{"id":2635,"date":"2023-04-25T15:59:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T15:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wall-street-journal-richard-flory-on-jesus-in-american-culture\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T22:51:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:51:50","slug":"wall-street-journal-richard-flory-on-jesus-in-american-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wall-street-journal-richard-flory-on-jesus-in-american-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street Journal: Richard Flory on Jesus in American Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Wall Street Journal: Richard Flory on Jesus in American Culture<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n By<\/span>CRCC Staff<\/strong>\n \n April 25, 2023<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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The “He Gets Us” ad campaign has caused debate about its portrayal of Jesus, but Jesus always has had many faces in American culture. The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em> describes how various Christian churches and movements have portrayed Jesus over the years, quoting the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Richard Flory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Richard Flory, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, points to a more subtle difference in emphasis among the evangelical Christian pastors and congregants he has interviewed over the last three decades. He distinguishes two groups, based on which version of the beatitudes\u2014the blessings recounted by Jesus in two of the Gospels\u2014they prefer to cite.<\/p>\n

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Evangelicals who quote the version in the Gospel of St. Luke, which includes the words \u201cBlessed are you who are poor\u2026but woe to you who are rich,\u201d tend to stress broad inclusion in the church as well as a commitment to social justice, Mr. Flory says. Those who cite the version in the Gospel of St. Matthew\u2014where the equivalent verse reads \u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit\u201d\u2014typically emphasize the need for personal faith and moral conduct. The latter group, he says, is much more numerous.<\/p>\n

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Read the full article here (paywall).<\/a><\/h4>\n

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The “He Gets Us” ad campaign has caused debate about its portrayal of Jesus, but Jesus always has had many faces in American culture. The Wall Street Journal describes how various Christian churches and movements have portrayed Jesus over the years, quoting the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Richard Flory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":813,"featured_media":2638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[14,10],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crcc-in-the-news","tag-christianity","tag-evangelicalism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWall Street Journal: Richard Flory on Jesus in American Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wall-street-journal-richard-flory-on-jesus-in-american-culture\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wall Street Journal: Richard Flory on Jesus in American Culture - Center for Religion and Civic Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The "He Gets Us" ad campaign has caused debate about its portrayal of Jesus, but Jesus always has had many faces in American culture. 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