New-Edge Spirituality in a Digital Democracy. The postsecular age is fashioning religion in the twenty-first century, challenging traditional Christianity. Yet interest in spirituality is rising: "God has become one of Time magazine's favorite cover boys and spirituality has become a fashion accessory," writes Barry Taylor in Entertainment Theology. He exhorts Christians to embrace new vehicles to communicate gospel truth--or face extinction.
Taylor envisions Christianity's future as "spirituality over religion" and believes Christians must rethink the sacred in a democratized world. Taking snapshots from numerous fields--including theology, cultural studies, sociology, and pop culture--he explores the broad spectrum of factors affecting religious life today.
"Barry Taylor's Entertainment Theology is a powerful and provocative summons to renewed attentiveness to the strange new world rising up around us. Against the tendency to defensively dismiss emerging spiritualities as either uselessly nebulous or somehow demeaning to religious tradition, Taylor articulates the more excellent way of critical affirmation, celebrating what he sees as a democratization of spirit and a shift toward a more globally minded, yet communal, conversation about the meaning of God. Entertainment Theology is the place where Donnie Darko, Buddhism, the Lorax, Tom Waits, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights interface. It announces the end of the tired, old world where these conversations were thought to be beyond the pale and challenges us to see the postmodern world (on the way and already here) as an ever-emerging opportunity for redemptive and redeeming reassessment. Intensely recommended." --David Dark, author, Everyday Apocalypse |
