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Matt LumpkinEthics of Life and DeathDr. Erin Dufault-Hunter February 16, 2009Hall, Amy Laura. Conceiving Parenthood: American Protestantism and the Spirit of Reproduction. Grand Rapids, Mich: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2008.Riffing on Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," Amy LauraHall brings her own brand of penetrating sociological analysis to bear on important shifts incultural authority during the last century. Using image exegesis of cultural artifacts as varied asadvertising and women's magazines, Hall argues that the ascendancy of scientific authority in thedomain of pro-creation (or "reproduction") brought with it a whole new narrative of justificationfor the old evils of racism, elitism, and the exploitation of the weak and vulnerable by the strong.This narrative framed those who opposed these activities as "backward," or "opposed to progress." Through her insightful and creative analysis not only of images but their larger context and juxtaposition, she leads us down a dark path of the enthusiastic, Church complicityin an effort to promote widespread cultural acceptance of new narrative crafted by corporate,scientific, and military interests.Hall's evidence for this subtle manipulation of public perception seems at first to beslight, even at times, overly imaginative or interpretive. The advertisements from last centuryover which she labors are, after all, from a "simpler era." Is it fair to impose upon them aninterpretive agenda from today when they were only trying to sell their products? And yet as shestacks up example after example of at times humorous, at times deeply disturbing images, weLumpkin 1
 
 begin to accept her point. While the intent of the Ad-men may have been to move units of 7-up(to be mixed with milk for baby's bottle) or Lysol brand disinfectant (for the maintenance of "intimate daintiness dependent on effective douching") they are harnessing strong currents withinthe culture and in so doing, shaping and reinforcing public perception. A culture's ads, it seems,are an effective barometer for its values.She marshals many influential and persistent women's magazines (
McCalls
,
Good  Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Cosmopolitan
and others) from secular publishers to showa wide range of ways in which this new narrative is over-writing American values surroundingsex and children in the commanding, active-voice of science and progress. More disturbing for Christian readers is the way she holds these secular publications we expect to be swaying to thewinds of cultural change alongside church publications (especially the Methodist magazine"Together"). We might hope that these church publications would be calling their readers back toan older Story. Instead we find a Christianity all to eager to prove its modernity by lending itscultural authority to the civil religion of "progress" with its agenda set by the "sciences" of eugenics and atomic-energy driven consumer culture. Though it should be noted that a few of the brighter moments of hope in the dark, at times conspiratorial tone of Hall's narration, comefrom Christians who stand and using the resources of the Gospel Story. Rev. M.T. Lamb andothers like him bear witness to an alternative reality of generosity and hospitality to the weak incontrast to the new narrative of progress through elimination of weakness (Hall 2008, 395).While these Christian voices do offer hope they are the exception to the rule.Yet Hall does not stop in the women's magazine section. Especially in her later chaptersfocusing on eugenics and atomic science, she digs into scholarly monographs that shaped publicLumpkin 2
 
and academic perceptions about the "scientific" grounds of race, heredity and the promises of science. She watches old Disney-influenced propaganda films commissioned by the governmentin order to spin public opinion of the horrific destructive power hidden in the atom into a friendlylittle fellow who can take care of your washing for you.It is in the breadth of materials she takes in and the insight she applies to them that Halltruly distinguishes herself. Rather than restricting herself to researching academic analyses of the era, she digs into the primary documents with an eye that sees through the surface to the largearcs of social pressure that lie behind both turn of the century soap ads as well as eerilysubversive pharmaceutical ads. Both are animated by the creation of a story in which there is adesirable "normal" the consumer may achieve by means of Ivory or Ritalin in contrast to theshameful, abnormal child that is dirty, messy and less than expected.While Hall stares with unflinching penetration at these cultural artifacts, at times her conclusions are obscure. She frequently prefers to end her pages-long discussion of a particular ad with a rhetorical question rather than a strong connection to her argument. Perhaps this isindicative of my own eroded capacity for attention, but I believe that her readers might better navigate through her hundred-page chapters if offered more concrete announcements of what shesees and is leading us to see in her illustrations.While Hall's direct appropriation of Edwin Black's critique of "human genetics" and"Genetic counseling" as a the post-WWII name for "eugenics" is hard to overlook as asuggestion of the need to re-evaluate these publicly acceptable fields of inquiry, most of her callfor "policy change" is aimed at the church. First, she reminds the church that it is the bearer of an alternative system of valuing that aught to view children as "unqualified gifts from God." AsLumpkin 3
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