Harry: Understanding Visual Media and Its Impact on Our Lives by media critics Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder (Crossway, Nov.) contrasts Tolkien's Christian setting with the occult world found in the Harry Potter series. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship by Colin Duriez (HiddenSpring, Nov.) offers biographical information about the two writers' relationship and mutual influence. Duriez also wrote Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle Earth (HiddenSpring, 2001) and appears as a commentator in the recently released DVD version of The Two Towers.
Tolkien rules this fall's pop culture titles; another religiously redolent, three-film hit with all the makings of a cult classic, The Matrix, is deconstructed in Beyond the Matrix: Revolutions and Revelations by pastoral counselor Stephen Faller (Chalice, Feb.). It offers a "distinctly Christian" analysis, according to marketing director Susie Burgess. The subtitle of How Movies Helped Save My Soul: Finding Spiritual Fingerprints in Culturally Significant Films by Northern Irish writer and critic Gareth Higgins (Relevant, Sept.) covers decades of films with cultural impact, right up to The Matrix. From Woody Allen to Seinfeld and beyond, Rabbi Elliot B. Gertel looks with Jewish eyes at film and TV to consider screen depictions of Jewish practices and beliefs in Over the Top Judaism: Precedents and Trends in the Depiction of Jewish Beliefs and Observances in Film and Television (Univ. Press of America, Sept.).
Beyond Film: Musical Genres
Yet the big and small screens are not the only pop culture media inviting serious consideration: pop music offers a jukebox of possibilities. "We look at mainstream culture through spiritually discerning eyes," says Cameron Strang, president and CEO of Relevant Media Group, which publishes books and Relevant magazine. "Groups like Creed, U2—their music reflects a spiritual search." The Lake Mary, Fla.-based publisher specializes in spiritual takes on "God, life, progressive culture"—the company's descriptive tag—that target 18- to 34-year-olds. "My generation grew up watching MTV and going to youth group at church," says Strang, 27, who heads a staff of 20-somethings at Relevant, founded in 2001.
Relevant is among several houses with books on the late country music icon Johnny Cash, whose diverse body of work is rife with religious themes. The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash by music writer Dave Urbanski "had been in the works for over a year and it so happened it was finished when he passed away," Strang says. The book was fast-tracked to publish before the November 5 Country Music Awards. Spinning the radio dial for music artists with intended or unintended religious concerns, Relevant also has great expectations for The Rock Cries Out: Discovering Eternal Truth in Unlikely Music by Northern Irish cultural critic Steve Stockman (Mar.), which winnows spiritual themes in the work of 13 musicians from the Beatles to Radiohead. Stockman's earlier book, Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 (2001), as well as The Gospel According to Tony Soprano (2002) by Chris Seay, pastor of an alternative church, are the house's top sellers. "The market wants these kind of titles," Strang says.
Also Cashing in is journalist Brian Mansfield, whose Ring of Fire (Rutledge Hill Press) comes out in November. The tribute book, with a CD of the famous title song, reminiscences from those who knew Cash and photos from official Grand Ole Opry photographer Les Leverett, was likewise moved up from spring publication. Country music as a whole gets scholarly treatment in Redneck Liberation: Country Music as Theology (Mercer Univ. Press, Sept.) by Shorter College religion professor David Fillingim, who studies the genre as a response to the central moral question of good and evil. "We think that this is going to be interesting not only to those who study religion and theology but to a trade audience," says marketing director Barbara Keene.
Another popular but ostensibly unlikely source of religious themes is unwrapped in Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music (NYU Press, Nov.) edited by Anthony Pinn, religious studies professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. Essays by a variety of authors scour rap and hip-hop's forceful prophetic voices for elements of African-American religious traditions from dominant Christianity to Islam and Rastafarianism. "Work in African-American studies is almost a model for many of us who want to think about kinds and forms of religious expression that appear in the popular realm but speak to deeper values," says Emory scholar Laderman
Beyond Entertainment
Other new books draw a bead on popular practices or topics outside the entertainment realm. Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero sweeps over the whole American understanding of Jesus Christ in the ambitious cultural history American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Dec.; starred PW review, Oct. 13). FSG is more closely associated with matters literary than theological, although it does publish the backlist of Flannery O'Connor and Thomas Merton and others with literary reputations; the house recently brought out the well-reviewed The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by FSG editor Paul Elie (Apr.). "We don't do religious books, but American Jesus falls under cultural studies more than religion," explains Elisabeth Calamari, FSG publicity director. "We come in the side door, so to speak."
Sports has long been acknowledged as an arena where idols can be worshipped and ritual enjoyed. Capitalizing on the 2004 setting of the Olympics in their historic birthplace of Greece, cultural historian and filmmaker Phil Cousineau analyzes mythic and spiritual aspects of the classic world sports games. The Olympic Odyssey: Rekindling the True Spirit of the Great Games (Quest, Nov.) presents stories behind well-known Olympic events and champions in examining human excellence and striving.
The whole cultural enchilada provides a feast of religious significance in several broad-ranging fall titles. A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture by Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor (Baker Academic, Nov.) is a guide to decoding film, music, fashion, art and other cultural expressions by two Hollywood insiders—a screenwriter and music producer—who are also Fuller Theological Seminary graduates. From the San Francisco epicenter of the countercultural quake that shook social and religious traditions, veteran religion journalist Don Lattin looks at the legacy of the '60s in American culture in Following Our Bliss: How the Spiritual Ideals of the Sixties Shape America Today (Harper San Francisco, Oct.) Another look at the '60s from a religion journalist is Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture by Mark Oppenheimer (Yale Univ. Press, Oct.), which examines the interplay between mainstream religion and countercultural influence.
What's next? Besides churches, temples and synagogues, people flock to concerts, films, sporting events, even NASCAR for cultural rituals Emory scholar Laderman says the field of religious studies is undergoing a healthy rejuvenation as its scope grows. "The big question for me is, 'What counts as religion?' " he asks. "More and more counts."
