Description
Book SynopsisReligion posits one characteristic as an absolute: faith. Compared to faith, all other social distinctions and sources of conflict are insignificant. The New Testament says: We are all equal in the sight of God'. To be sure, this equality applies only to those who acknowledge God's existence.
Trade Review"Beck does not claim to have found 'the' answer to religious conflict. What he does demonstrate very effectively is that one way of avoiding a polarised and terrifying future is to find hope in the mdoern world's many ironies, paradoxes and complexities"
New Humanist, four star review "A volume with more than enough ideas to inspire the study of religion for the foreseeable future. The author's acclaimed individualization thesis is put to work in the context of an emerging debate concerning the cultivation of humanity: one between believers in various forms of religious universals, and a form of cosmopolitanism which acknowledges that variety is the spice of life. Whatever the 'god of one's own' owes to universalism, Beck's controversial argument is that the most effective god of one's own lies with non-essentialist, relatively modest and sceptical, cosmopolitanism realism."
Paul Heelas, Lancaster University
"This new book from one of Europe's leading thinkers is a welcome, thoughtful engagement with the prominence of religion in the contemporary world. Writing as an unabashed sociological secularist, but one who refuses the simplifications of typical ideas of secularization, Beck explores religion's contradictory potentials, patterns of individuation and group identity, and the relation of religion to the "crisis of European modernity". Beck should inspire other sociologists and secularists to think harder about phenomena they too often ignore."
Craig Calhoun, New York University and President, Social Science Research Council
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ix
I The diary of ‘a God of one’s own’: Etty Hillesum. An unsociological introduction 1
II The return of the Gods and the crisis of European modernity. A sociological introduction 19
III Tolerance and violence: The two faces of the religions 47
IV Heresy or the invention of a ‘God of one’s own’ 93
V The cunning of unintended consequences: How to civilize global religious conflicts. Five models 137
VI Peace instead of Truth? The futures of the religions in the world risk society 164
Bibliography 201
Index 220
