Degree Year

2011

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Religion

Advisor(s)

James Swan Tuite

Committee Member(s)

David Kamitsuka, Chair
Albert G. Miller
Paula Richman
Corey Barnes

Keywords

Truck driving, Trucking, American religion, Christianity, Evangelicalism, Truckstop chapels, Lived religion, Religion

Abstract

This study examines manifestations of Christian faith found along the highways of the United States, particularly in the form of truckstop chapels. Through ethnographic research and social-historical/theoretical analysis, this study seeks to explore the ways in which Evangelical Christianity, when combined with certain cultural and social particulars of the trucking profession, may be markedly re-contextualized, giving rise to distinctive approaches to ministry, worship, and religious life.

By identifying widespread and often codified specializations among trucking ministries and examining the ways in which the trucking-specific evangelism of such ministries may be applied and lived out by individual drivers of faith, this study asserts that trucking ministry is a concrete and unique social, cultural, and religious formation, the existence and properties of which allow many drivers to pursue and understand faith and profession in a seamless and unified manner.

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