AUTHENTIC FAKES: RELIGION AND AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE. By David Chidester. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 294 pages. Paperback. $19.95. ISBN: 0520232807.
David Chidester, Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Cape Town, has written a number of books that deal with religious studies. He has lectured widely on the topic in the US and elsewhere and is intent on proving that American popular culture counts as religion. He defines religion as “ways of being human person in a human place” and “the activity of being human in relation to superhuman transcendence and sacred inclusion” that contains “an inherent ambiguity.” Religion is therefore “a point of entry into the meaning, power, and values at work in the production and consumption of authentic fakes in American culture” (viii). His definitions may seem imprecise, but his metaphors and symbols are not, e.g., Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonald’s, baseball and Rock and Roll, and others are ubiquitous emblems of the American culture and its global expansion.