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020 _a9780198754565
_qhardback
038 _aUkLoRLUK
040 _aDLC
_beng
_erda
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042 _apcc
050 4 _aBV45
_b.D42 2016
082 0 4 _a263/.915
_223
100 1 _aDeacy, Christopher,
_eauthor.
245 1 0 _aChristmas as religion :
_brethinking Santa, the secular, and the sacred /
_cChristopher Deacy.
246 3 0 _aRethinking Santa, the secular, and the sacred.
250 _aFirst edition.
300 _axi, 223 pages ;
_c23 cm.
504 _aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 203-217) and index.
505 0 _aIntroduction: the parameters of this book -- 1 What is Christmas -- 2 Revisiting the religious origins and essence of Christmas -- 3 Is Christmas a 'secular' religion? -- 4 Christmas as a site of implicit religion -- 5 Christmas films and the persistence of the supernatural -- 6 Reframing Christmas and the religion of materialism.
520 _aIn Christmas as Religion, Christopher Deacy explores the premise that religion plays an elementary role in our understanding of the Christmas festival, but takes issue with much of the existing literature which is inclined to limit the contours and parameters of 'religion' to particular representations and manifestations of institutional forms of Christianity. 'Religion' is often tacitly identified as having an ecclesiastical frame of reference, so that if the Church is not deemed to play a central role in the practice of Christmas for many people today then it can legitimately be side-lined and relegated to the periphery of any discussion relating to what Christmas 'means'. Deacy argues that such approaches fail to take adequate stock of the manifold ways in which people's beliefs and values take shape in modern society. For example, Christmas films or radio programmes may comprise a non-specifically Christian, but nonetheless religiously rich, repository of beliefs, values, sentiments and aspirations. Therefore, this book makes the case for laying to rest the secularization thesis, with its simplistic assumption that religion in Western society is undergoing a period of escalating and irrevocable erosion, and to see instead that the secular may itself be a repository of the religious. Rather than see Christmas as comprising alternative or analogous forms of religious expression, or dependent on any causal relationship to the Christian tradition, Deacy maintains that it is religious per se, and, moreover, it is its very secularity that makes Christmas such a compelling, and even transcendent, religious holiday. --
650 0 _aChristmas.
650 0 _aReligion and culture.
907 _a.b33937436
942 _2ddc
_cE-BOOK