The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life [Paperback]

Christian Smith (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520235614 | ISBN-13: 978-0520235618 | Publication Date: June 4, 2003 | Edition: 1

Sociologists, historians, and other social observers have long considered the secularization of American public life over the past hundred and thirty years to be an inevitable and natural outcome of modernization. This groundbreaking work rejects this view and fundamentally rethinks the historical and theoretical causes of the secularization of American public life between 1870 and 1930. Christian Smith and his team of contributors boldly argue that the declining authority of religion was not the by-product of modernization, but rather the intentional achievement of cultural and intellectual elites, including scientists, academics, and literary intellectuals, seeking to gain control of social institutions and increase their own cultural authority.
Writing with vigor and a broad intellectual grasp, the contributors examine power struggles and ideological shifts in various social sectors where the public authority of religion has diminished, in particular education, science, law, and journalism. Together the essays depict a cultural and institutional revolution that is best understood in terms of individual agency, conflicts of interest, resource mobilization, and struggles for authority. Engaging both sociological and historical literature, The Secular Revolution offers a new theoretical framework and original empirical research that will inform our understanding of American society from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The ramifications of its provocative and cogent thesis will be felt throughout sociology, religious studies, and our general thinking about society for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Smith provides the reader with a powerful new framework for assessing the secularization of American public life, including a wealth of new insights and historical evidence on religion in American institutions. For those interested in religion's changing role in the public arena, this is essential reading, certain to have tremendous impact."--Roger Finke, Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Penn State and coauthor of Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion

"Finally a much welcome sociological study of secularization that eschews assumptions of inevitability in favor of flesh-and-blood institutional histories, from the fields of education, journalism, and law to science, medicine, and even religion itself."--Ronald L. Numbers, Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of The Creationists

"Secularization has long been talked about as if it were the inevitable product of vast impersonal forces operating above our heads. In this fascinating collection, the authors descend from the stratosphere to investigate the power struggles that actually brought about secularization in education, law, and journalism. A wonderful, arresting book that gives secularization a human face."--Nicholas Wolterstorff, author of John Locke and the Ethics of Belief

"This book is sure to evoke debate, agreement, contention, and future research by historians, sociologists, political scientists, and scholars of American religion."--Rhys H. Williams, editor, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

From the Back Cover

"Smith provides the reader with a powerful new framework for assessing the secularization of American public life, including a wealth of new insights and historical evidence on religion in American institutions. For those interested in religion's changing role in the public arena, this is essential reading, certain to have tremendous impact."-Roger Finke, Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Penn State and author of Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion "Finally a much welcome sociological study of secularization that eschews assumptions of inevitability in favor of flesh-and-blood institutional histories, from the fields of education, journalism, and law to science, medicine, and even religion itself."-Ronald L. Numbers, Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of The Creationists

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (June 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520235614
• ISBN-13: 978-0520235618
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #430,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society, and the Center for Social Research at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of many books, including What is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago 201); Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Do Not Give Away More Money (OUP 2008); Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (OUP 2005), Winner of the 2005 "Distinguished Book Award" from Christianity Today; and Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (OUP 2003).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Enlightenment thinking came to dominate America, September 8, 2010

By 

D. R. Smedra (Rocky Mountains, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life (Paperback)

The days of the "Moral Majority" (evangelical Protestant ethos) as a major social-political force in America seem to have come and gone. Today, there is widespread concern over America's slide into radical secularism and the political rise of socialism/communism on the Left, libertarianism on the Right, and the struggle of these two broad movements for power and control. Given the Judeo-Christian roots of Western civilization and particularly America, how did this radical change/collapse/revolution come about?

Two main theories of social-political dynamics are locked in debate at the academic level: 1) modernization (older/established view), and 2) revolution (newer/challenger view). This book (project) is a compilation of ten, separate-but-related essays which argue in favor of the later (#2), "...that the historical secularization of the institutions of American public life was not a natural, inevitable, and abstract by-product of modernization; rather it was the outcome of a struggle between contending groups with conflicting interests seeking to control social knowledge and institutions."

I find that adherents to modernization theory (#1) are often at a loss at identifying casual "direct links between the [secular] Enlightenment thinkers and those who live in this modernized world." This book provides substantial evidence of those "direct links" and the book's thesis is overall superior in explanatory power of both sociological events and history. If you're curious as to why NATURALISM as a worldview (in all its facets: monism, materialism, physicalism, scientism, Darwinian evolution, antisupernaturalism, atheism/agnosticism, and secular humanism) has become the reigning philosophical viewpoint in America, reading this book is well worth your time!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very poor as a history of American secularism, November 4, 2011

By 

William Magann "Oldar" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life (Paperback)

I recognize that this is a work of sociology, but even so the religious views of the editor and authors are fairly obvious. Despite the editor's statement that he doesn't lament the passing of religious dominance in America, it is made quite clear in his introduction that he does. This book greatly misrepresents the character of 19th century reform secularization, especially when it comes to freethoght and its leaders, and instead subsitutes a model of elites subverting the dominant culture for their own gain. The modernization model the editor attempts to debunk is much more convincing. Just as one example of historical misinformation, the authors are convinced that there was no real conflict between science and religion, but that it was created or at least greatly exagerated by elite secularists to further their agenda. That is wishful thinking at best or deliberate obsfucation at worst. There are many other examples of attempts to rewrite history in an attempt to shoe horn events so that they fit into the theory the authors favor. Not a balanced or even nuanced account of a vital subject.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Paranoid Style, August 22, 2011

By 

Peter P. Fuchs (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life (Paperback)

This description is found on line for this effort:



"Christian Smith and his team of contributors boldly argue that the declining authority of religion was not the by-product of modernization, but rather the intentional achievement of cultural and intellectual elites, including scientists, academics, and literary intellectuals, seeking to gain control of social institutions and increase their own cultural authority. "


In other words, they are paranoids, or at least operating with the paranoid style so tempting for American intellectuals. Thank God truly great Catholic intellectuals like Charles Taylor have come to the opposite conclusion from these tedious people and their paranoid chimeras of hidden influences. Specifically about the Secular world, and the Enlightenment. They really should be ashamed of themselves. And grow up! And stop being entrusted to teach the young and impressionable with their suspicious imaginings. The effect such thinking can easily be seen on the gullible and faulty line of thinking to be seen in the other reviewer here. Sad.