Page - 194 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

his profile and the North Carolina Moral Monday protests. Politics is not the only staged arena in which to influence the public. Christian organizations note the entertainment industry’s significance as a source of role models and purposely funnel people into the sector to influence secular culture (69). A former journalist and current Professor of Journalism at Elon University, Hatcher appears to engage Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding and content analy- sis.1 Most chapters of the book focus on the active agents behind the encoding process: activist Reverend Barber’s voice and the impetus behind Moral Mon- days (chap. 1); the Christian Socialist clergyman who wrote the Pledge of Alle- giance and those who employed it for marketing and political purposes (chap. 2); the female founder and contestants of Actors, Models, and Talent for Christ (chap. 3); Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen’s work on the independent film The Way (Emilio Estevez, US 2010; chap. 4); religious societies and Bible translation (chap. 5); and authors behind religious satire (chap. 6). While Hatcher mainly focuses on religious actors, religion engages non-believers through its mor- al tenets or its national and cultural relevance, providing an animating force for civil religion. The encoding/decoding model considers the frameworks of knowledge, relations of production, and mediated technical infrastructure. Sim- ilarly, Hatcher’s work examines the religious perspectives of the participants as well as the economic and political systems related to production and recep- tion. Thus, readers gain insights into religious motivations but also learn, for instance, how capitalism and marketing provided the impetus in the dissemina- tion of the pledge and American flag for promoting a children’s publication in 1892. In 1951, as anti-communist sentiment spread in the country, the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal society, proposed the inclu- sion of the words “under God” in the pledge. Of all the religious symbolism officially added to public life in the 1950s, this move, Hatcher claims, caused the most controversy and litigation (51). Hatcher proposes, “One could argue the nation moved from seeing itself united by a common humanity to a fearful one seeking the protection of God” (50). Chapter three, on Actors, Models, and Talent for Christ (AMTC), and chapter five, on the Bible-publication industry, demonstrate how meaning making is a profitable growth industry. The chapter on AMTC presents the viewpoint of en- tertainment as evangelistic outreach (80) and how religious impulses are never divorced from economic systems. Although some religious groups oppose pop- ular culture, this chapter demonstrates an active Christian pursuit of success in the entertainment industry. AMTC, a “talent development ministry” (68), has fostered figures such as The Voice contestant country singer Brendon Chase and American Idol singer Tim Urban. AMTC believes that “through the movement of 1 Hall 1973. 194 | Grace Chiou www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 193–197