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"Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America"

By Colleen McDannell (Yale University Press, 313 pp.; $35, hardcover).

This is an excellent book to give to people who are embarrassed by popular Christian culture. But we need to be sure they do not just turn the pages. This volume is lavishly illustrated--153 pictures in all--and there is plenty here for the cultured despisers of popular religion to roll their eyes at: Sallman's head of Christ, embroidered Bible covers, bumper stickers, wall posters, Victorian-era cemetery sculpture, Infant of Prague statues, and red baseball caps with "Jesus Christ--He's the real thing" inscribed in white Coke-type lettering. The critics of such artifacts need to do more than look at the pictures, though; it is important that they actually read Colleen McDannell's fascinating and insightful discussion of these objects.

Professor McDannell teaches religious studies and American history at the University of Utah, and she has a special interest in the study of "material culture." This area of academic inquiry, which has gained in prominence during the past few decades, focuses on the cultural significance of human artifacts. As McDannell puts it, she is interested in the fact that "the products of human skill and imagination embody and symbolize patterns of beliefs, social needs, and behavior." And she is especially concerned to ascertain what meanings the objects in question actually have in the day-to-day lives of human beings. Why do ordinary Christians wear T-shirts that display eschatological slogans and write their grocery lists with Scripture-text pencils?

Material culture specialists tend to see their work as a corrective activity. They are convinced that approaches to popular culture systematically distort the reality they are studying when they fail to attend carefully to the meanings that artifacts have in people's lives. McDannell regularly expresses this complaint. Much of the commentary offered on "Christian kitsch" in both academic studies and middle-brow periodical reports takes it for granted, she argues, "that the material dimension of Christianity results from ignorance, superficial commercialism, status competition, and the desire of institutional churches and 'The Culture Industry' to manipulate people."

If for no other reason, such a viewpoint is suspect simply on historical grounds. McDannell provides solid evidence that commercial interests did not create popular Christian culture; the extensive use of religious artifacts long predates present-day patterns of production. It is much more sensible to think that commercialization picked up on something that runs deep in the life of the faithful. McDannell carefully probes those depths by offering analyses of specific cases: the American family's various uses of the Bible as a cultural object (devotional source book, parlor display item, family record book), the symbolism employed in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery, the importing of Lourdes water, church architecture, artistic renderings of biblical scenes, Mormon undergarments, the growth of Christian retailing. In each case, she treats her subject matter respectfully, even lovingly. She provides much of what is referred to these days as "thick description," that is, the kind of account that takes seriously the richly nuanced texture of reality as unique people and groups actually experience it.

Basic to McDannell's case is the contention that Christians feel a deep need to give physical expression to their faith. Religious artifacts serve as an important bridge between the eternal realm and the ordinary business of life. Take, for example, the wall plaque prominently displayed in many evangelical homes in a previous generation: "Christ is the Head of this house, the Unseen Guest at every meal, the Silent Listener to every conversation." Even apart from the specific content of the inscribed message, this artifact served to identify the home as a sacred space of sorts. The fact that the plaque was a part of a larger visual display that included photos of family members, a print of a young woman playing a piano, and an insurance company calendar did not necessarily trivialize the religious message; rather, it served to demonstrate--or so McDannell would argue--the ways in which the sacred intermingles with the mundane. But the message itself also expressed a world-view. It served to remind all who entered the home that Christianity is not confined to churches, that its impact is to be realized in pursuing our daily routines. Jesus cares about family life, including the eating of peanut butter sandwiches and the banter that takes place between siblings.

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April 29 1996, Vol. 40, No. 5