These two books examine the same problem—the shallowness and weakness of American-style Christianity—but do so in differing ways.
Heit, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. in religion and literature, examines
“The Simpsons,” the acclaimed animated TV series, which he says offers a sustained and theologically informed critique of the kind of “lukewarm” faith Homer Simpson (and many non-cartoon Americans) embrace.
Heit has done his homework, watching hundreds of episodes and surveying a mountain of scholarly research. The result is an insightful, if academic, study that shows religion to be much more than a convenient punch line for the show’s creators, who see some of the same problems in the church of their day that Luther saw in his own time.
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Wicker, a former writer for the
Dallas Morning News, examines the claims some evangelicals have made during the past two decades, such as the claim they make up a quarter of the U.S. population and are a dominant force in America’s culture wars.
Saved in a Baptist church at 9, Wicker is now a self-confessed “child-convert-turned-apostate” who subjects Christians’ claims to closer scrutiny and declares them part of “one of the greatest publicity scams in history.” This bracing book argues that evangelicals are a much smaller—and weaker—force than they proclaim themselves to be.