Charles Henderson

Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces

Theology

“Well worth reading. . . . As many commentators have noted, American civil religion has become, over the last half-century or so, a do-it-yourself phenomenon as the focus of people's ultimate concern has migrated from congregations gathered on the Sabbath toward places like football stadiums, movie houses, and, as Jon Pahl documents, the shopping mall, the theme park, and the proverbial home in the suburbs. . . . At the heart of this project is what he describes in one salient sentence as 'a justification by grace through the ordinary gifts of place.'”