Rapture Culture

Rapture Culture

Drawing on extensive interviews with readers of the novels, Rapture Culture sheds light on a mindset that is little understood and far more common than many of us suppose.

Author: Amy Johnson Frykholm

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

ISBN: 9780195159837

Category: Religion

Page: 235

View: 715

The 'Left Behind' series consist of novels that depict the rapture and apocalypse, with millions of copies in print. In 'Rapture Culture', Amy J. Frykholm explores this remarkable phenomenon, seeking to understand why American evangelicals find the idea of the rapture so compelling. The book draws on extensive interviews with readers of the novels.
Categories: Religion

The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture

The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture

Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Frykholm has written the central book on understanding the role of Rapture in American religion. She makes the connections between the popular ...

Author: Dan W. Clanton, Jr.

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

ISBN: 9780190461416

Category: Religion

Page: 615

View: 410

"The study of the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and popular culture has blossomed in the past few decades, and the time seems ripe for a broadly-conceived work that assesses the current state of the field, offers examples of work in that field, and suggests directions for further study. This Handbook includes a wide range of topics organized under several broad themes, including biblical characters and themes in popular culture; the Bible in popular cultural genres; "lived" examples; and a concluding section in which we take stock of methodologies like Reception History and the impact of the field on teaching and publishing. These topics are all addressed by focusing on specific examples from film, television, comics, music, literature, video games, science fiction, material culture, museums, and theme parks, to name a few. This book represents a major contribution to the field by some of its leading practitioners, and will be a key resource for the future development of the study of Bible and American popular culture"--
Categories: Religion

Culture Wars

Culture Wars

Eskridge, Larry. “And the Most Influential Evangelical of the Last Twenty-Five Years Is . . .” Evangelical Studies Bulletin 17:4 (Winter 2001): 1–4. Frykholm, Amy Johnson. Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America.

Author: Roger Chapman

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

ISBN: 9780765622501

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 768

View: 566

A collection of letters from a cross-section of Japanese citizens to a leading Japanese newspaper, relating their experiences and thoughts of the Pacific War.
Categories: Business & Economics

American Denominational History

American Denominational History

Already, three scholars have written books interpreting the Left Behind phenomenon. ... shifted the attention from the Left Behind novels themselves to their readers in her book Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America.

Author: Keith Harper

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

ISBN: 9780817355128

Category: Religion

Page: 234

View: 476

This work brings various important topics and groups in American religious history the rigor of scholarly assessment of the current literature. The fruitful questions that are posed by the positions and experiences of the various groups are carefully examined. American Denominational History points the way for the next decade of scholarly effort. Contents Roman Catholics by Amy Koehlinger Congregationalists by Margaret Bendroth Presbyterians by Sean Michael Lucas American Baptists by Keith Harper Methodists by Jennifer L. Woodruff Tait Black Protestants by Paul Harvey Mormons by David J. Whittaker Pentecostals by Randall J. Stephens Evangelicals by Barry Hankins
Categories: Religion

Christian Popular Culture from The Chronicles of Narnia to Duck Dynasty

Christian Popular Culture from The Chronicles of Narnia to Duck Dynasty

In Religion and Popular Culture in America, edited by Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan, 270–87. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. ———. Rapture Culture: “Left Behind” in Evangelical America.

Author: Eleanor Hersey Nickel

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

ISBN: 9781725281202

Category: Fiction

Page: 238

View: 281

Christian popular culture has tremendous influence on many American churchgoers. When we have a choice between studying the Bible and reading novels, downloading movies, or watching television, we become less familiar with Numbers than with Narnia. This book examines popular Christian narratives with rigorous scholarly methods and assumes that they are just as complex, fascinating, and worthy of investigation as the latest secular Netflix series or dystopian novel. While most scholars focus on the religious aspects of Christian texts, this study takes a new approach by analyzing their social responsibility in portraying the complex dynamics of race, class, and gender in a profoundly unequal America. Close readings of six case studies—The Chronicles of Narnia, Francine Rivers’s Redeeming Love, Jan Karon’s Mitford novels, Left Behind, the films of the Sherwood Baptist Church, and Duck Dynasty—uncover both harmful stereotypes and Christians serving as leaders in social justice.
Categories: Fiction

Writing the Rapture

Writing the Rapture

“The Paradox of Paradise Regained in the Left Behind Series,” Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research, School of Humanities ... Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Author: Crawford Gribben

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 0199716838

Category: Religion

Page: 272

View: 143

For the past twenty years, evangelical prophecy novels have been a powerful presence on American bestseller lists. Emerging from a growing conservative culture industry, the genre dramatizes events that many believers expect to occur at the end of the age - the rapture of the saved, the rise of the Antichrist, and the fearful tribulation faced by those who are "left behind." Seeking the forces that drove the unexpected success of the Left Behind novels, Crawford Gribben traces the gradual development of the prophecy fiction genre from its eclectic roots among early twentieth-century fundamentalists. The first rapture novels came onto the scene at the high water mark of Protestant America. From there, the genre would both witness the defeat of conservative Protestantism and participate in its eventual reconstruction and return, providing for the renaissance of the evangelical imagination that would culminate in the Left Behind novels. Yet, as Gribben shows, the rapture genre, while vividly expressing some prototypically American themes, also serves to greatly complicate the idea of American modernity-assaulting some of its most cherished tenets. Gribben concludes with a look at "post-Left Behind" rapture fiction, noting some works that were written specifically to counter the claims of the best-selling series. Along the way, he gives attention not just to literary fictions, but to rapture films and apocalyptic themes in Christian music. Writing the Rapture is an indispensable guide to this flourishing yet little understood body of literature.
Categories: Religion

The Church and Literature

The Church and Literature

... eds, Rapture, Revelation and the End Times: Exploring the Left Behind Series (New York, 2004); Amy Johnson Frykholm, Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (Oxford, 2004); Sherryll Mleynek, 'The Rhetoric of the “Jewish ...

Author: Ecclesiastical History Society. Summer Meeting

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

ISBN: 9780954680992

Category: Christianity and literature

Page: 532

View: 718

A wide-ranging and impressive collection which illuminates the enduring relationship between the Church and literary creation.
Categories: Christianity and literature

Plotting Apocalypse

Plotting Apocalypse

Reading, Agency, and Identity in the Left Behind Series Jennie Chapman ... In Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture, ed. Jolyon Mitchell and Sophia ... Rapture Culture: LeftBehind in Evangelical America.

Author: Jennie Chapman

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

ISBN: 9781617039034

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 263

View: 606

It is the not-too-distant future, and the rapture has occurred. Every born-again Christian on the planet has, without prior warning, been snatched from the earth to meet Christ in the heavens, while all those without the requisite faith have been left behind to suffer the wrath of the Antichrist as the earth enters into its final days. This is the premise that animates the enormously popular cultural phenomenon that is the Left Behind series of prophecy novels, co-written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and published between 1995 and 2007. But these books are more than fiction: it is the sincere belief of many evangelicals that these events actually will occur--soon. Plotting Apocalypse delves into the world of rapture, prophecy, and tribulation in order to account for the extraordinary cultural salience of these books and the impact of the world they project. Through penetrating readings of the novels, Chapman shows how the series offers a new model of evangelical agency for its readership. The novels teach that although believers are incapable of changing the course of a future that has been preordained by God, they can become empowered by learning to read the prophetic books of the Bible--and the signs of the times--correctly. Reading and interpretation become key indices of agency in the world that Left Behind limns. Plotting Apocalypse reveals the significant cultural work that Left Behind performs in developing a counter-narrative to the passivity and fatalism that can characterize evangelical prophecy belief. Chapman's arguments may bear profound implications for the future of American evangelicalism and its interactions with culture, society, and politics.
Categories: Literary Criticism

The Routledge Companion to Religion and Popular Culture

The Routledge Companion to Religion and Popular Culture

A discussion of popular culture,” in B.D. Forbes and J.H. Kilde (eds), Rapture, Revelation and the Left Behind Series, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 5–33. Frykholm, A. (2004) Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America, ...

Author: John C. Lyden

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317531067

Category: Social Science

Page: 584

View: 111

Religion and popular culture is a fast-growing field that spans a variety of disciplines. This volume offers the first real survey of the field to date and provides a guide for the work of future scholars. It explores: key issues of definition and of methodology religious encounters with popular culture across media, material culture and space, ranging from videogames and social networks to cooking and kitsch, architecture and national monuments representations of religious traditions in the media and popular culture, including important non-Western spheres such as Bollywood This Companion will serve as an enjoyable and informative resource for students and a stimulus to future scholarly work.
Categories: Social Science

American Apocalypse

American Apocalypse

... and Amy Johnson Frykholm, Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). “Left Behind,” Tyndale House Publishers, www.leftbehind.com/06 _help_and_info/faq_general.asp;John Cloud, ...

Author: Matthew Avery Sutton

Publisher: Harvard University Press

ISBN: 9780674744790

Category: Religion

Page: 475

View: 825

In the first comprehensive history of American evangelicalism to appear in a generation, Matthew Sutton shows how charismatic Protestant preachers, anticipating the end of the world, paradoxically transformed it. Narrating the story from the perspective of the faithful, he shows how apocalyptic thinking influences the American mainstream today.
Categories: Religion