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Rating: 
Summary: Zealous No More
Review: American intellectuals have been lamenting the decline of religious vitality in their land at least since 1670, when Samuel Danforth railed against New Englanders for losing their way on their "errand into the wilderness." The classic genre for this lament is the jeremiad, which typically concludes with an impassioned plea for God's chosen people to repent (or else).Alan Wolfe's "The Transformation of American Religion" is an oddly modern jeremiad. Citing a wealth of ethnographic research and polling data, Mr. Wolfe argues that over the past few decades "strong versions of faith" have been "tamed" by the individualism, materialism and narcissism of American culture. Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism have all become "more personalized and individualistic, less doctrinal and devotional." Denominational loyalties have withered away under an epidemic of religion-switching, and both the dogma of sin and the practice of proselytizing have been slain by the shibboleth of "nonjudgmentalism." "American faith has met American culture," Mr. Wolfe writes, "and American culture has triumphed." In fact, the triumph is so complete that the time is soon coming when Christians and Jews will share more with secular Americans than with their co-religionists in Africa and Asia. (Witness the fallout over the recent decision by the leaders of the Episcopal Church to elect their first gay bishop.) As students of the jeremiad will recognize, this is the point in the sermon where the preacher is supposed to take up the mantle of the prophet, forecasting heaven-sent doom unless his fellow citizens get right with God. But when it comes to the capitulation of religion to culture, Mr. Wolfe is curious, not angry, and certainly not fearful of divine wrath to come. Indeed, he believes that the taming of religious zealotry may actually be a blessing in disguise. Observers of religion in American public life are as a rule morose Eeyores. Mr. Wolfe, by contrast, is an optimistic Pooh. In "One Nation, After All" (1998), he argued that the culture wars were waged only in the minds of intellectuals; ordinary Americans were not sharply divided over the great moral questions of the day. Here he contends that the religious divisions drawn by theologians and denominational hierarchies also disappear under scrutiny. While others look at American religion and see a two-party system pitting conservatives against liberals, Mr. Wolfe sees a wide swath of theological moderates. Look at the rhetoric of religious elites, he writes, and you will think that the U.S. itself is in for a clash of civilizations. But look at how Americans actually practice religion and you will see that everyone just wants to get along. The book ends with a challenge to liberals to welcome the faithful into the rough-and-tumble of politics. It isn't fair to demand that religious people check their convictions at the door, and the impulse to do so is rooted in a grave misunderstanding of how Americans actually live their spiritual lives. "Believers are full citizens of the United States," Mr. Wolfe concludes, "and it is time to make peace between them and the rest of America." Time will tell whether Mr. Wolfe is a naif or a prophet. For now, there is plenty of evidence for his claim that American commitments to individual conscience are smoothing down the sharp edges of Judaism and Christianity, even in the Bible Belt. What is less clear is whether the most recent wave of immigration to the U.S. is, as Mr. Wolfe argues, reinforcing this trend -- whether Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus are also melting into the nation's muddling middle. A number of studies have shown that Hindu immigrants, for instance, are more religious in the U.S. than they were in India. And while it is true, as Mr. Wolfe notes, that Muslims are accommodating their dietary rules to American exigencies, it is also the case that many Muslims become more observant after arriving here. In the end, Mr. Wolfe's curiously tame jeremiad, his determination to see the face of American religion in Oprah rather than in Franklin Graham, seems itself to be captive to our culture of toleration. In "Religion as a Chain of Memory" (2000), the French sociologist Daniele Hervieu-Leger argued that religion is best understood as a process that links individual believers to one another through shared memories of a collective past. The secularization of many European societies represents, in her view, not the conquest of reason but the onset of cultural amnesia. If Ms. Hervieu-Leger is right, then the collective amnesia of American Presbyterians about the Westminster Confession and of Southern Baptists about the Bible is more than a cause for bemusement; it is a cause for alarm. It should be noted, however, that there are plenty of pundits pressing the panic button. The measured tone that Mr. Wolfe strikes in this important book will be welcomed by many readers. So should his call for full citizenship for religious Americans.
Rating: 
Summary: Transforms how we think about our faith(s)
Review: I found this book to be a thought-provoking example of Sociology of Religion at its best, aimed at the general educated reader--accessibly written but by no means dumbed down. The author's argument is persuasive, convincingly backed up with fascinating detail and enlightening anecdote. As a result, many of my views--prejudices, really--about conservative Christians in this country were challenged and somewhat altered. The author also does a good job of suggesting the range of religions in America today (varieties of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc...) without becoming tediously encyclopedic. Overall, two thumbs up.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and thought-provoking
Review: This book is a must-read for any person who wants to take an intellectual look at modern American religions. I happen to be a "believer" in one of the analyzed faiths (Protestantism--both mainline and evangelical, Catholicism, and Judiasm) and I found his analysis to be insightful, occasionallly disturbing, amd very thought-provoking. Although Wolfe calls himself an agnostic, of sorts, he is respectful to the people and views he analyzes and uses an even handed tone to both praise and critique the current state of religious belief in the US. As a person interested in theology I found his discussion of modern doctrine, sin, and worship to be completely fascinating. This book does not set out to change anyone's core beliefs about God, but it very well may change your view about how the church approaches God, worship, and evangelism. Although I am a lay reader, I have read quite a bit of theology and was comfortable with some terms that Wolfe takes a bit for granted. A person who has trouble distinguishing between the terms "evangelical" and "mainline", or thinks that a church using rock music might be called "liberal" could have difficulty with the text. Wolfe could have included a short glossary at the end of his book; this may have made this important text more accessible to lay readers. I strongly recommend this book to any person studying religion or theology, or to any intellectually-minded believer in Christianity or Judaism.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and thought-provoking
Review: This book is a must-read for any person who wants to take an intellectual look at modern American religions. I happen to be a "believer" in one of the analyzed faiths (Protestantism--both mainline and evangelical, Catholicism, and Judiasm) and I found his analysis to be insightful, occasionallly disturbing, amd very thought-provoking. Although Wolfe calls himself an agnostic, of sorts, he is respectful to the people and views he analyzes and uses an even handed tone to both praise and critique the current state of religious belief in the US. As a person interested in theology I found his discussion of modern doctrine, sin, and worship to be completely fascinating. This book does not set out to change anyone's core beliefs about God, but it very well may change your view about how the church approaches God, worship, and evangelism. Although I am a lay reader, I have read quite a bit of theology and was comfortable with some terms that Wolfe takes a bit for granted. A person who has trouble distinguishing between the terms "evangelical" and "mainline", or thinks that a church using rock music might be called "liberal" could have difficulty with the text. Wolfe could have included a short glossary at the end of his book; this may have made this important text more accessible to lay readers. I strongly recommend this book to any person studying religion or theology, or to any intellectually-minded believer in Christianity or Judaism.
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