Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred

The United States is the world’s primary creator and exporter of popular mass culture and arguably one of the most religious countries in modern history. As a result, the coexistence of American religion with popular culture has created a fertile yet caustic environment for new religious belief structures, new texts, and new worldviews that are uniquely American. This work considers ways in which American television, advertising, music, and video games have played a significant role in creating, representing, and influencing contradictory religious identities. The authors examine three distinct segments of popular culture that “rescript the sacred,” including popular religious texts (e.g. the Christian fantasy novels of Frank Peretti), secular works that nonetheless reflect and influence popular religions (e.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and works that contain a central element of religious content but no clear didactic intent (e.g. The Da Vinci Code). Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Richard W. Santana is an associate professor of English at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He lives in Lyons, New York. Gregory Erickson is an associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at the Gallatin School of New York University, where he teaches courses on religion, literature and popular culture. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.