"Let the Little Children Come to Me: Sweet Kitsch and Spreading the Gospel"

This presentation considers Robert C. Solomon's defining of 'sweet kitsch' in "On Kitsch and Sentimentality" (1991) to argue how the watering down of faith-based imagery aided in Evangelicalism being embraced by larger audiences. Carter was the first 'evangelical president.' News grappled how to explain Christian concepts such as 'salvation' and the 'holy ghost.' Until the late 1970s, Evangelicals had largely not voted. In the 1970s, preachers and politicians began organizing a PAC called 'The Moral Majority.' It's aim - engaging untapped Christian voters. But, organizers faced the difficulty of destigmatizing and translating Evangelical concepts to the American public. Enter the sentimental kitsch consumer items of the late 1970s. Coming into popularity simultaneously as the religious right, objects like Precious Moments figurines, light house and footsteps on the sand artwork, and crosses allowed individuals to express a general Christianity publicly through display in their homes and through gift giving. Previous Evangelical sermons focused on the violence of the crucifixion and hell. As Christian themes needed to be sanitized and made palatable, so did the imagery.

Women are the majority of church membership. Most Evangelical commercial items focus on the raising Christian children and are meant to be given as gifts. These decorative items are meant then to be publicly displayed in the home - marking that home as a place of faith. Central to sweet kitsch aesthetics of Evangelical objects is the combination of specific Christian (prayer, cross) and more generic imagery. This confluence attracts introduces more buyers to Christian values.