Bøger af Christian (William R. Kenan Smith

Traditional religion in the United States has suffered huge losses in recent decades. But we know a lot more about the fact that traditional American religion has declined than we do about why this is so. Why Religion Went Obsolete aims to change that. Drawing on survey data and hundreds of interviews, Christian Smith offers a sweeping, multifaceted account of why Americans have lost faith in traditional religion.

Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, Jonathan Hill, and Kari Christoffersen examine the development of the religious and spiritual lives of American Catholic teenagers as they grow up, graduate from high school, and leave home.

This book shows counter-intuitively, that the secular enterprise that everyday sociology appears to be pursuing is actually not what is really going on at sociology's deepest level. Sociology today is in fact animated by sacred impulses, driven by sacred commitments, and serves a sacred project. This book re-asserts a vision for what sociology is most important for, in contrast with its current commitments, and calls sociologists back to a more honest, fair, andhealthy vision of its purpose.

Emerging adulthood is fraught with more problems than most people realize. The bright side of freedom, growth, and opportunities for emerging adults is accompanied by a darker, more troubling side. Based on a major, national study of emerging adults ages 18-23, this volume gives readers an inside view of some of the unsettling aspects of emerging adulthood and seeks to understand the deeper roots of such problems.

In The Paradox of Generosity, Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson offer vital insight into how American adults conceive of and demonstrate generosity. Focusing not only on financial giving but on the many diverse forms philanthropy can take, they show the impact-both positive and negative-that giving has on individuals.

In 2005 OUP published Christian Smith's groundbreaking study, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Smith's new book will be based on the follow-up studies. Mirroring Soul Searching, it will offer a big-picture overview of the religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults in the U.S. It will also provide updates on most of the specific teen cases covered in the first book. It will contain a cultural analysis of emerging adultreligion, based on the follow-up interviews, trying to describe and understand the contours, textures, and complexities of the cultural categories, narratives, discourses, attitudes, and norms of young adult faith and religious and spiritual practice.