Rodney Clapp, a cultural critic who writes from a Christian perspective, has addressed traditionally secular topics as diverse as global corporations and Winnie the Pooh, family values and “The X Files,” and everything from consumerism to Hank Williams and John Coltrane.

Clapp will be visiting Lawrence next week, when he’ll give several talks at Kansas University about his perspectives on the intersection between Christianity and American society.

“I would summarize what I write on as basically theologically informed and directed cultural criticism,” says Clapp, editorial director and co-founder of the Grand Rapids, Mich., based Brazos Press, a three-year-old imprint of the revered evangelical publisher Baker Book House.

Clapp is the author of four books, including “Border Crossings: Christian Trespasses on Popular Culture and Public Affairs,” and “A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society.”

He has contributed essays to 14 other books and published more than 100 essays in a variety of periodicals, including: The Christian Century, the Wall Street Journal, Books & Culture, The Church of England Newspaper and The Other Side.

Clapp describes Brazos as a publisher of books that deal with theology and biblical studies, cultural criticism and Christian spirituality.

“We’ve had a good response to our books from a wide variety of people. It’s a challenging time to be a book publisher, because there are so many competing media,” Clapp says.

“We do more serious, demanding books than some do. It’s definitely a challenge.”

One of the talks he will give at KU is called “It’s Not Our Dog: Religion, Churches and the Public Good.”

“My concern here is with the way Christianity in the modern era has been privatized, has been made primarily a matter for individuals, not a matter of a social group or communal concern or endeavor. It has to do solely with the individual and God,” he says.

“I’ll argue that Christianity does have a social and political basis. I would say Christianity is not an issue of the individual relating directly to God, so much as it is God calling out to a particular people from the world for the sake of the world. Those people are first of all the Jews, and following after them, the Christian Church.”

Clapp will also give a talk called “Confusion of the Holy with Consumerism,” one of his favorite topics.

“I’ll be concerned with the way a consumer-oriented society like ours challenges a traditional faith. The yen for novelty, for new experiences and new products, militates against the value that traditional faiths put on such things as fidelity, faithfulness and stability,” he says.

“I will talk about how consumer capitalism tries, and is largely successful, in shaping us as certain kinds of people, and I suggest that that’s in tension with the kinds of people we want to be.”