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| author | Louis Benji Rolsky |
| title | Norman Lear and the Spiritual Politics of Religious Liberalism |
| abstract |
This dissertation explores the life and thought of television writer and producer Norman Lear through his career in media. Lear was both the creator of situation
comedies such as All in the Family and Maude during the 1970s and a non—profit activist who founded People for the American Way (PFAW) in the early
1980s. I argue that Lear's movements throughout this period help us understand three larger religio--political developments of the recent American past: the
political mobilization of religious liberalism, the creation of the Christian Right, and the culture wars themselves. Contributing the first systematic
treatment of Lear's lectures, published and unpublished writings, personal papers, and television programs, this dissertation presents Lear's influence on
American public life as a distinct contribution to the longer history of American religious liberalism in a spiritual key. In fact, I argue that Lear's career
in media can be understood as a form of spiritual liberalism, one that recognized the Protestant heritage of religious liberalism, but added its own Jewish and
spirit—centered formulations as "a life lived in the spirit." Lear's career in media also demonstrates a commitment to protecting liberal democracy and its
subsequent regulation of diversity through the separation of church and state and the freedom of speech and religious practice found in the first amendment.
Despite adhering to such liberal principles in the public square, however, Lear's activism was ultimately not capable of recognizing televangelist speech as
protected speech due to its at times incendiary and divisive character. As such, I argue that Lear's activism illustrates the contradictions within liberal
democracy itself in its attempts to celebrate, yet regulate, the very diversity it relies on for its own notions of civic vitality. This dissertation thus
demonstrates how Lear's spiritual activism not only appeared on All in the Family, but also in his published correspondences with American presidents
and his linguistic contributions to the discursive formation of the Christian Right and the electronic church.
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| school | The Theological School, Drew University |
| degree | Ph.D. (2016) |
| advisor | Terry Todd
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| committee | Morris Davis
Courtney Bender
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| full text | LBRolsky.pdf |
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