Rediscovering the sacred

The sacred is alive and well in society today. Persisting despite the forces of secularization, the sacred remains constant--and yet it is ever changing, manifesting itself in different forms. This book offers more of the penetrating sociological analysis for which Robert Wuthnow is already well known. It is commonly assumed that interest in the sacred periodically wanes and revives in modern societies. Wuthnow argues, however, that this interest remains constant over time and that what appear to be revivals are actually rediscoveries of the sacred in new forms. In support of his thesis, Wuthnow examines the main theoretical approaches toward religion that have emerged of late in the social sciences, and he shows how these approaches have moved away from the idea of linear secularization and can help explain the changing character and shifting location of the sacred. Among the approaches Wuthnow discusses are those of Peter Berger, Clifford Geertz, Robert Bellah, and Northrop Frye. Paying particular attention to the interplay between religion and culture, Wuthnow considers how the sacred relates to everyday reality, how recent theories have come to emphasize religion as a cultural "practice," and how the rhetorical characteristics of religious discourse influence its public perception. He also examines broader questions about the relationship of public religion to modernizing forces, its role in politics, and its increasingly international context. Providing a set of lenses through which to view more clearly the changing manifestations of the sacred in contemporary society, Wuthnow's Rediscovering the Sacred complements his widely read book The Struggle for America's Soul. Rediscovering will be, like Struggle has been, of interest especially to students of the sociology of religion.