Religion

America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion. The result has been a growing polarization--the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars.

American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans.

Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life. Among them:

- Between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith;

- Roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives;

- Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage;

- Even fervently religious Americans believe that people of other faiths can go to heaven;

- Religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans: more generous with their time and treasure even for secular causes--but the explanation has less to do with faith than with their communities of faith;

- Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today.

American Grace promises to be the most important book in decades about American religious life and an essential book for understanding our nation today.

At a time when the United States was involved in two wars against Islamic nations, American-born artist Sandow Birk wanted to understand the Qur'an as it is, and always has been intended: a universal message to humankind. But to do so, he first needed to comprehend what Islam's holiest book meant to an American living in the twenty-first century. Indeed, how has the Qur'an related to us, as Americans, in this life, in this time?

In an attempt to answer his own question, Birk embarked on the most ambitious work of his career. Following in the grand traditions of ancient Arabic and Islamic artists, he began hand-transcribing the entire Qur'an as was done in centuries past--abiding by the traditional prescriptions as to the colors of ink, the formatting of the pages, the size of margins and illuminations of page headings and medallions marking verses and passages. He then took each sura and set it against a backdrop from everyday American life, one that reflected his renowned "skate-surf" ascetic.

Even before the first images of what became known as the American Qur'an began appearing in public, in 2009, veteran art critics were concerned about its reception. While Birk wasn't illustrating the Qur'an itself, the pairing of Islam's holiest text with scenes from contemporary American life seemed adventuresome, given the climate of the times. The project, however, was not only welcomed by the Muslim community but also celebrated as an "ambitious and valuable undertaking" (New York Times). At the same time, many saw it as taking part in an ancient tradition, one that, according to Yale University professor Zareena Grewal, "eschewed the irony and satire that have become the knee-jerk impulse of so many Western artists."

Now appearing in full for the first time ever, this lavishly designed volume--containing all 114 suras--melds the past with the present, East with the West like nothing before it. The result, hailed by Reza Aslan as "a great favor, not only to Muslims, but also to Americans," is one of the most original art books to appear in decades.

The book that the Chinese have returned to repeatedly for reflection, renewal, and validation of their own views, The Analects was compiled by the disciples of Confucius, China's earliest teacher and moral thinker, from his remarks and his conversations with rulers, political operators, and people he happened to meet. It laid the foundation of the Chinese idea of what is moral and what is politically viable, what is a good government and who has integrity.

Featuring both the English and Chinese texts, this new translation, by one of the pre-eminent scholars of Confucius, draws on the most recent excavated manuscripts and centuries of scholarship to illuminate the historical context of Confucius' teachings, explaining who the many local figures referenced are, and navigating a rich tradition of commentaries. The result is a map of Confucian thought that brings us as close as possible to experiencing Confucius as his followers might have 2,500 years ago.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Anam Cara is a rare synthesis of philosophy, poetry, and spirituality. This work will have a powerful and life-transforming experience for those who read it. --Deepak Chopra

John O'Donohue, poet, philosopher, and scholar, guides you through the spiritual landscape of the Irish imagination. In Anam Cara, Gaelic for soul friend, the ancient teachings, stories, and blessings of Celtic wisdom provide such profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death as:

Encoded within your body, teaches Caroline Myss, is an energy system linking you directly to the world's great spiritual traditions. Through it, you have direct access to the divine energy that seamlessly connects all life. On Anatomy of the Spirit, Myss offers a stunning picture of the human body's hidden energetic structures, while revealing its precise spiritual code and relationship to the sacred energy of creation.

Our most revered wisdom traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism, hold in common essential teachings about seven specific levels of spiritual development, the stages of power in life. These seven great truths also grace the human body as an energetic system, a spiritual compass pointing the way to the divine. By honoring this inborn code, you can learn to see the symbolic blocks within your energy centers and their correlations with your health, relationships, and spiritual development.

Richly interwoven with research, examples, and self-diagnostic guidelines, Anatomy of the Spirit will take you to the heart of the spiritual life and beyond.

At the time of Jesus' birth, the world was full of gods. Thousands of them jostled, competed, and merged with one another. In Syria, ecstatic devotees castrated themselves in the streets to become priests of Atargatis. In Galilee, holy men turned oil into wine, healed the sick, drove out devils, and claimed to be the Messiah. Every day thousands of people were flocking into brand-new multiethnic cities. The ancient world was in ferment as it underwent the first phase of globalization, and in this ferment, rulers and ruled turned to religion as a source of order and stability.

To explore the power that religious belief has had over societies through the ages, Selina O'Grady takes the reader on a dazzling journey across the empires of the ancient world and introduces us to rulers, merchants, messiahs, priests, and holy men. Throughout, she seeks to answer why, amongst the countless religious options available, the empires at the time of Jesus chose the religions they did. Why did China's rulers hitch their fate to Confucianism? Why was a tiny Jewish cult led by Jesus eventually adopted by Rome's emperors? The Jesus cult, followed by no more than one hundred people at the time of his death, should, by rights, have disappeared in a few generations. Instead it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Why did Christianity grow so quickly to become the predominant world religion? And Man Created God, an important, thrilling and necessary new work of history, looks at why and how religions have had such an immense impact on human history, and in doing so, uncovers the ineradicable connection between politics and religion--a connection that still defines us in our own age.

And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy is a powerful, personal exploration of American women and their theologies, weaving connections between Adrian Shirk's own varied spiritual experiences and the prophetesses, feminists, and spiritual icons who have shaped this country.

Laced throughout this hybrid memoir are stories of American religious traditions revised by women. Shirk collects the histories of astrologers, faith healers, preachers, priestesses, mambos, and mediums who've had to find their own ways toward divinity outside prescribed patriarchal orders. Each woman represents a pathway for Shirk's own spiritual inquiries. She introduces us to the New Orleans high priestess Marie Laveau, the pop New Age pioneer Linda Goodman, the prophetic vision of intersectionality as preached by Sojourner Truth, "saint" Flannery O'Connor, and so many more.

Through her journey, Shirk discovers that, as the culture wars flatten religious discourse and shred institutional trust, more and more Americans are yearning for alternative, individualized, feminist routes through religion. And women, having spent so much time at the margins of religious discourse, illuminate its darkened corners.

And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy is a beacon to those who are searching for a spirituality of resistance, for an unsteady truth. It draws a line from our own era of unrest to the women who came before us, those fascinating innovators, boundary crossers, paradoxes, and radical justice seekers.