MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 02680cam a2200325 i 4500
001 12276156
005 20170117122632.0
008 151113s2016 enk b 001 0 eng d
020 $a9780198754565$qhardback
020 $a0198754566$qhardback
024 $a99969628589
035 $a(OCoLC)956745735
035 $a(OCoLC)ocn956745735
035 $a(NNC)12276156
040 $aERASA$beng$erda$cERASA$dOCLCQ$dBDX$dBTCTA$dNhCcYBP
050 4 $aBV45$b.D42 2016
082 04 $a263/.915$223
100 1 $aDeacy, Christopher,$eauthor.
245 10 $aChristmas as religion :$brethinking Santa, the secular and the sacred /$cChristopher Deacy.
250 $aFirst edition.
264 1 $aOxford ;$aNew York, NY :$bOxford University Press,$c2016.
300 $axi, 223 pages ;$c23 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$bnc$2rdacarrier
520 8 $aChristopher 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.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
650 0 $aChristmas$xHistory.
650 0 $aReligion and culture.
852 00 $buts$hBV45$i.D42 2016g