Jesusland
Stories from the Upside Down World of Christian Pop Culture
Joelle Kidd’s cultural critique Jesusland surveys the charming and perilous cultural artifacts and attitudes that defined evangelical Christianity in the early twenty-first century.
Kitschy aspects of Christian youth culture dominated much of evangelical life in the 1990s due to the booming cottage industries of Christian popular music, teen magazines, science fiction, and “clean” stand-up comedy. Kidd explores these issues through a dual lens: as a sociologist and as a firsthand witness and former participant in the culture. With a mix of nostalgia, skepticism, and ambivalent wonder, each chapter describes a distinct media genre that shaped contemporary evangelical identity, weighing the psychological and cultural baggage it created.
The chapters are spliced with Kidd’s personal recollections and reinterpretations of the works and the anxieties they created during her time as a pupil in a small private Christian school in Canada. Though each element of Christian popular culture receives individual treatment, the book identifies some general observations: The commercialization of religion helped create a culture of sexual repression, shallow spirituality, and openness to nationalist and authoritarian politics.
Told via a loose mix of reportage and memoir and with competing attitudes of nostalgia and skepticism, the book’s narrative style is congruent and compelling. Its attempts to connect developments in evangelical culture with the nascent MAGA movement and broader trends toward Christian nationalism in Canada and the US are convincing. And while many of the book’s more political pronouncements tread close to easy partisanship, its overall treatment of religion is measured and thoughtful throughout.
At once a cultural snapshot and an investigation of intransigent currents in religious thought, Jesusland delivers a nuanced analysis of the uneasy melding of religion and entertainment.
Reviewed by
Isaac Randel
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
