Joelle Kidd, "Jesusland: Stories from the Upside Down World of Christian Pop Culture" (ECW Press, 2025)

Sep 7, 2025

Joelle Kidd, author of "Jesusland: Stories from the Upside Down World of Christian Pop Culture," reflects on her evangelical adolescence infused with early 2000s Christian pop culture. She shares humorous and poignant insights about the commercialization of faith and the rise of purity culture. Kidd discusses the exploitation of volunteer labor in Christian filmmaking and how early Christian pop influences contemporary political movements. Her compelling essays bridge personal experiences with a critique of the socio-political ramifications of evangelicalism today.

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ANECDOTE

Pink Bibles And Teen Bible Magazines

Kidd recalls ubiquitous Christian products: pink Bibles, teen Bible magazines, and quizzes that mimicked secular teen magazines.
She connects these artifacts to a deliberate blending of secular media forms with evangelical messages.

INSIGHT

Church Films As Fundraising Machines

Many church-produced films were low-budget, used volunteer crews, and generated high percentage returns.
These films mainly preached to the choir and functioned as fundraising and cohesion tools for mega-churches.

INSIGHT

Goodwill Masking Labor Exploitation

Volunteer labor on Christian film sets bypassed industry protections and hid exploitation under goodwill.
Kidd ties this to broader patterns of organized religion leveraging congregant enthusiasm for unpaid work.

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In Jesusland (ECW Press, 2025) Joelle Kidd uses a blend of cultural criticism, humor, and personal memoir akin to Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror or Grace Perry’s The 2000s Made Me Gay, Kidd writes about her evangelical adolescence through the lens of Christian pop culture of the early 2000s, giving readers a peek into this odd subculture and insight into how evangelicalism’s growing popularity around the turn of the millennium has shaped culture and politics — including today’s far right. An empathetic, funny, and sharply critical collection of essays exploring the Christian pop culture of the 2000s and its influence on today’s politically powerful evangelicalism In 1999, after three years of secular living in Eastern Europe, Kidd moved back to Canada and was enrolled in the strange world of an evangelical Christian school. In Jesusland, Kidd writes about the Christian pop culture that she was suddenly immersed in, from perky girl bands to modest styling tips, and draws connections between this evangelical subculture and the mainstream, a tense yet reciprocal relationship that both disavows the secular while employing its media markers. But none of this was just about catchy songs: every abstinence quiz in a teen magazine was laying the foundation for what would become a conservative Christian movement that threatens women’s healthcare, attacks queer and trans rights, and drives present-day political division. Through nine incisive, honest, and emotional essays, Jesusland exposes the pop cultural machinations of evangelicalism, while giving voice to aughts-era Christian children and teens who are now adults looking back at their time, measuring the length of their skirts, and asking each other if their celebrity crush was Christian enough. With care and generosity, Jesusland shows us how the conservative evangelical movement became the global power it is today by exploring the pop culture that both reflected and shaped an entire generation of young people.

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