Homespun Gospel: The Triumph of Sentimentality in Contemporary American Evangelicalism
2015; Oxford University Press; Volume: 76; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/socrel/srv017
ISSN1759-8818
Autores Tópico(s)Religion and Society Interactions
ResumoWhile some scholars have written insightfully on the effect of particular evangelical contexts, the field has lacked a broad analysis of the role of emotions in evangelicalism as a whole. Todd Brenneman's Homespun Gospel steps into this gap with admirable boldness, proposing nothing less than trying to rethink how we define the tradition. Brenneman characterizes American evangelicalism by its emphasis on sentiment, meaning soft, warm, and “syrupy sweet” emotions. He traces the historical development of this orientation to eighteenth-century Scottish Common Sense philosophers who grounded moral action in feelings of warmth and tenderness. These sentimental roots, Brenneman argues, fused with twentieth-century self-help culture to create “therapeutic evangelicalism” which frames Christianity around emotional soothing and psychological healing. Empirically, Brenneman concentrates foremost on the writings of three pastor-authors—Rick Warren, Max Lucado, and Joel Osteen—as exemplars of this trend, and whose success bespeaks a larger evangelical reality. He adds forays into cultural materials (e.g., early hymnody, contemporary Christian music, VeggieTales, the Left Behind series), and briefly discusses other figures to add modern scope (e.g., Joyce Meyer, T. D. Jakes) or historical narrative (e.g., Billy Sunday, Dwight Moody).
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