Publishing, Celebrity, and the Globalisation of Conservative Protestantism

Abstract

Christian bookshops and publishers are helping to create an international conservative Protestant movement that brings together Charismatic and Evangelical Christians. This is in part because the power of many conservative Protestant leaders and teachers is derived from their popular appeal, which can be compared with the affective power of celebrity. This celebrity power is linked with publishing and today prominent individuals in conservative Protestantism act as brand names for the Christian publishing industry. Through this branding, books can be produced more easily in the form of series and often books are carefully worded to appeal to wider readerships. Branded series of books are also used to connect members of a mega-church to their pastor and to promote their pastor internationally.

Acknowledgement

Research for this paper was funded from a PhD research grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The paper draws on my unpublished PhD thesis.

Notes

Notes

1. By law (in its current form as the 1990 Broadcasting Act), the two national broadcasters, the BBC and ITV, are obliged to devote a certain amount of time to religious programming. Therefore, there are documentaries and church services on Sunday television and religious services and discourses on the radio during the week. However, these are increasingly marginal (Bruce 56–7; Viney) and generalised. The broader culture of conservative Protestantism is better served by Premier AM radio and GOD digital TV, but these are of limited accessibility and heavily regulated. While in the US, broadcasting for conservative Protestants is far more prominent than materials produced for other kinds of Christians, in the UK, regulations mean that the opposite is the case.

2. Spring Harvest operates for several weeks each year in the holiday resorts of Minehead and Skegness. During the week I attended, I saw speakers explain the benefits of Pentecostal/Charismatic experiences, but the main worship ‘Celebration’ events were non-Charismatic. Charismatic meetings were held in a separate location and structured in such a way as to minimise discomfort for first-time attendees.

3. Jauss's typology also includes sympathetic identification, in which there is solidarity with the literary character, and ironic modality, in which identification does not take place, although there is interaction with the audience.

4. Wells notes that 31.4% of InterVarsity (‘Inter-Varsity’ becomes ‘InterVarsity’ in the US) titles published in America in 1970–1 were by British authors, but that this had declined to 15.8% in 1990–1. Further, the top ten InterVarsity titles in America dropped from having 67.3% British authorship in 1950–1 to 12% in 1990–1. Wells consulted InterVarsity's records to compile these statistics.

5. The ‘Jezebel demon’ is drawn from the works of Charismatic demonologists. The demon disrupts God-given gender roles within marriage, resulting in a weak husband and a dominating wife. The story of Jezebel and Ahab in the Bible shows the dire consequences of this.