America: Religions and Religion

Since its first publication in 1981, AMERICA: RELIGIONS AND RELIGION has become the standard introduction to the study of American religious traditions. Written by one of the foremost scholars in the field of American religions, this textbook has introduced thousands of students to the rich religious diversity that has always been a hallmark of the American religious experience. Beginning with Native American religious traditions and following the course of America's religious history up to the present day, this text gives students the benefit of the author's rigorous scholarship in clear language that has proven to be readily accessible for today's undergraduates. This long-awaited new edition explores a variety of recent events and developments, including increasing religious pluralism and, especially, a combinative postpluralism in which different faiths in America subtly begin to borrow from one another. The new edition examines "postethnic" Judaism in the Jewish Renewal movement and other instances, the growing Womenpriest movement among American Catholics, and the development of Islam in America in the light of September 11, 2001. It surveys the "emerging church" movement among liberal evangelicals and others, and follows the growth of a "new spirituality" that is much broader than the New Age movement.