To be asked to contribute a commentary on Professor Robert Bellah’s magnum opus is a great honor and a privilege…
Good news from the grand narrative
Robert Bellah
The power of pluralist thinking
It is hard to remember, but religious pluralism meant something quite different fifty years ago. We have, I would argue,…
Back to his roots
When writing about other people, we all should follow Pierre Bourdieu’s advice to not be too fascinated by our human…
A travelogue of ideas
In a special session at the meetings of the American Academy of Religion on November 20, 2011, Robert Bellah discussed…
Axial axioms
The word “magisterial” in publishers’ blurbs usually means little more than “too long,” and indeed Religion in Human Evolution is…
A damned good read
When I first received my copy of Religion in Human Evolution by post, the initial impression was of its sheer…
The return of the grand narrative
The subtitle of Bellah’s book, From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, indicates that it is about religions between the…
Beyond reductive naturalism
Future histories may report that the public discourse on religion was dominated by reductive naturalism until Robert Bellah’s Religion in…
Five questions for Robert Bellah
It is a pleasure and an honor to engage a book that is truly large in ways beyond its sheer…
State of the Species
Human beings live in virtual worlds that define what they value, what they aspire to, and what they are able…