Bible-Carrying Christians

Abstract

This book focuses on the relationship between conservative Protestants and social power in the U.S. The book, which is particularly concerned with which sorts of power relationships seem natural and which do not, is based on fieldwork (conducted in the early 1990s), in three Philadelphia churches: Oak Grove Church, Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, and the Philadelphia Church of Christ. The data drawn from that fieldwork suggests that in the early 1990s, Bible‐carrying Christian churches tended to naturalize (to various degrees) the authority of heterosexuals and men. The data also suggested that under certain (relatively rare) circumstances Bible‐carrying Christian churches denaturalized the authority of ministers, corporations, and nation‐states.

Harry Potter and the Witch Hunters: A Social Context for the Attacks on Harry Potter

“…Why then, has Harry Potter been singled out for this subversive agenda, when all good children's books do precisely that? Perhaps because, again, he lives where we live, not in Narnia or Earthsea, but in London, on Privet Drive, a world in which it is becoming increasingly impossible to insulate children from unwanted influences, despite parental encouragement to, as David Watt says, “accept a certain set of teachings about what the world is like and about how people should live their lives” (27). Popular culture is everywhere: on television, at the mall, in magazines, on bus stop billboards, on 30‐foot giant lighted signs beside the freeway—Marlboro men and nearly naked models with come‐hither glances, increasingly frequently lettered in alphabets not our own, against a skyline marked with the domes of mosques, or the oak groves of dancing goddess worshippers.…”