The Robert Bellah Reader

"Robert Bellah is without question one of the leaders in the senior generation of sociologists of religion. He embodies informed spiritual inquiry and a mentality I would call 'expansively catholic' in the sense of 'penetrating the dimensions of being.' He also has a protestant outlook, manifesting an ability to be critical of entities and scholarly works he affirms."--Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago "Is it true, as some claim, that the more modern a society, the weaker our sense of the sacred? Does a sense of the sacred somehow 'liquefy, ' as Habermas suggests, as society grows ever more 'rational'? In this collection of brilliant and bold meditations on the works of Durkheim, Weber, Rousseau, Goffman, and others, Robert Bellah arrives at his own nuanced answers. An important and enlightening read."--Arlie Hochschild, University of California, Berkeley