A stirring, eloquent commentary on contemporary Americans— spiritual condition. Why do millions of Americans claim they are spiritual but not religious? This contemplative interpretation by leading sociologist of religion Wuthnow (Sociology/Princeton; God and Mammon in America, 1994, etc.) postulates that while the 1950s and earlier eras promoted a spirituality of dwelling (tied to a particular place of worship and to the family), the post-1960s era has emphasized one of seeking. The religious journey has become somehow more important than actually arriving (or staying) in any one place. It’s not just that Americans no longer opt for longtime commitment to religious institutions; it’s a fundamental paradigm shift proclaiming that the individual spiritual quest is more meaningful than religious community, and that Americans now understand the sacred to abide in themselves, not in traditional establishments. If all this smacks of the ’60s, it’s with good reason: one of the most cogent arguments of this book is that the legacy of the ’60s has profoundly affected not only the immediate participants in the upheavals of that decade, but all Americans. In the 1990s, for example, we see the ephemeral seeker of spirituality of the ’60s come to a logical conclusion in our cultural obsession with angels: when angels visit, they don—t demand that we go to church, make lasting spiritual commitments, or change our behavior in any way. Such encounters are brief, subjective, and almost always therapeutic, like ’90s spirituality. Wuthnow shows that, as God has become less immediately a part of our cultural —geography,— we rely more heavily on friendly intermediaries. Angels thus demonstrate the anxieties many Americans have about God, not an upsurge in new religious sentiment. Occasionally preachy (especially about why Reagan was the perfect symbol of the shallow spirituality of the ’80s), but always subtly perceptive, this is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand noninstitutional religion in America.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-520-21396-3
Page Count: 263
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A markedly contemporary study that navigates the New Testament scholar past the perils of Pauline theology. Boyarin (Talmudic Culture/Univ. of Calif., Berkeley; Carnal Israel, not reviewed) attempts to ``reclaim Paul as an important Jewish thinker.'' He goes on to establish this primary apostle as a Hellenized Jew whose Platonic sensibility calls for a universal sameness that negates the divisions separating Jew from Gentile and man from woman. The disembodied spirituality of Platonic dualism allows females (especially virgins) to be equal to men under Christ, and allows an uncircumcised Christian of any gender to ``circumcise the foreskin of her [sic] heart'' with Hebrew Bible commandments universalized and allegorized. Boyarin does not glibly valorize Paul as a champion of feminism and an opponent of Jewish exclusivist chauvinism. After crediting Paul for being a radical social critic, the author makes clear how the apostle's pre-Marxist universalism too easily slid into violent coercion in the later, blood-soaked chapters of Christian history. Boyarin analyzes the work of many Christian scholars in concluding that Lutheran misinterpretations of Paul allow us to consider the apostle to be far more antagonistic to Jews and Judaism than he really was. The benefit of Boyarin's Jewish defense against hermeneutical Christian anti-Semitism is tempered by his disdain for a Judaic ``tendency towards contemptuous neglect for human solidarity'' and his anti- Zionism (``modern Jewish statist nationalism has been...very violent and exclusionary''). Sometimes he confuses Christian ``salvation'' theology with Jewish belief, and he fails to find any similarity between Pauline Platonism and the allegorical and universal levels of Torah laws. The final chapter digresses to a personal view of the ``essentialist/social constructionist dichotomy,'' but the book does end with ample notes and bibliography. A rewarding read for students of Christian theology willing to be challenged by today's multicultural, poststructuralist, postfeminist scholarship.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-520-08592-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing look at an unusual religious and medical phenomenon. Harrison, a former religious affairs correspondent for the BBC, investigates historical and contemporary reports of stigmata, the strange bleeding marks that are said to resemble the wounds suffered by Jesus at the Crucifixion. Having interviewed both physicians and those who suffer from the stigmata, he tells us that the marks appear most often on the hands and feet but can appear as stripes on the back, where Jesus was supposed to have been scourged, or on the side where, according to the Gospels, he was pierced by a spear. The first documented case of the lesions happened to St. Francis of Assisi in 1224. Since then, it is estimated, 300 or more people have suffered the wounds. Are these the result of excessive religious fervor and mental imbalance manifesting itself physically? Or are the wounds a gift from God, a sign of blessing given to the truly faithful? Almost all the reported cases have come from poor Catholics living in Mediterranean countries. Officially, the Vatican admits the possibility that the marks are miraculous in origin while looking skeptically on any individual case. Medical science has scrutinized reported cases for 200 years. According to the scientific view, the wounds are the product of emotional stress. Women afflicted outnumber men by a ratio of seven to one. The wounds are more common in religious communities and monasteries. Recent years have witnessed an increase of cases in England and Latin America. The phenomenon is no longer confined to Catholics. And the United States has produced the first non-Caucasian sufferers as Native Americans and African-Americans have experienced the phenomenon. The author believes that global conditions (poverty, stress, a rise in charismatic Christianity) are right for an increase in reported cases. Fascinating and well told, this tale of religious fervor will appeal to believers and skeptics alike.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-11372-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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