Books and
Cooks West
January 2005
The Transformation of American Religion
by
Alan Wolfe
The Transformation of
American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith
by Alan Wolfe
Michele's place
Saturday, January 22 at 5:30 PM
Chickpea stew, cheese and crackers, slaw, Chardonnay, Merlot, carrot
cake
Our rating: 3.5 cups of tea!
From Publisher's Weekly
We have come to the end of American religion as we once knew it,
proclaims sociologist Wolfe. Drawing on interviews with practicing
Protestants, Catholics and Jews, Wolfe examines the ways that American
religion has been so transformed over the past five decades that it is
no longer recognizable. He explores every facet of American
religion-worship, fellowship, doctrine, tradition, morality, sin,
witness and identity-as he investigates the fading of practices or
beliefs that once dominated. For example, he observes that discussion
of doctrine has almost disappeared from churches as they have focused
more and more on emotional response to worship or belief and less on
intellectual investigations of a church's history or creed. Wolfe also
points out that the increasing religious pluralism in America has
altered not only the faiths traditionally practiced in America but also
those of immigrants who bring their religions with them from their
native countries. Over the past 40 years, Wolfe argues, American
religion has become "more personalized and individualistic, less
doctrinal and devotional, more practical and purposeful." Although
Wolfe's study offers some lively reporting and clear prose, it provides
little new information about the decline of American religion and the
newly altered religious landscape.
