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Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll's Evangelical Empire
Between 1996 and 2014, Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church multiplied from its base in Seattle into fifteen facilities spread across five states with 13,000 attendees. When it closed, the church was beset by scandal, with former attendees testifying to spiritual abuse, emotional manipulation, and financial exploitation. In Biblical Porn Jessica Johnson examines how Mars Hill's congregants became entangled in processes of religious conviction. Johnson shows how they were affectively recruited into sexualized and militarized dynamics of power through the mobilization of what she calls "biblical porn"-the affective labor of communicating, promoting, and embodying Driscoll's teaching on biblical masculinity, femininity, and sexuality, which simultaneously worked as a marketing strategy, social imaginary, and biopolitical instrument. Johnson theorizes religious conviction as a social process through which Mars Hill's congregants circulated and amplified feelings of hope, joy, shame, and paranoia as affective value that the church capitalized on to grow at all costs.
Book Details
- Publisher: Duke University Press
- Publish Date: May 17th, 2018
- Pages: 248
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.20in - 6.20in - 0.70in - 3.00lb
- EAN: 9780822371366
- Categories: • Christian Ministry - General• Anthropology - Cultural & Social• Gender Studies
About the Author
Jessica Johnson teaches in the Departments of Anthropology and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.
Praise for this book
"The saga of Mars Hill Church and its founder/pastor/charlatan Mark Driscoll . . . is treated to a thoughtful, scholarly dissection in this essential book by UW lecturer Jessica Johnson. It's almost impossible to discuss Driscoll's ignominious legacy without letting one's language be infected by ideological zeal (guilty). That's why Johnson's ethnographic approach, which focuses on the shrewd process by which Mars Hill recruited, flattered, and manipulated its herd, with special attention paid to issues of class, race, gender, and socialization."--Sean Nelson "The Stranger" (3/9/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"With deep insight and an absence of judgment, Johnson interprets the driving forces behind Driscoll's rhetoric, and the toxic effect it had on the believers who followed him."--Claire Foster "Foreword Reviews" (5/1/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Jessica Johnson's Biblical Porn is a magnificent contribution to the field of anthropology, especially given anthropology's affective turn in recent years. Moreover, it is a meaningful contribution to both religious studies and gender studies given its attention to evangelicalism in the America and masculinist studies. . . . Her attention to affect and affect theory, though, is what makes Biblical Porn stand out as an original contribution to all of these fields."--Alejandro Stephano Escalante "Religion and Gender" (7/24/2019 12:00:00 AM)
"Johnson draws from fields such as continental philosophy, critical theory, affect theory, feminist theory, media studies, cinema studies, and pornography studies in her work, and does so frequently and adeptly. Indeed, thanks to the skill of the author and the breadth of her readings, this book could almost be used as a survey of these fields."
--Jon Bialecki "Current Anthropology" (2/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)"Johnson's candid reflection on the personal impact of her research demonstrates the affective impact of Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll, which she has captured and communicated disturbingly well. Her personal reflection is a welcome strand of this complex work which gives the reader a unique viewpoint. . . . Johnson's work provides valuable insights, particularly in relation to the use of media technologies in recruiting affective labor."--Amy White "Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture" (2/3/2023 12:00:00 AM)
"The enthralling story of the rise and fall of Mark Driscoll, former pastor of the defunct evangelical megachurch Mars Hill in Seattle. . . . Johnson is a talented storyteller. . . ."-- "Publishers Weekly" (3/13/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"This fascinating ethnographic study of Mars Hill, a 13,000-member megachurch led by Mark Driscoll, provides a thorough explanation of how toxic masculinity and militarism were turned into tools for growing an evangelical empire."-- "WATER" (7/16/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Johnson's book reminds us that Driscoll was real, that Mars Hill did loom large over the Seattle skyline, and that Driscoll's liturgy was just as creepy and harmful as we remember it to be, if not more."--Paul Constant "Seattle Review of Books" (5/22/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Biblical Porn is useful not only to scholars of congregations, but also to anyone who needs help understanding how shame, fear, and bullying, as well as hope, can co-exist and invest people into institutions that, to an outsider, look clearly harmful to them." --Rebecca Barrett-Fox "Reading Religion" (10/19/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Based on a decade-long study..., Johnson offers a theoretically rich and emotionally moving account of how sex served as a lynchpin in the church's militarized theology, establishment of spiritual authority, and affective sense of belonging in the community."--Courtney Ann Irby "Journal of the American Academy of Religion" (3/23/2020 12:00:00 AM)