Robert Wuthnow is the most prolific and most interesting contemporary sociologist of religion, delving again into the ambiguous heart of American spirituality. This study is certainly the most accessible, popular analysis of religious trends since the 1950s, with a startlingly convincing interpretation of how attitudes about religion and spirituality have changed in the post-modern era. Read this and await his next study. Wuthnow's done a great service to our understanding of what sometimes seems to be a most perplexing trend from domestic religion to a kind of amorphous, inauthentic spirituality of seeking.

Wuthnow's book is a thoughtful and well-researched monograph on major trends in American religious experience since the end of World War II. Wuthnow sees the most significant change as being a decline in the denominational divisions that were once so important in American religious life, and their replacement by a huge chasm between liberal and conservative religious sensibilities, a division Wuthnow points out often cuts as much through denominations as separates them. Perhaps his most important contribution is his effort to place this restructuring in the context of larger trends in American society, notably the divisive politics and cultural innovation of the sixties, the changing role of women and the trememdous expansion of higher education that occurred after World War II. He also notes a degree of continuity between the conservative versus liberal division and the early twentieth-century fundamentalist-modernist conflict within American religion. He is careful, though, to explain and contextualize the greater success the evangelical Christian movement has had in building a movement and mobilizing followers than did the earlier and in many ways similar fundamentalist camp. Perhaps one's only caveat here might be that the book raises many questions it does not fully address about the extent to which American culture is becoming genuinely secular, if it is doing so. Written at a high level of generality, the book also leaves one wondering about how the division of religious life into polarized camps of liberalism and conservativism affects the subjective spiritual experience of Americans. In brief, this book is a major and analytical treatment of a topic that remains very germane to how Americans now live and worship; those desiring to understand how American religion got where it is today should read it.

GOD and mammon is right! Too onesided. Enter Robert Graves with Mammon and the Black Goddess to balance the books. With the Divine Marriage (beyond mere mortal, only human) of White God and Black Goddess, the love of money, the root of all evil, ceases. Theory or Religio (correct spelling)? You be the judge. P.S.: I am reminded of the story of Bill W., co-founder of AA, and a handful of original sober alcoholics who sought an audience with J.D. Rockefeller in 1935 or so, and asked for money to get their book published. The millionaire's reply after considerable thought? "Money would ruin what you have going here." Did AA fail consequently? Ha!

This book really hit to the heart on what knidness means in today;s society. The author makes a point to remind us that we must reteach ourselves ways to care as adults because they are different from when we were kids. Also he explains that part of volunteering is reflecting on what you just did to understand it.

I decided to read this book, because as treasurer of my church, I knew that there was insufficient financial planning taking place. I had just finished reading a 5-star book on the same subject called "Money Matters" by Dean R. Hoge, et. al. I found this book to be more difficult reading, and I didn't immediately catch on to what the author was trying to accomplish. This book doesn't have the statistical emphasis that "Money Matters" has, but instead the author spends a great deal of time interviewing people about their attitudes on church finances. Knowing peoples' beliefs is key to success in church finance work, because many conscientious members do not necessarily have studied views on church finance that are well grounded from a Biblical standpoint! That may be somewhat hard to believe, but the author brings this out as the book progresses.

I almost gave up on reading this book, but I hung in there. Now, I am glad that I finished it, because by the time it ended it yielded some very interesting information and was very helpful to me.