Spiritual, but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America PDF
Preview Spiritual, but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America
Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America Robert C. Fuller OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Spiri t ual, But Not Rel ig ious (cid:1) This page intentionally left blank Spiritual, But Not Religious Understanding Unchurched America (cid:2) Robert C. Fuller 1 2001 1 Ox ford NewYork Athens Auckland Bang kok Bogotá Buen osAires CapeTown Chennai Dar esSalaam Delhi Florence HongKong Ist anbul Karachi Kolkata KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Sin gapore Taipei To kyo To ronto War saw andas so ci atedcom pa nies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2001 by Oxf ord University Press, Inc. Published by Oxf ord University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxf ord University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publ ication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys tem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, elec tronic,me chan i cal,pho to copy ing,re cord ing,oroth er wise, with out priorper mis sion ofOx fordUni ver sity Press. Lib raryofCong ressCata l oging-in-Publ ic at ionData Fuller, Robert C., 1952– Spiritual, but not religious : und erstanding unc hurched America / Robert C. Fuller. p. cm. In cludesbib lio graph i cal ref er encesandin dex. ISBN 0–19–514680-8 1. Non church-affiliated people—United States. 2.Spir i tu al ity—UnitedStates. 3. United States—Religion. I. Title. BR526.F58 2001 200’.973—dc21 2001032149 Book des ign and typesetting by Glen R.J. Mules, New Rochelle, NY 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of Amer ica on acid-free paper Cont ents Unc hurchedSpiri t ua li ty AnIn tro duc tion 1 1 The Emer gence of Unchurched Traditions 13 2 TheFloweringof Metap hysi c al Rel ig ion 45 3 Exo tic Mess ages,Fam ili ar Themes Con tem po raryIn volve ment intheAmer i canDi lemma 75 4 Alt ern at iveMedi c ines,Alt ern at iveWorldviews 101 5 Powers of the Hidd en Self Psy cho log i cal Spir i tu al ity 123 6 Barnes & Noble as Synagogue TheNewEclec ti cisminAmer i can Re li gion 153 App end ix Un churchedRe li gion:ASchol arlyAgenda 175 Notes 179 Ind ex 205 This page intentionally left blank Spiri t ual, But Not Rel ig ious This page intentionally left blank (cid:2) Unchurched Spirituality An Introduction The United States is ar guably the most rel igious na tion on earth. Public opini on polls in dicate that more than 90 percent of all Amer i- cans be lieve in some kind of Higher Power. Sixty-two percent be long to a church or syna gogue.1 Most of us tend to think about religion al- most exclusively in terms of these religious organizations. Yet this is hardly the whole pict ure. Alm ost 40 percent of Americans have no conn ect ion withorg an ized rel ig ion.Des pite theirunc hurchedstat us, however, most nonetheless claim to be strongly religious or spir itual on a pers onal level.Anyatt empttound ers tand cont emp or aryAmer- ican spir ituality must therefore look well beyond the bound aries of the na tion’s churches. The purpose of this book is to exp lore the his tory and present sta- tus of un churched religion in the United States. This is not an easy task. It is one thing to acknowledge the ex istence of unc hurched reli- gion. To def ine, cate g or ize, and und ers tand it is cons ide ra bly more difficult. We can with some precision det ermine how many peo ple
Description:The list of books you might like
