In The Lure of Images, author David Morgan offers not only a history of how religious Americans have used popular images to impact religious life but also the way images have power over the viewer. Beginning with the American Revolutionary War, Morgan more or less chronicles the “social life of images,” the “circulation of imagery,” and the “cultural politics of visual representation” (2) through two distinct periods: the impact of print media in antebellum America; the effect of religious images on consumption starting in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and continuing into the mid-twentieth century. The third and final section explores the power of images to “shape public perception” (199).
In terms of offering a history of visual media in religious America, Morgan offers a solid approach: it is not just a visual study of history but rather a study of how visual media has played an important role in the history of religions in America. Following Morgan's chronological pattern, he argues that as literacy became important in early America, print culture became popular. Illustrations were used to affirm “the authority and reliability of print” (11). American Protestants saw the relevance of using images in their tract publications as they became more effective than the preacher's power of speech and could be spread further afield. Not only did print media in early America teach piety, it also was able to depict the threat to the pious Protestant family: immigrants with alien languages and religions, specifically “the Jew” and the big cities where young men could be lured by entertainment and games.
Morgan then focuses on the way America's consumption begins to change. In the late 1700s, people began purchasing commodities in shops rather than in market places. This change in practice would impact the way vendors packaged and displayed their wares. Morgan then illustrates how religion impacted the act of visual consumption in the 1800s and on. Religious imagery became mass produced, for the church as well as for the home. Morgan goes on to illustrate how domestic spaces would become the focal point for displaying various types of religious images, by both Christians and Jews living in America. Morgan also analyses how these images would impact the formation of the American national “identity,” especially with the rise of motion pictures.
In the third part of the book, Morgan focuses on the way images carry the power to shape public opinion. This section illustrates how religious figures used charisma to become popular celebrities, and how popular media creates “heroic” characters through charisma for viewing audiences. To conclude this section, Morgan focuses on how environment and nature position viewers within the landscape. This section feels cursory, however, given Morgan's analysis in the first two sections. Nevertheless, the number of authors currently concentrating on the authority of popular filmic images makes it prudent that Morgan remains focused on the power these images have on the viewer. The conclusion of the book is left lacking, in that one feels that there is no true resolution or map to understanding why cultural creations of nature are religious. And yet, at the same time, Morgan clearly illustrates that the very act of looking can be, and often is, a religious practice.
Morgan puts forth an original way of approaching the study of religion through visual culture. Moreover, he clearly demonstrates how the “lure” of images does indeed shape perception while remaining ambivalent. This work is a constructive and valuable addition for anyone interested in lived religion, religious literature, and “religious art.” It also takes the study of religion and visual media in new directions. It is an important contribution to the field of visual imagery and its impact on religious American life. A large number of visual examples provided throughout the book supports the author's argument that popular images are pervasive in the development of religion.
