[Emily] Ogden intends to “accentuate the negative,” so the train of questions I have—questions that view science in a more…
Credulity, or Science as an intoxication
Max Weber
Modernity, enchantment, and Fictionalism
The stern visage of Max Weber looms over discussions of modernity and enchantment, as does the sunnier countenance of Charles…
History without hermeneutics: Brad Gregory’s unintended modernity
I would like to draw attention to three aspects of Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation, a book whose courage and…
American civil religion in the age of Obama: An interview with Philip S. Gorski
Philip S. Gorski is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies and Co-Director of the Center for Comparative Research at Yale…
Blurring the boundaries
Four guided missiles packed with explosive material hurtled into the morning sky. Though the day was brilliant blue and cloudless,…
Good news from the grand narrative
To be asked to contribute a commentary on Professor Robert Bellah’s magnum opus is a great honor and a privilege…
A travelogue of ideas
In a special session at the meetings of the American Academy of Religion on November 20, 2011, Robert Bellah discussed…
Beyond reductive naturalism
Future histories may report that the public discourse on religion was dominated by reductive naturalism until Robert Bellah’s Religion in…
Dangerous evolutions?
Religion in Human Evolution is an immensely ambitious book on a topic only a scholar of Robert Bellah’s stature could…
Weber for the 21st century
For almost one hundred years, all sociologists of religion have taken Max Weber’s great work on comparative religions as a primary point…