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Introduction xi Twilight Zone, Hannah Adams Ingram investigates the increasing religious pluralism of the United States as seen through prime-time network televi- sion, and Alicia Vermeer offers Joan of Arcadia as a view into the religiosity of youth and young adults in America. God and Music is the final section in Volume 1, beginning with Courtney Wilder’s Tillichian meditation on Pink and Lady Gaga, and continuing with T. Mark McConnell’s Kierkeg- aardian observations on Arcade Fire. Echol Nix, Jr. offers an overview of gospel music as literally singing the “good news” of God. God and Sports, the first section in Volume 2, provides the reader with four fascinating perspectives on both conventional and unconventional athletic competitions. Rebecca A. Chabot and Jason Neal examine the global cultural sports phenomenon of soccer as a religion, arguing that the stadium itself serves as a church. The religious motivation of athletes pro- vides Carmen Celestini with an intense tableau in the sports of cage fight- ing and mixed martial arts. In a similar vein, B. J. Parker, Rebecca Whitten Poe Hays, and Nicholas R. Werse discover the world of evangelical fight clubs and Brian Cogan and Jeff Massey inquire into “Python wrassling” as a form of religious observance in the quest for the reality of God. The next section in Volume 2, God and Politics and Commerce, offers five essays on how God is depicted and utilized within government, business, and media imagery. The legal scholar and religious ethicist Jeremy G. Mallory wrestles with the role of God in the U.S. Senate, and the business scholar Robert Brancatelli provides important parallels between the evangelist and the venture capitalist and Andris Berry focuses on the spiritual language of trade and advertising. Paula J. Lee makes an important critique about the role of media as the common mediatory of theological meaning-making, and Jann Cather Weaver develops a shared critical ethic for media images and liturgy. The final section in Volume 2 examines God and Popular Culture, a series of essays that do not fit within the forums on specific media. Joyce Ann Konigsburg reaches into the pocket of society and takes out the reli- gious dimensions of the smartphone. David Beard and David Gore explore the project of the theorist Marshall McLuhan with regard to the claim that “In Jesus Christ, the medium and the message are fully one and the same.” The poet-pastor Steven E. Berry argues for the prophetic power of poetry, and Paul H. Carr finds God in near-death experiences, art, and science. Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi plays with the role of gods in Indian popular jokes, Andriette Jordan-Fields inquires into the presence of the cross in popular culture, and Guido Oliana sees African language, drum, and dance as symbols of God’s saving mystery. Carolyn D. Roark explores the divine/human relationship within puppetry, and Carlos Vara Sánchez examines the Via Negativa as aesthetic experience.