| Pairing works written by evangelicals and non-evangelicals, this work contends that fiction and film written since Inherit the Wind (1955) and the film version of Elmer Gantry (1960) have failed to capture the full complexity of the evangelical experience in America, instead relying on caricature of one's cultural opponents to prove the "truth" of non-evangelical or evangelical experience (depending on the writer's position). Each chapter covers a defining issue of contention between evangelicals and non-evangelicals, including feminism, gay rights, end times theology, education, the intellectual life, science, and political conflict. Basing my analysis on a combination of religious studies and literary scholars, I describe this two-way battle as a contention over the definition of American culture, in which both contending parties define each other in dystopian terms. |
