Erin A. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469621326
- eISBN:
- 9781469621340
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469621326.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the field of religious publishing in the 1970s and early 1980s by focusing on Hal Lindsey and C. C. Carlson's The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), a layperson's guide to ...
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This chapter examines the field of religious publishing in the 1970s and early 1980s by focusing on Hal Lindsey and C. C. Carlson's The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), a layperson's guide to end-times prophecy, and placing it in its evangelical cultures of letters. Drawing on coverage of religious books in Publishers Weekly and in the religious periodicals Christian Century (liberal Protestant) and Christianity Today (evangelical), it considers how The Late Great Planet Earth became a blockbuster bestseller through its accessible, engaging presentation free of esoteric theology and difficult religious jargon; its appeal to a new, nondenominational youth audience; and its innovative marketing. It also looks at the controversy surrounding the non-inclusion of The Late Great Planet Earth in any bestseller list—despite the fact that it was the best-selling book of the 1970s—because it sold primarily through Christian bookstores.Less
This chapter examines the field of religious publishing in the 1970s and early 1980s by focusing on Hal Lindsey and C. C. Carlson's The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), a layperson's guide to end-times prophecy, and placing it in its evangelical cultures of letters. Drawing on coverage of religious books in Publishers Weekly and in the religious periodicals Christian Century (liberal Protestant) and Christianity Today (evangelical), it considers how The Late Great Planet Earth became a blockbuster bestseller through its accessible, engaging presentation free of esoteric theology and difficult religious jargon; its appeal to a new, nondenominational youth audience; and its innovative marketing. It also looks at the controversy surrounding the non-inclusion of The Late Great Planet Earth in any bestseller list—despite the fact that it was the best-selling book of the 1970s—because it sold primarily through Christian bookstores.
Beth Barton Schweiger
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190468910
- eISBN:
- 9780190468958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190468910.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society, Biblical Studies
This chapter considers how a growing taste for poetry changed how readers understood the Bible. Literary sensibilities in the nineteenth century are usually associated with a small coterie of ...
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This chapter considers how a growing taste for poetry changed how readers understood the Bible. Literary sensibilities in the nineteenth century are usually associated with a small coterie of northeastern liberal Protestants. But fascination with poetry and literature flourished among Protestant readers far beyond the confines of liberal Boston. Poetry featured in popular print of all kinds, including religious periodicals, annuals, hymnbooks, and almanacs. This chapter describes the popularity of poetry; the influence of eighteenth-century scholarship, especially the work of Robert Lowth, that argued that the Bible was full of poetry; and the widespread use of the Bible as a subject in the poetry of Felicia Hemans and William Cowper. Considering the popularity of poetry opens an alternative narrative of Christianity in the early United States, which has been examined primarily in the contexts of revival and reform, politics, and theology.Less
This chapter considers how a growing taste for poetry changed how readers understood the Bible. Literary sensibilities in the nineteenth century are usually associated with a small coterie of northeastern liberal Protestants. But fascination with poetry and literature flourished among Protestant readers far beyond the confines of liberal Boston. Poetry featured in popular print of all kinds, including religious periodicals, annuals, hymnbooks, and almanacs. This chapter describes the popularity of poetry; the influence of eighteenth-century scholarship, especially the work of Robert Lowth, that argued that the Bible was full of poetry; and the widespread use of the Bible as a subject in the poetry of Felicia Hemans and William Cowper. Considering the popularity of poetry opens an alternative narrative of Christianity in the early United States, which has been examined primarily in the contexts of revival and reform, politics, and theology.
Sarah E. Ruble
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835814
- eISBN:
- 9781469601601
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837429_ruble
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
In the decades after World War II, Protestant missionaries abroad were a topic of vigorous public debate. From religious periodicals and Sunday sermons to novels and anthropological monographs, ...
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In the decades after World War II, Protestant missionaries abroad were a topic of vigorous public debate. From religious periodicals and Sunday sermons to novels and anthropological monographs, public conversations about missionaries followed a powerful yet paradoxical line of reasoning, namely that people abroad needed greater autonomy from U.S. power and that Americans could best tell others how to use their freedom. This book traces and analyzes these public discussions about what it meant for Americans abroad to be good world citizens, placing them firmly in the context of the United States' postwar global dominance. Bringing together a wide range of sources, it seeks to show how discussions about a relatively small group of Americans working abroad became part of a much larger cultural conversation. The author concludes that whether viewed as champions of nationalist revolutions or propagators of the gospel of capitalism, missionaries—along with their supporters, interpreters, and critics—ultimately both challenged and reinforced a rhetoric of exceptionalism that made Americans the judges of what was good for the rest of the world.Less
In the decades after World War II, Protestant missionaries abroad were a topic of vigorous public debate. From religious periodicals and Sunday sermons to novels and anthropological monographs, public conversations about missionaries followed a powerful yet paradoxical line of reasoning, namely that people abroad needed greater autonomy from U.S. power and that Americans could best tell others how to use their freedom. This book traces and analyzes these public discussions about what it meant for Americans abroad to be good world citizens, placing them firmly in the context of the United States' postwar global dominance. Bringing together a wide range of sources, it seeks to show how discussions about a relatively small group of Americans working abroad became part of a much larger cultural conversation. The author concludes that whether viewed as champions of nationalist revolutions or propagators of the gospel of capitalism, missionaries—along with their supporters, interpreters, and critics—ultimately both challenged and reinforced a rhetoric of exceptionalism that made Americans the judges of what was good for the rest of the world.
