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In a new piece for @RDispatches, I argue we should read fundamentalist fictions as a way to understand 'the scandal of the evangelical mind.’ Evangelical identity and knowledge circulate through storytelling – as with all other human groups. @SSHRC_CRSH /1 https://religiondispatches.org/fundamentalist-fiction-provides-a-window-into-the-evangelical-apocalyptic-worldview-thats-helped-bring-us-to-our-current-crisis/
Fundamentalist fictions are part of the vast alternate information ecosystem that white evangelicals have built up over the last century - conveying their sense that they are a besieged minority in an aggressively secular state. /2
The occasion is that I guest-edited a special journal issue dedicated to "Literature of / about the Christian Right.” I'm interviewed about the special issue here: @SSHRC_CRSH /3 https://www.press.jhu.edu/news/blog/jhu-press-journals-welcomes-christianity-literature
In my Introduction to the special issue, I argue that the current paradigm in rel&lit studies, the "postsecular," makes us not-see the Christian Right and its political power. We assume that 'real' religion can’t be about power, is always benevolent. /4 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752345
Happily, the special issue, like all @JHUPress periodicals, is currently open access. Let's run through the contents! @SSHRC_CRSH / 5 https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/42099
Starting with the strange: 1. @drewjakeprof analyzes the #GospelThriller, invented by an evangelical author whose novel featured a purported lost gospel that turned out to be a nefarious forgery intended to subvert Christianity. /6 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752350
2. Maggi Kamitsuka looks at evangelical romance prolife fiction by Francine Rivers, The Atonement Child, and how it circulates medically dubious ideas about the trauma of abortion. She brings receipts! /7 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752347
3. Ken Paradis follows, showing how some evangelicals learn to read the Bible for patterns and types: in another Rivers novel, characters must learn to understand their lives as previously modeled by a story in the Bible. /8 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752349
4. And where would evangelical fiction be without Frank Peretti, whose "fictional ministry" trains its male readers in spiritual warfare against liberal, secular society, according to Andrew Connolly. /9 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752348
5. The difference between fundamentalist fictions and serious literature is “epistemological certainty” writes Harold Bush, who investigates the persistence of the miraculous – and mystery. /10 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752351
6. @RayHorton814 has a tale of two Gileads - Margaret Atwood's and Marilynne Robinson's - and questions our seeming need to always historicize, always critique. He confesses: "Studying literature saved me from the Christian Right." /11 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752346
7. Capstone goes to the great Susan Harding, author of The Book of Jerry Falwell. She muses on the “secular narration” norms of anthropology and literary studies as they make religious claims legible – as culture. /12 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752352
That’s it! Except for a suite of great poems and book reviews. Including, coincidentally, a review of my own If God Meant to Interfere: American Literature and the Rise of the Christian Right. /13 ~Finis https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752363
