Making the American Religious Fringe: Exotics, Subversives, and Journalists, 1955-1993

In an examination of religion coverage in Time, Newsweek, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Ebony, Christianity Today, National Review, and other news and special interest magazines, Sean McCloud combines religious history and social theory to analyze how and why mass-market magazines depicted religions as “mainstream” or “fringe” in the post–World War II United States. McCloud argues that in assuming an American mainstream that was white, middle class, and religiously liberal, journalists i...