Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh

Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the title. Radosh is a secular Jew who becomes fascinated by the different aspects of Christian pop culture and spends some time exploring it. I first heard about the book in this post by Stephanie at Open Mind, Insert Book. Stephanie's review made me look and see if my library carried the book, which the did. I've since heard from several other trusted readers that they really enjoyed it. Looks like Stephanie has good taste!

Ok, enough of that, what's the book about? It's about Christian music, Christian fiction, Christian movies, superheros, wrestling (yes, really) and other forms of entertainment. Radosh is intent on figuring out just what makes some of them successful and some not. He goes to great pains to talk to artists and producers of various media to see if he can figure out their motivation. He explains the different tactics and beliefs- for example, is it Christian music because you sing about God, or is it Christian music because you yourself are Christian? For the most part he manages to present a fair, if skeptical, view of beliefs that are not his own. There were both moments that made me think about faith and what it means to me and moments where I felt he was making fun of the true believers. (And of the Left Behind series.) It was a fascinating book and one I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys reading about faith and/or enjoys memoirs/ non-fiction where the author embarks on a quest (think The Year of Living Biblically, Bonk, or Eat, Pray, Love.)

Most of the book is fairly light hearted and avoids big political agendas. In the very last chapter Radosh makes the point that by maintaining that Christian pop culture as something different, something to be kept separate, that we make it harder for Christians to come to the liberal side of thinking. That the secular world helps enforce the split between liberals and conservative Christians. Here, let him tell you, from page 306:

Our ignorance of Christian culture not only causes us to misunderstand, misinterpret, and mis judge our Christian neighbors, it also precludes our effectively challenging those aspects of Christian culture that may be properly judged as offensive. To the extent that we hope to change Christian culture, we have to understand and appreciate it. Think about the situation in reverse: Is there anything more ridiculous than a fundamentalist's rant about a TV show he's never seen?

Uh, Harry Potter, anyone?

I don't know if this makes me more likely to read Christian fiction, but it does make me think more open-mindedly (is that a word?) about it.

Do you read Christian fiction? What authors do you enjoy that you don't think would turn off a non-Christian? What about music? Are there any artists who inspire you without preaching? Have you attended a Passion Play? For years there was a permanent play in local Spearfish SD, called the Black Hills Passion Play, but it closed a year ago. If you haven't already weighed in on my Bible question, inspired by this book, please stop by and do so!


Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh
Scribner
2008
310 pages