New Yorker exploring the weird and wonderful world of Christian tackiness, creepiness and sell-out.I was expecting something a bit less snarky, perhaps because Radosh writes for The New Yorker, and was intrigued (and a bit baffled) by the cover's promise that it was written with the perfect blend of amusement and respect. Can those be combined? At first I though this was real-people-language for what academic students of religion aim for, a balance (if not perhaps a blend) of sympathy and critique, but it's really not that, and not just because academic voices tend to be humorless. My journalist friend K said that book jackets should be ignored, and that what was really meant was probably a blend of flattery and condescension.
Condescension sounds about right. While Radosh goes places I'd never dare go, and has the occasional winning description (Christians ... tend to see the Old Testament as an elaborate game of connect the dots. Do it right and it spells out J-E-S-U-S. [27]), I'm not feeling the respect. He doesn't even condescend to critique, which, I see now, is a form of respect he's not offering. And even the amusement seems a bit forced, as he describes the very unamusing antisemitism of the Great Passion Play in Eureka, AK he infiltrates.
But I've only read the first few chapters. Maybe he'll move beyond the dismissive tone once he hits his stride. After all, no less a personage than Brian McLaren ("emerging" Christian estraordinaire, and special guest at the Lambeth Conference as we speak) blurbed his book, saying, among other things: What happens when a secular liberal enters a conservative Christian subculture? Yes, he's grossed out at time, appalled at least once, amused sometimes, and cussin' mad [at other times] - and maybe even a little scared on occasion. But in the end he offers evaluations and insights that might be considered downright prophetic, and compassionate too. No evangelical insider could have done as good a job... (Now there's an example of flattery blended with condescension!)
