Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
$16.99$16.99
FREE delivery: Tuesday, May 30 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Zoey Distributions
Buy used: $1.87
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture Hardcover – April 8, 2008
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherScribner
- Publication dateApril 8, 2008
- Dimensions6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100743297709
- ISBN-13978-0743297707
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Product details
- Publisher : Scribner; First Edition (April 8, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0743297709
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743297707
- Item Weight : 1.04 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,982,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,787 in Sociology & Religion
- #10,516 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #11,683 in Communication & Media Studies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
This is a wonderful, witty book. But Daniel Radosh may have been co-opted to some extent by the Evangelicals. The book is full of conversations with intelligent, intellectually curious and reasonable people. This is natural, since it makes better reading than conversations with dolts, but it gives the skewed impression of the numbers of the intelligent and fair minded in the Evangelical ranks. Actually, much more common are people like Chuck Ambrose (who jabs at Radosh's chest as he growls that "Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord" and "You'd better give it some thought," but didn't recognize the name C. S. Lewis) or Frank Peretti, who characterize as wayward pastors who "endorse religious tolerance and condemn animal cruelty." Or James Dobson, who writes in the New Strong-Willed Child about beating his dachshund into submission with a belt because the dog wanted to sleep on the fuzzy toilet seat cover next to the electric heater instead of in his bed: "The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction" and "That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast" and "I eventually got him into his bed, but only because I outweighed him 200 to 12." And kids are like dogs, only more so, when it comes to defiance. The New Strong-Willed Child
Radosh thinks the progressive elements will provide a corrective, but I think part of the appeal of the whole Evangelical/Fundamentalist world is its fetishization of willful ignorance (shouting down biology teachers discussing evolution with "Were you there?!?") and dumbed-down books, music, and movies, reinforced by isolation from all "contaminants", even those of superior quality (no Anna Karenina, no Mass in B Minor). I see a link here to the increasingly vitriolic political atmosphere, and I think Radosh is way too hopeful.
If the title of this post, taken verbatim from this book, offends you, you will not appreciate this book. The author's very creative use of f-bombs littered throughout the text will no doubt have the effect of placing Eskimos in a dunk tank filled with scalding, bubbling oil. No doubt, I am taking these words out of context, but then again, Radosh does the same thing to Stephen Baldwin in this book, so I guess he knew he was setting himself up for that.
THAT SAID, Radosh gives a very fair and balanced examination of the unbearably tacky, of the politically volatile, and the... surprisingly good/effective elements within the Evangelical Christian pop culture bubble.
The one reason why evangelical Christians (small 'e', incorporating all denominations) should weather the harsh language is that Radosh writes what we need to hear. We need to know where the zietgiest is, and Radosh, in his own way, contributes a voice to helping us understand how each side sees each other, and, in turn, how to make our voice in the culture that much more effective.
Plus, as an attendee of both the Cornerstone Festivals and the Christian Comedy Association conferences--two of the extremely positive portrayals in his accounts--I can attest that what he writes is quite accurate and encouraging. I can only thank God that I escaped his scrutiny, for being in the Catholic side of things.
However, I'm incredibly intrigued by religion. Its something so pervasive yet so alien to my way of thinking. As soon as I heard about this book, I knew I had to read it--lickity split.
The author, a Jewish man with fairly liberal tendancies, immerses himself in Christian pop culture: attending concerts, going to creation museums and christian theme parks, and talking with pastors of all varieties as well as members of the churches he visits.
Is it a totally unbiased report on christian pop culture? absolutely not. The author brings his background and views with him as he writes but that is part of the fun of the book. Some of it is down right frightening in its conservatism but there are, surprisingly, a few hopeful notes.
I'd recommend this book to anyone. If you are a secularist, its a good laugh mixed with a certain amount of "they really aren't all crazy, maybe you shouldn't be so judgemental." If you are a Christian, its a good way to see yourself through the eyes of a secularist. You may think your creation museum is totally factual--but really? Most people think you are nuts to believe adam and eve rode around on domesticated dinosaurs.
The "interview" with stephen baldwin alone is worth reading the book.
Top reviews from other countries
What seemed to me disappointing, is that the author’s own perspective - he is liberal and Jewish (as he keeps reminding us) – is intrusive. It is fine that he writes from his own perspective. But rather than giving us a guide together with commentary, he lines up with those whom he comes across who are not conservative or fundamentalist. It is understandable that he finds sympathetic people whose views are closer to his own. I’d also share his view that the ideas of many of those with whom he disagrees are highly problematic. But rather than an exploration of – and engagement with – what he finds, his account is partisan. And while he may find sympathetic those whose interpretations of conservative Christianity are closer to his own ideas, his bias towards them is intrusive, while the substance of their views comes over as having the intellectual integrity of a wet paper bag.
"Will the concept of secularizing Christianity work in the long range?" is the question the author attempts to answer throuhout his text. My sense is that it probably will not. Anytime you mix two things together, neither one of them remains the same, they both change. In this instance secular society has changed to a small degree through the quasi acceptance of pop-Christianity into its mix. Christianity, on the other hand, if it maintains its path down this road, will change significantly. The period of the peaceful, holy little church in the valley will be gone. It will be replaced by religious extravaganzas that are more confrontive and egotistical than humble and spiritual. The author shows that the percentage of young adults who turn away from the church remains at 65%. This is in spite of the pop-Christian campaign to reach a population they feel is critical to the church's future. In the mean time mainline denominatons, who were the Christian standard bearers a few decades ago, are shrinking rapidly.
This is a top quality, well written text that covers an area of social that should interest everyone. Bravo! to Daniel Radosh for bringing it to our attention,


