Deepening and developing the seminal vision of Habits of the Heart (California, 1985), this volume presents original essays by leading thinkers in the social sciences, philosophy, and religion.
Meaning and Modernity Religion, Polity, and Self
About the Book
Reviews
"This interesting volume of essays on contemporary religion and its ambivalent relationship to modernity not only serves as a testimony to the intellectual influence of Robert Bellah, it establishes a new school of comparative religious and social thought. This Bellahian school--at the intersection of sociological, theological, and contemporary philosophical thinking--has roots in Durkheim and Weber, borrows insights from Marx, Foucault, and Bourdieu, and finds its clearest voice in the writings of Bellah himself. The essays by some of Bellah's colleagues and former students that have been gathered in this volume address some of the most sagacious of these Bellahian themes: the religious dimension of contemporary civil societies, the relationship between religious and capitalist values, the cultural critique of modernity, and the moral visions that hold a promise of civic renewal."—Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (California, 2000)."This highly readable collection of original, thought-provoking essays by leading scholars provides fresh insights into the issues that Robert Bellah has addressed so fruitfully in his long career. Readers will learn much about such issues as how Calvinism contributed to political revolution, why democracies require an enlarged sense of political community, how the religious foundations of Japan and the United States differ, and what it means to be a Christian and an American."—Benton Johnson, coauthor of Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Protestant Baby Boomers (1994) and author of Functionalism in Modern Sociology: Understanding Talcott Parsons (1975)
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
by Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton
1. "Mythic Gestures": Robert N. Bellah and Cultural Sociology
by Jeffrey C. Alexander and Steven J. Sherwood
2. Social Differentiation and Moral Pluralism
by Steven M. Tipton
3. Saving the Self: Endowment vs. Depletion in American Institutions
by Ann Swidler
4. Mirror-Image Modernities: Contrasting Religious Premises of Japanese and U.S. Modernity
by S. N. Eisenstadt
5. Calvinism and Revolution: The Walzer Thesis Reconsidered
by Philip S. Gorski
6. Comparative Cosmopolis: Discovering Different Paths to Moral Integration in the Modern Ecumene
by Richard Madsen
7. Mammon and the Culture of the Market: A Socio-Theological Critique
by Harvey Cox
8. Selling God in America: American Commercial Culture as a Climate of Hospitality to Religion
by John A. Coleman, S.J.
9. In Search of Common Ground: Howard Thurman and Religious Community
by Albert J. Raboteau
10. Reassembling the Civic Church: The Changing Role of Congregations in American Civil Society
by Robert Wuthnow
11. Democracy, Inclusive and Exclusive
by Charles Taylor
12. Raising Good Citizens in a Bad Society: Moral Education and Political Avoidance in Civic America
by Nina Eliasoph
13. On Being a Christian and an American
by Stanley Hauerwas
14. Politics as the "Public Use of Reason": Religious Roots of Political Possibilities
by William M. Sullivan
Epilogue. Meaning and Modernity: America and the World
by Robert N. Bellah
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Contributors