The origins of our postsecular present, revealed in a vivid, groundbreaking account of the moment when popular culture became the site of religious conflict.
The 1980s are usually seen as a slick, shrill decade. The Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers urged "Death to America"; Ronald Reagan was in the White House, backed by the Moral Majority; John Paul II was asserting Catholic traditionalism and denouncing homosexuality, as were the televangelists on cable TV. And yet "crypto-religious" artists pushed back against the spirit of the age, venturing into vexed areas where politicians and clergy were loath to go--and anticipating the postsecular age we are living in today.
That is the story Paul Elie tells in this enthralling group portrait. Here's Leonard Cohen writing "Hallelujah" in a Times Square hotel room; Andy Warhol adapting Leonardo's
The Last Supper in response to the AIDS crisis; Prince making the cross and altar into "signs of the times." Through Toni Morrison the spirits of the enslaved speak from the grave; Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen deepen the tent-revival intensity of their work; U2, Morrissey, and Sin
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