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Popular religion rarely expresses itself in the artifacts of high culture. In this book, Lippy approaches the study of popular religion by asking how ordinary people have gone about the process of being religious in America. Along the way, he examines popular religious periodicals, newspapers, novels, diaries, devotional materials, hymnals, promotional materials for revivals and camp meetings, religious tracts, as well as vernacular art and architecture, other artifacts, and, especially in the 20th century, radio, film, and television. He avoids the traditional focus on religious movements and institutions, choosing instead to illuminate the cultural impact of what people in America think and do when they are being religious by highlighting aspects of private life.
List of contents
Preface
What Is Popular Religion?
Popular Religiosity in Early Colonial America
Popular Religiosity in the Age of Awakening and Revolution
The Flourishing of Popular Religiosity in Antebellum America
Challenge and Change in Traditional Religion: Nurturing Popular Religiosity in the Later Nineteenth Century
Popular Culture and Popular Movements: Advancing Popular Religiosity in the Later Nineteenth Century
Into the Twentieth Century: Popular Religiosity in the Age of World Wars
After the War: Popular Religiosity and Cultural Currents in the Later Twentieth Century
Toward the Twenty-First Century: The Interplay of Popular Culture and Popular Religiosity
Select Bibliography
Index
About the author
Charles H. Lippy is LeRoy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is author or editor of Pluralism Comes of Age: American Religious Culture in the Twentieth Century, Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States (Greenwood), Christianity Comes to the Americas, 1492-1776, Twentieth-Century Shapers of American Popular Religion (Greenwood), Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience, and other titles.
