This group portrait brings to life a moment when popular culture became the site of religious strife—strife that set the stage for some of the most salient political and cultural clashes of our day.
Gripping and essential ... [A] masterful survey. ... Elie’s brilliant book is a bracing reminder of art’s far-reaching power in matters of the heart and soul. His expansive vision of the ’80s rings out like a clarion call for a new era of rigorous artistic engagement with the unknowable and the unseen.
Incontrovertibly erudite and panoramic, but also crowded, sometimes confounding and walled off from the present moment — when crypto is actual currency — to which its subject matter is so foundational.
Fascinating ... He is tireless in marking the visible and audible tracks of personal and public engagement with religion across related if disparate sites ... Elie’s ambitious book reminds us that the poisonous roots of the war on culture may run much deeper than we could ever have imagined.
