It is far more common nowadays to see references to the afterlife--angels playing harps, demons brandishing pitchforks, God among heavenly clouds, the fires of hell--in New Yorker cartoons than in serious Christian theological scholarship. Speculation about death and the afterlife seems to embarrass many of America''s less-evangelical theologians, yet as Greg Garrett shows, popular culture in the U.S. has found rich ground for creative expression in what happens to us after death. The rock music of U2, Iron Maiden, and AC/DC, the storylines of TV''s Lost, South Park, and Fantasy Island, the implied theology in films such as The Corpse Bride, Ghost, and Field of Dreams, the heavenly half-light of Thomas Kinkade''s popular paintings, and the supernatural landscape of ghosts, shades, and waystations in the Harry Potter novels all speak to our hopes and fears about what comes next. Greg Garrett scrutinizes a wide array of cultural productions to find the stories being told about what awaits us: depictions of heaven, hell, and purgatory, angels, demons, and ghosts, all offering at least an implied theology of life after death. The citizens of the imagined afterlife, whether in heaven, hell, on earth, or in between, are telling us about what awaits us, at once shaping and reflecting our deeply held--if sometimes inchoate--beliefs. They teach us about reward and punishment, about divine assistance in this life, about diabolical interference, and about other ways of being after we die. Especially fascinating are the frequent appearances of purgatory, limbo, and other in-between places. Such beliefs are dismissed by the Protestant majority, and quietly disparaged even by many Catholics. Yet many pop culture narratives represent departed souls who must earn some sort of redemption, complete some unfinished task, before passing on. Garrett''s incisive analysis sheds new light on what popular culture can tell us about the startlingly sharp divide between what modern people profess to believe and what they truly hope to find after death.
Industry Reviews
"eminently interesting, affirming, and accessible study of popular religiosity in the modern media age." -- Helen Frisby, Folklore
"This book merges two exciting topics: views of afterlife and popular culture. The author, based at Baylor University, USA, is an expert in popular culture and theology." -- Martin Hoondert, The Mortality Journal
"A strikingly thorough inventory...A useful guide to popular culture and a handy starting place for conversations about the topics it covers."--Christianity Today
"[A] wide-ranging, accessible and lively study."--New Statesmen
"An entertaining and highly readable addition to the field of popular culture studies.."--Publishers Weekly
"A highly engaging journey."--Network Review
"A fun and informative romp."--Theology
"Greg Garrett has given us a scintillating-and deeply informed-portrait of the many (and often surprising) ways the afterlife figures in popular American culture. The result is a convincing and revealing diagnosis of the beliefs and longings that animate twenty-first-century Americans, both Christian and post-Christian." --Carol Zaleski, Professor of World Religions, Smith College
"Our popular culture is utterly absorbed with the afterlife, and in Greg Garrett's book, we are offered incisive and imaginative insights into how to read and understand this emerging cultural turn. There can be few scholars with Garrett's intellectual gifts, who can grasp the themes in contemporary culture so clearly-through movies, novels, TV, radio, music, poetry, art, architecture, graphic novels, computer games, and drama-and emerge with such a prescient
understanding of our persistent absorption with the afterlife. Garrett has set a course for future studies in this vital area of scholarly enterprise." --The Very Reverend Professor Martyn Percy, Dean
of Christ Church, Oxford
"In Entertaining Judgment Greg Garrett skillfully leads his readers through a wide range of portrayals of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, showing how they continue to populate contemporary imaginings. Going beyond well-known routes, this voyage of discovery includes popular films and television series, novels and comics, pop music and biblical stories. Fresh perspectives are brought to light on the journey, through discussions of various imaginative
landscapes related to the afterlife. Garrett offers attentive descriptions, thoughtful interpretations and nuanced insights. The result is an engaging expedition that will enrich debates about understandings of life
and what may or may not lie beyond."
--Jolyon Mitchell, Director, Center for Theological and Public Issues, and Academic Director, The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at The University of Edinburgh
"Entertaining Judgement's stronger insights relate to our imaginations of the malevolent afterlife, and how they act as flexible metaphors for whatever most frightens up at any given time. What we fear most is usually the future--the life to come, in one form or another." -- Resurgence and Ecologist
"...[T]his lively study will make a compelling addition to course syllabi in religious studies. Garrett s book is an amusing, thought provoking, informative read. Undergraduate students will recognize and appreciate many of the movies and shows mentioned throughout the chapters and will find the author s prose straightforward and accessible. Entertaining Judgment is an effective quick reference guide and compendium for scholars interested in the
afterlife in American pop culture." --Reading Religion
