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Pop Culture and Religion Marry in New Book

Bully Pulpit Books` general editor, Mark Joseph, in association with W Publishing Group, will soon publish and release `Pop Goes Religion`, the first novel by veteran journalist Terry Mattingly. According to Mattingly, American pop culture is being flooded by religiously-themed media. This book will feature a series that will explore topics at the intersection of popular culture and faith.

`Pop Goes Religion` is broken into several sections including God and Popular Music, Faith and the Big Screen, God on TV, Pop Culture, Real Life and more, bringing together some of Mattingly`s best work from the last decade. `I have followed Terry`s writing closely for a decade now,` said Bully Pulpit general editor Mark Joseph. `He is at the top of his game. There is no other working journalist in America with his broad knowledge and experience in this area. Terry thinks religion is too important to stay in churches and synagogues and has chronicled its emergence from the cultural ghetto into the mainstream of American pop cultural life.`

Mattingly, a longtime religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service and editor of GetReligion, has documented the sea change in American attitudes toward religion in pop culture and the increasing willingness of entertainment tastemakers to allow popular cultural icons - think The Simpsons - to be arenas for spiritual stories and debates. `Religion was all over the place in popular media during the golden `50s era, but it kind of faded away or turned strange during the rebellious `60s and `70s. Religion was a very dangerous subject to discuss,` says Mattingly. `But times have changed, to some degree. Now it isn`t uncommon to see religious issues come up frequently in hip places like The Simpsons on MTV and in other almost unthinkable places.`