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Joshua Wright - Comic Belief, Inbunden

Inbunden, Engelska, 2027

Comic Belief

How Religion Became a Laughing Matter in Modern America

Av Joshua Wright

1108 kr

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Beskrivning
How humor turns the spotlight on our changing religious landscapeIn modern America, religion is funny. Not only have skeptical comedians, from George Carlin to Sarah Silverman, lampooned hypocritical preachers and what they see as illogical doctrines, but many religious Americans have satirized unsavory aspects of their own traditions. In Comic Belief, Joshua Wright presents a surprising cultural and intellectual history of the changing relationship between religion and humor in the United States from the early 20th century to the present. The past century has seen both an explosion of commercial comedy and a significant transformation in the stature and shape of American Christianity. Comic Belief explores a wide range of characters and sources, from iconic stand-up comedians like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, to the evangelical humor magazine The Wittenburg Door, to films like Angels in the Outfield and Monty Python's Life of Brian.Wright reveals how both fervent critics and defenders of American Christianity have used comedy and satire to express a widespread, simmering discomfort with overly formal institutional religion. While humor has been instrumental in the rise of the religious "nones" and the "spiritual but not religious," it has also played an important though underexplored part in the story of the growth of conservative evangelicalism.Comprehensive and deeply engaging, Comic Belief provides a groundbreaking exploration of religion and humor over the last century.
Produktinformation
  • Utgivningsdatum: 2027-02-09
  • Mått: 152 x 229 x undefined mm
  • Format: Inbunden
  • Språk: Engelska
  • Antal sidor: 336
  • Förlag: New York University Press
  • ISBN: 9781479846481
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Joshua Wright is Assistant Professor of Religion at Hope College.

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"Beginning with the famous Billy Graham/Woody Allen televised encounter, historian Joshua Wright immerses us into the seemingly staid modern era of the church, when secular sarcasm assaulted institutional Christianity and sinners rediscovered the humor of Christ. Comic Belief answers the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila for the Lord to deliver us from gloomy saints, while chronicling the sacrilegious slings and arrows of secular critics. Wright superbly narrates the often controversial and comic leavening of Christian communities, when a contagious gift of laughter seemed to break out in a feast of comic spirituality, while brilliantly charting the innumerable slings and arrows of its acerbic comics. With incisive analysis and meticulous scholarship, Comic Belief proves provocative, sobering, and richly enjoyable, with some wonderful hilarity permeating throughout." - Terry Lindvall, author of God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert "All joking aside, comedy and parody are serious matters for understanding American religion. Wright offers an excellent history of these entanglements, full of vivid conjunctions (for starters, evangelist Oral Roberts going on Laugh-in or liberal Protestant defenders sanctifying Jewish stand-up Lenny Bruce). An important and entertaining book." - Leigh Eric Schmidt, author of Village Atheists: How American Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation

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