There?s a new youth movement afoot in this country. It?s a counterculture fusion of politics and pop, and it?s taking over a high school near you. Like the waves that came before it, it?s got passion, music, and anti-authority posturing, but more than anything else, this one has God. So what does it mean when today?s youth counterculture has a mindset more akin to Jerry Falwell?s than Abbie Hoffman?s?In RIGHTEOUS: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth...
Lauren Sandler opened my eyes to Christian counter culture's ability to provide a sense of belonging for so many isolated kids in return for their total commitment to the "inerrancy" of the Bible. I was angered by required regression of feminist liberation and saddened by the willingness of young women to accept subjugation to their husbands and function primarily as breeding stock. Listening carefully to the casual conversations...
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This book reads like a very personal and entertaining ethnography. The author is not content to study her subjects from the outside, and an outsider she admittedly and proudly is; rather she employs a more participatory technique, submerging herself in the communities she hopes to expose. I can't help but wonder how her subjects will feel, how many evangelical types may take offense to this. Most evangelicals feel Christianity...
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Readers who are enraged by this book should take a really good hard look at themselves. Despite the fact that I am not an atheist, if given the choice between secularism and fundamentalism, I'd opt for the former. The fact remains that in a democratic multicultural society, secularism works best (sorry!) because it leaves room for *choice*. The tone of the reviewer (AlteredBeat) below is frightening. She/he should reread this...
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Righteous is pretty much just that: righteous. It's a sobering look at a generation who have turned away from critical thinking, science, tolerance, in favor of a christianity which can never stray from the literal word of the bible. These kids and young adults attend christian colleges where their professors "debunk" evolution. Even the skate-punks in this "disciple generation," with their tattoos and baggy clothes, believe...
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First of all let's stop all the "this author isn't objective" garbage. Who is objective anyway? Not me. Not you. And not the good folks who review books on this site. Let's leave objectivity to the journalists (yeah, right). Anyway, Sandler's book is the first of it's kind. There are a lot of books looking into the intersection of right-wing religious groups and politics, but none to my knowledge have looked into how youth...
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