Secularization and religious innovation in the north Atlantic world / edited by David Hempton and Hugh McLeod.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hempton, David, editor, author.

McLeod, Hugh, editor, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Secularization.

Religion.

United States--Religion--Congresses.

United States.

Europe--Religion--Congresses.

Europe.

Religions--Congresses.

Religions.

Secularization--United States--Congresses.

Secularization--Europe--Congresses.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

xiv, 407 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

In the early twenty-first century it had become a cliche that there was a 'God Gap' between a more religious United States and a more secular Europe. The apparent religious differences between the United States and western Europe continue to be a focus of intense and sometimes bitter debate between three of the main schools in the sociology of religion. According to the influential 'Secularization Thesis', secularization has been an integral part of the processes of modernisation in the Western world since around 1800. For proponents of this thesis, the United States appears as an anomaly and they accordingly give considerable attention to explaining why it is different. For other sociologists, however, the apparently high level of religiosity in the USA provides a major argument in their attempts to refute the Thesis. Secularization and Religious Innovation in the Atlantic World provides a systematic comparison between the religious histories of the United States and western European countries from the eighteenth to the late twentieth century, noting parallels as well as divergences, examining their causes and especially highlighting change over time. This is achieved by a series of themes which seem especially relevant to this agenda, and in each case the theme is considered by two scholars. The volume examines whether American Christians have been more innovative, and if so how far is this explains the apparent 'God Gap'. It goes beyond the simple American/European binary to ask what is 'American' or 'European' in the Christianity of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in what ways national or regional differences outweigh these commonalities.

Contents:

The established churches, church growth, and secularization in imperial Britain, c.1830-1930 / Stewart J. Brown

Religious markets, capital markets, and church finances in industrializing America / Eric Baldwin

Evangelicalism and secularization in Britain and America from the eighteenth century to the present / David Bebbington

"There are no secular events" : popular media and the diverging paths of British and American evangelicalism / Heather D. Curtis

On the volatile relationship of secularization and new religious movements : a Christian Science case / David Holland

Mormons and materialism : struggling against the ideology of separation / Colleen McDannell

Women's history and religious innovation / Ann Braude

"Such a renewal" : Catholic al-male movements in modern Europe / Tine Van Osselaer

Pentecostalism and popular culture in Britain and America from the early twentieth century to the 1970s / Randall Stephens

Muscular Christianity : American and European / Hugh McLeod

GI religion and post-war revival in the United States and Great Britain / Michael Snape

"Billy Graham's cold war crusades " : re-Christianization, secularization, and the spiritual creation of the free world in the 1950s / Uta A. Balbier

Is there an American exceptionalism? : American and German Catholics in comparison / Wilhelm Damberg

How exceptional? : US Catholics since 1945 / Leslie Woodcock Tentler

Gospels of growth : the American megachurch at home and abroad / Kip Richardson

Religion, territory, and choice : contrasting configurations, 1970-2015 / Grace Davie

"Religious America, secular Europe" : are they really so different? / Hugh McLeod

Organizing concepts and "small differences" in the comparative secularization of Westen Europe and the United States / David Hempton .

Notes:

"This volume had its origin in an exploratory workshop at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in May 2013."--Page [v].

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780198798071

0198798075

OCLC:

989047060

Publisher Number:

99972747163