Before many Christians are ready for the rapture, they apparently have a lot of baggage to unpack. Lucky for them, Daniel Radosh has taken it upon himself to shake out all their dirty laundry.<\/p>\n
In his recently published book, Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, Radosh bravely ventures into Christian music festivals, Holy Land theme park, Christian comedy clubs, and even Christian pro-wrestling matches to dig out the hairy secrets buried in the kitschy recesses of pop evangelicalism. And he lives to tell about it. And tell about it he does, spilling the embarrassing facts of this $7 billion industry.<\/p>\n
But why? In an interview with Christianity Today, Radosh, a humanistic Jew, explains: \u201cHonestly, I did it because a lot of it is quite funny.\u201d\u009d But Radosh, who is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and a contributing editor at The Week magazine, was not on a mission to mock or shock. He goes on to explain: \u201cWe think about pop culture as something ephemeral and superficial, and I wanted to try to understand how that could be combined with something like faith, which is eternal and deep.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
In working on this unusual project, Radosh had the earnest desire to look beyond the tacky bumper stickers, tasteless \u201cTestamint\u201d\u009d breath fresheners, and humdrum rock and roll in order to discover what is behind many of the strange phenomena that comprise this misunderstood segment of American society. In the end, what he offers is not a scathing review but a brief history and fair-minded analysis of the commercialization of Christianity. And more interestingly, he offers Christians the rare opportunity to be a fly on the wall.<\/p>\n