A Culture of Righteousness and Martyrdom

Abstract

The mainstream American critique of the centrality of Islam in Arab culture often implies that religion is not important at home. Yet evangelical Christianity has been occupying an increasingly more prominent place in contemporary popular American culture. Just as Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of the Christ, has towered over competitors at the box office, so too have millenarian Christian texts—fictional and otherwise— been appearing in, and dominating, American best-seller lists. The popularity of these texts suggests that many American audiences are viewing contemporary events in the Middle East through an extremist evangelical lens.