The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics.
In the early 1980s, Harding (anthropology, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) followed Jerry Falwell's rising Christian fundamentalist movement. Focusing on Falwell's subtle dance between American evangelicalism and Bible-based fundamentalism, she calls her study not theology but the vernacular of Bible believers. By interpreting sermons, speeches, direct mail, videos, and TV broadcasts, she labors to elucidate this "language of cultural ferment" that ultimately serves, through the personal witness of Falwell, to bring fundamentalism out from its separatist tendencies and into a political revolution to save America in the 1980s. This is a highly readable book, though Harding can be a tad defensive of Falwell. When the media lumps him with the "telescandals" of lesser evangelists, she hedges on the line between participant and observer. Still, she remains true to her post-structuralism agenda, finding in the rhetoric of Falwellian fundamentalism the catalyst for social change and political fervor. Recommended.-Sandra Collins, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Lib., PittsburghCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.