Christian tourist attractions, mythmaking, and identity formation / edited by Erin Roberts and Jennifer Eyl.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Eyl, Jennifer, editor.

Roberts, Erin (Assistant Professor in Religious Studies), editor.

Series:

Critiquing religion.

Critiquing religion: discourse, culture, power

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tourism--Religious aspects--Christianity--Case studies.

Tourism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (220 pages).

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Summary:

"Christian Tourist Attractions, Mythmaking, and Identity Formation examines a sampling of contemporary Christian tourist attractions that position visitors as the inheritors of ancient, sacred traditions and make claims about the truth of the historical narratives that they promote. Rather than approaching these attractions as sacred expressions of religious experience or as uncontested accounts of history, the book applies recent work on mythmaking and identity formation to argue that these presentations of the past function as strategic discourses that serve material concerns in the present. From an approach informed by social and materialist theories of religion, the volume draws upon a variety of methodological approaches that enable readers to understand the often-bewildering array of objects, claims, demands, and activities (not to mention the seemingly endless array of gifts and personal items available for purchase) that appear at attractions including Ark Encounter, the Creation Museum, the Holy Land Experience, Bible Walk Museum, Christian Zionist tours of Israel, and the recently opened Museum of the Bible. Discourse analysis, practice theory, rhetorical criticism, and embodied theories of cognition help make sense not only of the Christian tourist attractions under examination but also of the ways that "religion" is entangled with contemporary social, political, and economic interests more broadly."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

Introduction : myth, our bloodless battleground / Erin Roberts

Promoting biblical exceptionalism to naturalize an evangelical America / Stephen L. Young

The materiality of myth : authorizing fundamentalism at Ark Encounter / James Bielo

Rival epistemologies and constructed confusion at the Creation Museum / Steven Watkins

"It is what it is" : mythmaking and identity formation on a Christian Zionist tour of Israel / Sean Durbin

"That their heart might throb with love for Israel!" : celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles with charismatics and messianic Jews in Jerusalem / Katja Vehlow

Anachronism as a constituent feature of mythmaking at the BibleWalk Museum / Jennifer Eyl

Identity construction and the social logic of Descent at Holy Land Experience / Erin Roberts

On the myth of religion's uniqueness / Craig Martin.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781350006201

1350006203

9781350006218

1350006211

OCLC:

1059124744