Over the past decade, religious, secular, and spiritual distinctions have broken down, forcing scholars to rethink secularity and its relationship to society. Since classifying a person, activity, or experience as religious or otherwise is an important act of valuation, one that defines the characteristics of a group and its relation to others, scholars are struggling to recast these concepts in our increasingly ambiguous, pluralistic world. This collection considers religious and secular categories and what they mean to those who seek valuable, ethical lives. As they investigate how individuals and groups determine significance, set goals, and attribute meaning, contributors illustrate the ways in which religious, secular, and spiritual designations serve as markers of value. Reflecting on recent ethnographic and historical research, chapters explore contemporary psychical research and liberal American homeschooling; the work of nineteenth and early-twentieth-century American psychologists and French archaeologists; the role of contemporary humanitarian and volunteer organizations based in Europe and India; and the prevalence of highly mediated and spiritualized publics, from international psy-trance festivals to Ghanaian national political contexts. Contributors particularly focus on the role of ambivalence, attachment, and disaffection in the formation of religious, secular, and spiritual identities, resetting research on secular society and contemporary religious life while illuminating what matters in the lives of ordinary individuals.

Scholarly discussions of religion have been increasingly unsettled about the meaning of such terms as secularization, secularity, secularist, and, for that matter, religion. Rather than arguing about the definitions of each term, Courtney Bender and Ann Taves move to transcend the religious secular binary, examining how these terms and their meanings are used in a range of cultural sites. They fill a void by moving beyond a theoretical discussion of what the terms mean, instead providing empirical evidence of how these terms are currently used. -- Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University

About the Author
Courtney Bender, associate professor of religion at Columbia University, is the author of The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination, winner of the 2011 AAP PROSE Award for Excellence in Scholarly Publishing in Theology/Religious Studies, and coeditor, with Pamela Klassen, of After Pluralism: Reimagining Models of Interreligious Engagement. Ann Taves is professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and past president of the American Academy of Religion. Her most recent books include Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things, winner of the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James, winner of the 2000 Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy and Religion.

Reviews
A window onto how spirituality has functioned as a social category that bestows value on even 'secular' objects, What Matters? brilliantly demystifies spirituality without banishing spirits. With an embarrassment of riches at hand, including paranormal shadows in 'real' science, turns to 'tribalism' in psytrance festivals, and 'spiritual' motivations within secular humanitarianism, these essays are an original foray into how spirituality is used to account for contemporary human experience, with piety and irony in play. -- Pamela Klassen, University of Toronto, author of Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity ...a helpful classroom resource. -- Ryan Harper Sociology of Religion



Book Information
ISBN 9780231156851
Author Courtney Bender
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press