Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel RadoshGenre: stunt memoir
On my TBR list?: Yes
Although I classified this as a stunt memoir, it isn't quite in the same category as a book like Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen where there is a definite beginning and end. This book is a little more like gonzo journalism without the fictional aspects. After attending a Christian music festival with a distant relative, the author decides to investigate various aspects of Christian pop culture. He visits various towns and meets Christian authors, bookstore owners, musicians, and comedians.
The best part of this book is the interviews that Radosh does with various people involved in different areas of Christian pop culture. It was interesting to see that most of the radical Christians don't think they are THAT radical. I especially liked the passages where he talks to Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. PTL was big when I was a teenager, and my younger sister even worked at Heritage USA for a brief period. I enjoyed reading about how Jay turned out after all of that.
As a Christian myself, I think it is a good idea to find out how non-Christians see us sometimes. This book provides a perspective on that. There are some dry bits where he shares statistics or goes over the differences between different strains of Christianity, but I would still recommend this book to my Christian and non-Christian friends alike.
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1 comment:
I read this one last fall and enjoyed it. Like you, I thought it was fascinating that the more extreme people couldn't see that they were extreme.
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