Jesus The Salesman
Jesus The Salesman
Jesus The Salesman
ABSTRACT
One of the most memorable images in American inspirational literature
is Bruce Barton's portrait of Jesus as the archetypal businessman who
"forged twelve men from the bottom ranks of business into an organization
that conquered the world " This essay analyzes Barton's best seller to
illustrate one method for understanding the appeal of images of Jesus and of
the truly Chnstlike life in popular religious literature. Critics and historians
are nearly unanimous in judging The Man Nobody Knows to be a prime
example of the materialism and "glorified Rotananism" of the Protestant
churches in the 1920s I argue that the appeal of Barton's book rested with his
articulation of a system of familiar stereotypes and symbols as a pattern for
thought Barton reminded readers of a classification system capable of
structuring experience on a continuum between opposite poles represented
by life in a small town (Nazareth) and life in a city (Jerusalem). He mapped a
moral or symbolic geography in which each pole symbolized sets of
admirable and dangerous qualities. The Sunday-school Jesus, caricatured by
Barton as a moralistic physical weakling, was the incarnation of the worst of
both worlds, Barton's Jesus combined the best. Advertising furnished many
more examples for demonstrating the accuracy of such a world view. In
conclusion-I suggest that while the content of these opposing worlds varies
from book to book, inspirational best sellers often organize experience in a
structurally similar manner.
NOTES
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Jesus the Salesman . 177
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