Religion in the National Agenda: What We Mean by Religious, Spiritual, Secular - Hardcover

Should become a must-read for anyone interested in debates about "religion" and religion in the United States and beyond. -Charles Mathewes, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia Religion in the National Agenda is a significant contribution to an important discussion. Christian Smith, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame His consideration of relationships between religion and science, as well as religion and the law, are thought-provoking, and his discussion of the place of religion in political life should prove helpful... Recommended. -- CHOICE

In this highly provocative investigation, C. John Sommerville examines common linguistic uses of the terms "religion," "religious," "spiritual," and "secular" in order to discern understandings of these words in contemporary American culture. For example, he finds that, in English, "religion" is our word for a certain kind of response to a certain kind of power (the power and the response both being beyond anything else in our experience). Sommerville then uses these definitions to examine the ways that institutions in the fields of education, science, law, politics and religion are affected--often in unexpected ways--by a shared set of assumptions about what these words mean.