God-Talk in America

by Phyllis Tickle

From the well-known religious editor, this is a wide-ranging celebration of religion in America and its future in the face of new technologies and the Internet.

Genres: Christianity, Theology, Religion, The United States Of America

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 1997

About the author

Phyllis Natalie Tickle was an American author and lecturer whose work focuses on spirituality and religion issues. After serving as a teacher, professor, and academic dean, Tickle entered the publishing industry, serving as the founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, before then becoming a popular writer. She is well known as a leading voice in the emergence church movement. She is perhaps best known for The Divine Hours series of books, published by Doubleday Press, and her book The Great Emergence- How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Tickle was a member of the Episcopal Church, where she was licensed as both a lector and a lay eucharistic minister. She has been widely quoted by many media outlets, including Newsweek, Time, Life, The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS, The History Channel, the BBC and VOA. It has been said that "Over the past generation, no one has written more deeply and spoken more widely about the contours of American faith and spirituality than Phyllis Tickle." A biography of Tickle, written by Jon M. Sweeney, was published in February 2018. Phyllis Tickle: A Life (Church Publishing, Inc), has been widely reviewed.

Reviews

[Jarmo Larsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a more interesting book than it was. Phyllis A. Tickle writes here several essays on the subject of "God-talk" in America in various areas such as literature, data, internet, media and vernacular in general. Unfortunately, she doesn't quite do it after my taste. She writes both incomprehensible and seems to lack a good common thread through her essays, or maybe it's just me who can't quite grasp what she writes. There could be several reasons for that. One could be the somewhat difficult and academic English language she uses. Another is the essay style. A third area could be that the book is somewhat old and I am not very well versed in the American "God-talk" from this time, even if some familiar names pop up now and then. At the same time, I miss a clear context in what is written. Another disturbing element in the book is that you should read the main text and the notes at the back of the book in parallel, something the author also suggests. Another element is that you don't quite know where the author stands theologically, but if I understand correctly, she is sort of episcopal, which I don't have that much insight into. I managed to get through this book, but mostly it didn't give me the insight I was looking for into the "God-talk" thing in America.

[Adam Metz · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been on my shelf for awhile and I finally decided to read. First book in a long time I just couldn't get into. I saw a few reviews here and it confirmed my thoughts that it's just too outdated on matters cors to the premise to really relate to today. Tickle was a profound author but this work was too rooted in the 90s to find relevance today.

[Jeremy Garber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Former religion publisher Phyllis Tickle surveys late 20th century tendencies in book publishing, illustrating a snapshot of the times that seems archaic almost twenty years later. Tickle has an unfortunate writerly tendency to take a metaphor and overwork it to its own detriment. The book begins with an ungainly comparison of books to dances and this particular book to a Virginia Reel – what does that even mean? She outlines the footnotes to the book as a form of extended conversation that seems confusing read either by themselves or in tandem with the text. Tickle also includes “interludes” such as her childhood altar covered by Dante’s inferno or her mother washing laundry by hand that I find useless and frustrating. Most of all, her methodology of surveying the books published in the field is an increasingly irrelevant survey in a digital media age. Read Tickle’s volume to find out what was being published in religion in the early 1990s, but not useful for much theological or sociological theorizing beyond that.

[Brekke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Completely Dated