Description
Book SynopsisGod, as depicted in popular evangelical literature, is loving and friendly, described in heartfelt, often saccharine prose evocative of nostalgia, comfortable domesticity, and familial love. This emotional appeal is a widely-adopted strategy of the writers most popular among American evangelicals, including such high-profile pastors as Max Lucado, Rick Warren, and Joel Osteen. Todd M. Brenneman offers an in-depth examination of this previously unexplored aspect of American evangelical identity: sentimentality, which aims to produce an emotional response by appealing to readers'' notions of familial relationships, superimposed on their relationship with God. Brenneman argues that evangelicals use sentimentality to establish authority in the public sphere--authority that is, by its emotional nature, unassailable by rational investigation. Evangelicals also deploy sentimentality to try to bring about change in society, though, as Brenneman shows, the sentimental focus on individual emotio
Trade ReviewHomespun Gospel is a nuanced and thought-provoking work... Recommended. * CHOICE *
Homespun Gospel is an insightful work that encourages us to rethink, and re-feel, evangelicalism. It should stimulate and provoke a great many conversations to come. * Brian Carwana, Sociology of Religion. *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ; Introduction ; 1. God's in the Business of Giving Mulligans: Sentimentality and Therapeutic Culture ; 2. You Are Special: The Anti-Intellectualism of Sentimental Evangelicalism ; 3. "New York Times Best-Selling Author": Christian Media and the Marketing of Sentiment ; 4. America Looks Up: Sentimentality, Politics, and American Evangelicalism ; Conclusion ; Notes ; Index
