Faith in America [Three Volumes] Changes, Challenges, New Directions

Subjects:

• Religious Studies » Religious Studies (General)
• Religious Studies » Comparative Religion
• Popular Culture » American Studies

Reviews:

• Lippy and his advisory board have demonstrated the wide range of influence religion has in daily life by gathering 36 essays from distinguished scholars who discuss pertinent influences on religion in American life....Do the contributors address all the major forces (e.g., the Internet, sports) changing the shape of religion in American life? Maybe not, but they certainly make readers aware of the enormous role religion plays in our society. Generally, the essays are accessible to all readers and reveal the unfolding drama that is religion in America. Recommended for large general public and academic libraries.
  —Library Journal December 15, 2006
• This three-volume encyclopedia surveys a broad range of religious beliefs, practices, and influence in contemporary American culture. The 36 essays consider multiple religious traditions and highlight the myriad ways that religion engages in the private lives of individuals--and in public debates, media, and culture. Volume 1 focuses on major contemporary religious traditions in the US and includes a chapter on alternative religions. Volume 2 examines political and cultural issues in which religious beliefs play a role, such as abortion, stem cell research, and gay rights. Volume 3 investigates lived religion and individual spirituality through fiction, film, the Internet, sports, and more. Editor Lippy seeks to highlight the ways in which religious beliefs and practices have changed over the past 40 years, along with the enduring ways that religious attitudes continue to transform American culture....[r]eadable and accessible to a general audience. Highly recommended. Academic and public libraries; all levels.
  —Choice June 2007
• Scholars of religion explore the major trends in religion in the US over the past half century at a level accessible to general readers and nonspecialist scholars and students. The first volume looks primarily at transformations in organized religious life in mainstream and other varieties of Christianity, in religions that are minorities in the US, and among various population groups. The second explores debate and controversy that have risen, such as the political impact of the religious right, abortion, and civil religion. The third considers the retreat into personal spirituality from such perspectives as fiction, film the Internet, and religion in a world of terror. The volumes are paged and indexed separately.
  —Reference & Research Book News February 2007
• Few encyclopedias (extended studies) could be more needed in America today than this indispesable three-volume set. It should have been made available before the election November 7, 2006, but it will serve as an explanation, or justification, for the results of that election, for spiritual America is still a land without a solid ground to stand on....These three volumes look behind and into every (burning) bush to try to determine why things are what they are....An informed electorate is supposed to be a responsible electorate. These three volumes should help bring about that desired paradise.
  —Journal of American Cultures June 2007

Table of Contents:

• Volume I
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Growth and Decline in the Mainline
• 2. Post-Vatican II Catholicism: A New Church for a New Day?
• 3. Roman Catholicism after the Sex Scandals
• 4. The Spirit of the Law: Spirituality in American Judaism
• 5. Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism: The Changing Face of Evangelicalism in America
• 6. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism: The Impact of World Religions
• 7. Porous Borders: Mexican Immigration and American Civic Culture
• 8. The Shifting Role of the Latter-day Saints as the Quintessential American Religion
• 9. The Continuing Influence of Region on American Religious Life
• 10. The Shape of Things to Come: Megachurches, Emerging Churches, and Other New Religious Structures
• 11. In Search of the Promised Land: Post-Civil Rights Trends in African American Religion
• 12. New and Alternative Religions: Changes, Issues, Trends
• Index
• About the Editor and Contributors
• About the Advisory Board
• Volume II
• 1. Public Ceremonies: Ritualizing Civic, Media, and Social Life
• 2. American Civil Religion: Myth, Reality, and Challenges
• 3. A Touristic Spirit in Places of Religion
• 4. Religion and Politics: The Impact of the Religious Right
• 5. From Southern Strategy to National Strategy: How the Christian Right Is Transforming Church-State Relations
• 6. Queering the Mainstream, Mainstreaming the Queer: LGBT People and Religion in the U.S.
• 7. Gender Matters: How Second-Wave Feminism Shaped and Reshaped American Religion
• 8. A Baby or a Fetus: The Abortion Debate in America
• 9. Christian Attitudes Toward Reproductive Technologies
• 10. This Mortal Coil: Mortality, Morality, and Stem Cells
• 11. Reading Foodways as Faithways in Contemporary America
• 12. Sacred Bodies: Religion, Illness, and Healing
• Index
• About the Editor and Contributors
• About the Advisory Board
• Volume III
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Contemporary Worship: Trends and Patterns in Christian America
• 2. A Visionary People: Religion and the Visual Arts in America
• 3. Personal Spirituality
• 4. Out of the Mouths of Babes: Religion and Spirituality among Children and Teens
• 5. Living Fiction: American Spirituality and Bestselling Novels
• 6. The Footprints of Film: After Images of Religion in American Space and Time
• 7. The Internet and American Religious Life
• 8. Workplace Spirituality
• 9. Nature Religion and Environmentalism in North America
• 10. Religion and the Environment
• 11. From Muscular Christianity to Divine Madness: Sports nd/as Religion in America
• 12. From Faith to Fear: Religion in a World of Terror
• Index
• About the Editor and Contributors
• About the Advisory Board

PDF Catalogs:
Praeger Religion Catalog 2008.pdf	Praeger Public Library Spring 2008.pdf