Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American CulturePenn State Press, 10. sep. 2015 - 288 sider Since 9/11, America has presented itself to the world as a Christianist culture, no less antimodern and nostalgic for an idealized past than its Islamist foes. The master-narrative both sides share might sound like this: Once upon a time, the values of the righteous community coincided with those of the state. Home and land were harmoniously united under God. But through intellectual pride (read: science) and disobedience (read: human rights), this God-blessed homeland was lost and is now worth every drop of blood it takes, ours and others’, to recover. For Americans, the prime source for this once-and-future-kingdom myth is the Bible, with its many narratives of blessings gained, lost, and regained: the garden of Eden, the covenant with Abraham, the bondage in Egypt, the exodus under Moses, the glory of David and Solomon’s realm, the coming of the promised Messiah, his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, his apocalyptic return at the end of history, and his establishment of the earthly kingdom of God. As Homeland Mythology shows, these biblical narratives have, over time, inspired a multitude of nationalist narratives, myths ingeniously spun out to justify a number of decidedly unchristian policies and institutions—from Indian genocide, the slave trade, and the exploitation of immigrant workers to Manifest Destiny, imperial expansionism, and, most recently, preemptive war. On March 25, 2001, George W. Bush shared a bit of political wisdom: “You can fool some of the people all of the time—and those are the ones you have to concentrate on.” The cynical use of religion to cloak criminal behavior is always worth exposing, but why our leaders lie to us is no longer a mystery. What does remain mysterious is why so many of us are disposed to believe their lies. The unexamined issue that this book addresses is, therefore, not the mendacity of the few, but the credulity of the many. |
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... persons spoken about (the They) are absent, which is a very good thing indeed because these narratives usually include superhuman beings with cruelly whimsical dispositions. In my last book, Authority Figures, I proposed that authority ...
... person (re)telling a story to other real persons. This means that this structure of nouns was once also a function of pronouns, a speech-event in which a speaker (an I) told it to a hearer or group of hearers (a You). The structure of ...
... persons, the I who, as the King James Version construes the Hebrew, refers to himself as the “I-am-who-am.” In the world envisioned by biblical faith, the human hearers of God's word, the heedful You, remain in relationship with the ...
... person. The myth of a celestial hero who struggles against a monstrous villain in order to save his favored ones is an ancient story that, in America, has been updated in many ingenious ways. Science fiction projected this scenario into ...
... persons whose work I found especially helpful: Ernest Lee Tuveson, whose Redeemer Nation first revealed to me the religious pretensions of American exceptionalism; Paul Boyer, whose When Time Shall Be No More broadly updated Tuveson's ...
Indhold
Myths of Curses Myths of Blessings | |
Narratives of the Night | |
Abduction Narratives | |
Homeland Nostalgia and Holy | |
Secular Modernism Biblical Style | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |
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Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American Culture Christopher Collins Begrænset visning - 2010 |
Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American Culture Christopher Collins Begrænset visning - 2015 |
Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American Culture Christopher Collins Ingen forhåndsvisning - 2013 |