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The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.
In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries, especially in Europe, have increasingly large nonaffiliate, 'subjectively secular' populations, whilst nonreligious cultural movements like the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity, irreligion, and the relationship between them has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of modern life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, Recognizing the Non-religious develops a new vocabulary, theory and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial—involving merely the absence of religion—and substantial—involving beliefs, ritual practice, and identities that are alternative to religious ones. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious therefore opens up new, more egalitarian and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are 'not religious'. It is also argued that recognizing the nonreligious allows us to reimagine the secular itself in new and productive ways. This book is part of a fast-growing area of research that builds upon and contributes to theoretical debates concerning secularization, 'desecularization', religious change, postsecularity and postcolonial approaches to religion and secularism. As well as presenting new research, this book gathers insights from the wider studies of nonreligion, atheism, and secularism in order to consolidate a theoretical framework, conceptual foundation and agenda for future research.
In Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, bishop and social activist John Shelby Spong argues that 200 years of biblical scholarship has been withheld from lay Christians. In this brilliant follow-up to Spong’s previous books Eternal Life and Jesus for the Non-Religious, Spong not only reveals the crucial truths that have long been kept hidden from the public eye, but also explores what the history of the Bible can teach us about reading its stories today and living our lives for tomorrow. Sarah Sentilles, author of Breaking Up With God: A Love Story, applauds John Shelby Spong’s Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, writing that “pulsing beneath his brilliant, thought-provoking, passionate book is this question: can Christianity survive the education of its believers?…A question Bishop Spong answers with a resounding yes.”
Proto-orthodox Christianity started with St. Paul, but the religion had its genesis with neither Paul nor Jesus. In Christianity, we investigate the 5000-year history and development of what became today's Faith. The first of three parts, considers the present situation where thousands of doctrinally divergent variants of the "Christian" faith exist. The second part explores late Judaism and the ancient Greek religions, and delves deeper into their predecessors to find the roots of the concepts that would enter into those Christianities found today. The third part examines the earliest centuries of the religion in the hope of resolving the question: Was there ever a single Christianity? We will traverse the remaining centuries looking at the middle Ages, the Age of Enlightenment and contemporary ecumenism. Packing 5000 years of history into a thin volume would be impossible except for the use of ample figures (each worth a thousand words) in the form of maps, tables, graphs, and timelines. Encapsulations and independent essays of topics are included that give concise summaries of key subject matter. Although it is wished that every word be thoroughly studied and digested, skimmers can get the gist of the book's contents from these encapsulations and figures alone.
Are you more spiritual than religious? Have you ever wished for a way to engage the question of faith without suffering the scorn and judgment from those who call themselves Christian? In The Non-Religious Christian, Vern Jones shares his journey growing up constrained by the strict dogma of an evangelical Baptist church to a renewed faith without the myths and restrictive ideology taught by so many churches. Through the eyes of a scientist who has studies the Bible his entire life, Jones debunks many so-called biblical truths and the whole notion of biblical inerrancy. He then puts forth a new and exciting way of looking at faith, without the restrictions placed by organized religions nor the need to e a part of a church to be a Christian. Many of the significant social issues of our time including abortion, stem cell research, school prayer, evolution and the display of the 10 Commandments are addressed in this book with new insights that run contrary to those in the traditional evangelical movement. Vern is not attempting to convert anyone, but simply sharing his years of research with fellow truth seekers to find a faith that they may call their own.
The Pope Describes the Ancient Traditional Jesus; Bishop Spong Brings Us a Jesus Modern People Can Be Inspired By
In The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, Second Edition, Ryan P. Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade. Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from more than a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists or agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers to understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion. This second edition includes substantial updates with new chapters and current statistical and demographic information. The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say that they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.
A radically new way of understanding secularism which explains why being secular can seem so strangely religious For much of America’s rapidly growing secular population, religion is an inescapable source of skepticism and discomfort. It shows up in politics and in holidays, but also in common events like weddings and funerals. In The Secular Paradox, Joseph Blankholm argues that, despite their desire to avoid religion, nonbelievers often seem religious because Christianity influences the culture around them so deeply. Relying on several years of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, the volume explores how very secular people are ambivalent toward belief, community, ritual, conversion, and tradition. As they try to embrace what they share, secular people encounter, again and again, that they are becoming too religious. And as they reject religion, they feel they have lost too much. Trying to strike the right balance, secular people alternate between the two sides of their ambiguous condition: absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like secular tradition. Blankholm relies heavily on the voices of women and people of color to understand what it means to live with the secular paradox. The struggles of secular misfits—the people who mis-fit normative secularism in the United States—show that becoming secular means rejecting parts of life that resemble Christianity and embracing a European tradition that emphasizes reason and avoids emotion. Women, people of color, and secular people who have left non-Christian religions work against the limits and contradictions of secularism to create new ways of being secular that are transforming the American religious landscape. They are pioneering the most interesting and important forms of secular “religiosity” in America today.
“A dark but brilliantly original work . . . one of the most important books on religion and the modern in recent years.” —H-Net Reviews Opening with the provocative query “what might an anthropology of the secular look like?” this book explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities and attitudes in the modern West and the Middle East. Talal Asad proceeds to dismantle commonly held assumptions about the secular and the terrain it allegedly covers. He argues that while anthropologists have oriented themselves to the study of the “strangeness of the non-European world” and to what are seen as non-rational dimensions of social life (things like myth, taboo, and religion),the modern and the secular have not been adequately examined. The conclusion is that the secular cannot be viewed as a successor to religion, or be seen as on the side of the rational. It is a category with a multi-layered history, related to major premises of modernity, democracy, and the concept of human rights. This book will appeal to anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars, as well as scholars working on modernity. “A difficult if stunningly eloquent book, a response both elusive and forthright to the many shelves of ‘books on terrorism’ which this country’s trade publishers are rushing into print.” —Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature “This wonderfully illuminating book should be read alongside the author’s Genealogies of Religion.” —Religion “One of the most interesting scholars of religious writing today.” —Christian Scholar’s Review “Asad’s brilliant study remains a defining piece of intellectual and scholarly contribution for all of those interested in exploring the religious and the secular in the modern era.” —The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences