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God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States

God Bless America lifts the veil on strange and unusual religious beliefs and practices in the modern-day United States. Do Satanists really sacrifice babies? Do exorcisms involve swearing and spinning heads? Are the Amish allowed to drive cars and use computers? Taking a close look at snake handling, new age spirituality, Santeria spells, and satanic rituals, this book offers more than mere armchair research, taking you to an exorcism and a polygamist compound — and allowing you to sit among the beards and bonnets in a Mennonite church and to hear L. Ron Hubbard’s stories told as sermons during a Scientology service. From the Amish to Voodoo, the beliefs and practices explored in this book may be unorthodox — and often dangerous — but they are always fascinating. While some of them are dying out, and others are gaining popularity with a modern audience, all offer insight into the future of religion in the United States — and remind that fact is often stranger than fiction.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 256
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781939578006
  • Genres
  • religion, history, cults, spirituality, anthropology, reference, philosophy
  • Release date
  • 2013