Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the state of the sociology of religion
- Part I Theoretical frameworks: the problem of religion in sociology
- Part II Religion, state and post-secularity
- 7 The secularisation thesis
- 8 Legal pluralism, religion and multiculturalism
- 9 Managing religions: liberal and authoritarian states
- 10 Religious speech: on ineffable communication
- 11 Spiritualities: the media, feminism and consumerism
- 12 Religion, globalisation and cosmopolitanism
- 13 Civil religion, citizenship and the business cycle
- 14 The globalisation of piety
- References
- Index
11 - Spiritualities: the media, feminism and consumerism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the state of the sociology of religion
- Part I Theoretical frameworks: the problem of religion in sociology
- Part II Religion, state and post-secularity
- 7 The secularisation thesis
- 8 Legal pluralism, religion and multiculturalism
- 9 Managing religions: liberal and authoritarian states
- 10 Religious speech: on ineffable communication
- 11 Spiritualities: the media, feminism and consumerism
- 12 Religion, globalisation and cosmopolitanism
- 13 Civil religion, citizenship and the business cycle
- 14 The globalisation of piety
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction: urban mythologies
In the contemporary world, there are obviously porous boundaries between religious fiction and religious fact. Hollywood films and popular fiction compete spiritually and culturally for the modern ‘religious imaginary’ in ways that ecclesiastical institutions and their intellectual spokespeople find hard to comprehend, even less to control. In this discussion, I compare two recent but very different examples of popular culture, namely Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code, which came out in 2003, and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which was launched on 25 February 2004. The former severely annoyed the authorities within the Catholic Church, because it appeared that many lay people were attempting to follow the trail for the Holy Grail in France and Britain in imitation of the novel's main storyline as a modern pilgrimage. Brown's book became the target of several academic criticisms, such as Darrell Bock's Breaking the da Vinci Code (2004). Both the book and the subsequent film globally enjoyed large sales. Although the film was judged by many to be a box-office failure, the book sold some four and a half million copies within the first nine months. Brown's other novels have also been enjoying high sales. There is now a Dan Brown industry in which The Lost Symbol (Brown, 2009) competes to overtake previous sales figures.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Religion and Modern SocietyCitizenship, Secularisation and the State, pp. 209 - 227Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011