Customer Reviews

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

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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!

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.

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.