Reforming Scriptures: Theories, Transformations, and Experiences Across American Religions

by Matthew Bowman (Editor), Heather Marie Burrow (Editor), Rebekah Call (Editor)

Is scripture a fixed object like the Bible? Or is it the result of what people do with sacred texts? In this collection, essays explore how Christian and other religious communities in the United States use, give meaning to, and debate the validity of scriptures that include everything from the spoken word to film to digital media.

The contributors draw on pioneering theorists like Vincent Wimbush and William Graham to grapple with how we might understand what we call scripture. The first section asks what makes a text scripture; the second looks at how scripture might change from medium to medium or context to context; and the third delves into how people use scripture. Two key themes that it is communities that produce and confer authority on scripture; and that fully grasping what a piece of scripture means must account for the medium that transmits it.

Diverse and interdisciplinary. Reforming Scriptures rethinks what “scripture” really means.

Samantha Baskind, Jon Bialecki, James Bielo, Kelly D. Dagley, Megan Sanborn Jones, Joseph McDonald, Tom Mould, Eugene C. Staples II, Peter J. Thuesen, Jordan T. Watkins, Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, Lydia Willsky-Ciollo

240 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication April 27, 2027

About the author

Matthew Bowman teaches American religious history at Hampden-Sydney College, and serves as associate editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon thought. He’s interested in evangelicalism, fundamentalism, religion and American culture and occasionally dabbles in Mormon history, noir, and the movies. He’s published in Religion and American Culture: a Journal of Interpretation, The Journal of Mormon History, the John Whitmer Journal, and the Journal of the Early Republic.