Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
    American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
    American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
    Audiobook18 hours

    American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

    Written by David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam

    Narrated by Dan John Miller

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    American Grace takes its findings from two of the largest, most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America, plus in-depth studies of diverse congregations-among them a megachurch, a Mormon congregation, a Catholic parish, a reform Jewish synagogue, and an African American congregation.

    From abortion to gay marriage to feminism, this book shows how religion has influenced politics in America-and vice versa. The discoveries are often unexpected: The most politicized churches tend to be liberal, not conservative, congregations. Faith matters less to Americans than their communities of faith. Most Americans marry outside their religion. And nearly half of all Americans change their religion at some point during their lifetime.

    Robert D. Putnam won huge acclaim for Bowling Alone and Better Together. Together with coauthor David E. Campbell, Putnam brings his distinctive brand of in-depth research and analysis to religion in America.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 8, 2010
    ISBN9781400189571

    Related to American Grace

    Related audiobooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for American Grace

    4/5

    42 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Very detailed . Published in 2010
      Needs 2nd edition update.


    • 3/5
      Checked out from the library.
    • 2/5
      This is a highly detailed analysis of religion in America. The book is basically an analysis of a faith survey conducted over multiple years. The accuracy of the book is almost entirely dependent on the quality of the survey. The book takes each element of the survey and discusses the data obtained. The analysis is fairly scientific but is tedious and the authors allow interpretation outside the statistics. I weakly recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      A careful review of statistics on American religion, including the authors' own Faith Matters study. Their study, done in 2006 and again with the same people in 2007, looks at a cross section of Americans on their religious beliefs. The most interesting thing I found in their study was the changes many people underwent in a single year.On the whole their thesis is that much of the common wisdom about the demography of American religion is not subtle enough. They attempt to remedy this with extensive correlation studies and studies over time. They come up with an interesting picture of American religion as persistent but prone to changes seismic changes which tend to affect a particular age cohort. This makes for slow changes in the overall demographic picture as one age cohort dies out and successive generations succeed it.There are many small details of the study and the vignettes of individual congregations to quarrel with, but even I, an inveterate doubter of statistics, had to admit that the flaws only affected a very small percentage of the data and wouldn't have affected the overall conclusions of the study.I would like someday for someone to ask people who say they have no religion but say they believe in God and pray daily to explain what they mean by God and prayer. I suspect that it might turn out to be a very different thing than what Christians mean when they say they believe in God and pray daily. While the authors, probably correctly, see whatever you call prayer as a form of religiosity, I think that tracking down what people do might show more shifts in the way we're religious than these pollsters where tracking.
    • 5/5
      This book isn't something you can sit down and read. At least I couldn't. So much info, not trying to get you to believe anything, but how does religion control our live and politics and how religion is changing and how people are changeing about religion. I would read a few pages, think about it, read something else and read a few more pages.
    • 4/5
      Informative and fascinating demographic and sociological study of American religious life.
    • 2/5
      The stats are really interesting, but I was not very drawn in by the style of the "vignettes." I felt this was more of a book to glance through and read about the charts instead of actually a book to actually read cover to cover.