Flea Market Jesus
Jun 2012 · Wipf and Stock Publishers
eBook
128
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn more
About this eBook
Americans live their lives through institutions: government, businesses, schools, clubs, and houses of worship. But many Americans are wary of the control these groups--especially government and business--exercise over their lives.
Flea Market Jesus provides an up-close look at the rugged individualism of those trying hardest to separate themselves from institutions: flea market dealers. Having spent most of his life studying American religious organizations, Art Farnsley turns his attention to America's most solitary, and alienated, entrepreneurs.
Farnsley describes an entire subculture of white Midwesterners--working class, middle class, and poor--gathered together in a uniquely American celebration of guns and frontier life. In this mix, the character "Cochise" voices the frustrations of flea market dealers toward business, politics, and, especially, religion.
Part ethnography, part autobiography, Flea Market Jesus is a story about alienation, biblical literalism, libertarianism, and deep-seated religious belief. It is not about the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, or the Christian Right, but it shines a light on all of these by highlighting the potent combination of mistrust, resentment, and personal liberty too often kept in the shadows of public discourse among educated elites.
Flea Market Jesus provides an up-close look at the rugged individualism of those trying hardest to separate themselves from institutions: flea market dealers. Having spent most of his life studying American religious organizations, Art Farnsley turns his attention to America's most solitary, and alienated, entrepreneurs.
Farnsley describes an entire subculture of white Midwesterners--working class, middle class, and poor--gathered together in a uniquely American celebration of guns and frontier life. In this mix, the character "Cochise" voices the frustrations of flea market dealers toward business, politics, and, especially, religion.
Part ethnography, part autobiography, Flea Market Jesus is a story about alienation, biblical literalism, libertarianism, and deep-seated religious belief. It is not about the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, or the Christian Right, but it shines a light on all of these by highlighting the potent combination of mistrust, resentment, and personal liberty too often kept in the shadows of public discourse among educated elites.
About the author
Arthur E. Farnsley II is Research Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. He is the author of Southern Baptist Politics (1994); Rising Expectations: Urban Congregations, Welfare Reform and Civic Life (2003); and Sacred Circles, Public Squares: The Multicentering of an American City (2004). His stories have appeared on the cover of Christianity Today and The Christian Century. He is also twenty-two-time knife and tomahawk champion of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association.
Rate this eBook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Centre instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
