12 Best Sociology of Religion Books
Sociology of Religion is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Sociology of Religion audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 12 Sociology of Religion audiobooks below.
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Not in It to Win It
- By: Andy Stanley
- Narrator: Andy Stanley
- Length: 5 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Publish date: May 10, 2022
- Language: English
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4.61(726 ratings)
4.61(726 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDRead by the author. Is it possible to disagree politically and love unconditionally? The reaction of evangelicals to political and cultural shifts in recent years revealed what they value most. Lurking beneath our Bible-laced rhetoric, faith claims,Read by the author.
Is it possible to disagree politically and love unconditionally? The reaction of evangelicals to political and cultural shifts in recent years revealed what they value most. Lurking beneath our Bible-laced rhetoric, faith claims, books, and sermons is a relentless drive to WIN!
But the church is not here to win. By every human measure, our Savior lost. On purpose. With a purpose. And we are his body. We are not in it to win anything. We are in it for something else entirely. That something else is what this book is about.
You’ll discover:
- How to take a stand the right way. You’ll learn how to make your case with a posture of humility and understanding, rather than being fueled by the fear of losing something.
- How to view politics through the lens of faith. Learn curiously, listen intentionally, and love unconditionally.
- How the life of Jesus and his teaching applies to modern-day challenges in a fresh way. The “biblical” stand may not be what we’ve been taught.
Jesus never asked his followers to agree on everything. But he did call his followers to obey a new command: to love others in the same way he has loved us. Instead of asserting our rights or fighting for power, we need to begin asking ourselves: what does love require of me?
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Saving Truth
- By: Abdu Murray
- Narrator: Abdu Murray
- Length: 6 hours 33 minutes
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Publish date: May 08, 2018
- Language: English
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4.46(364 ratings)
4.46(364 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDHow can Christians defend truth and clarity to a world that rejects both? Increasingly, Western culture embraces confusion as a virtue and decries certainty as a sin. Those who are confused about sexuality and identity are viewed as heroes. ThoseHow can Christians defend truth and clarity to a world that rejects both?
Increasingly, Western culture embraces confusion as a virtue and decries certainty as a sin. Those who are confused about sexuality and identity are viewed as heroes. Those who are confused about morality are progressive pioneers. Those who are confused about spirituality are praised as tolerant.
Conversely, those who express certainty about any of these issues are seen as bigoted, oppressive, arrogant, or intolerant. This cultural phenomenon led the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary to name “post-truth” their word of the year in 2016. It’s popularity and relevance has only increased since then.
By accurately describing the Culture of Confusion and how it has affected our society, author Abdu Murray seeks to awaken Westerners to the plight we find ourselves in. He also challenges Christians to consider how they have played a part in fostering the Culture of Confusion through bad arguments, unwise labeling, and emotional attacks.
Ultimately, Saving Truth provides arguments from a Christian perspective for the foundations of truth and how those foundations impart clarity to the biggest topics of human existence:
- Freedom.
- Human dignity.
- Sexuality, Gender, and Identity.
- Science and Faith.
- Religious pluralism and Morality.
For those enmeshed in the culture of confusion, Saving Truth offers a way to untangle oneself and find hope in the clarity that Christ offers.
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American Prophets
- By: Jack Jenkins
- Narrator: Kyle Tait
- Length: 10 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: April 21, 2020
- Language: English
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4.23(186 ratings)
4.23(186 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDFrom one of the country’s most respected religion reporters, a paradigm-shifting discussion of how the Religious Left is actually the moral compass that has long steered America’s political debates, including today. Since the ascendancyFrom one of the country’s most respected religion reporters, a paradigm-shifting discussion of how the Religious Left is actually the moral compass that has long steered America’s political debates, including today.
Since the ascendancy of the Religious Right in the 1970s, common wisdom holds that it is a coalition of fundamentalist powerbrokers who are the “moral majority,” setting the standard for conservative Christian values and working to preserve the status quo.
But, as national religion reporter Jack Jenkins contends, the country is also driven by a vibrant, long-standing moral force from the left. Constituting an amorphous group of interfaith activists that goes by many names and takes many forms, this coalition has operated since America’s founding — praying, protesting, and marching for common goals that have moved society forward. Throughout our history, the Religious Left has embodied and championed the progressive values at the heart of American democracy–abolition, labor reform, civil rights, environmental preservation.
Drawing on his years of reporting, Jenkins examines the re-emergence of progressive faith-based activism, detailing its origins and contrasting its goals with those of the Religious Right. Today’s rapidly expanding interfaith coalition?–?which includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and other faiths?–?has become a force within the larger “resistance” movement. Jenkins profiles Washington political insiders–including former White House staffers and faith outreach directors for the campaigns of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton–as well as a new generation of progressive faith leaders at the forefront today, including:
- Rev. William Barber II, leader of North Carolina’s Moral Mondays and co-chair of the nationwide Poor People’s campaign
- Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the Women’s March
- Rev. Traci Blackmon, a pastor near Ferguson, Missouri who works to lift up black liberation efforts across the country
- Sister Simone Campbell, head of the Catholic social justice lobby and the “Nuns on the Bus” tour organizer
- Native American “water protectors” who demonstrated against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock
- Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop
An exciting reevaluation of America’s moral center and an inspiring portrait of progressive faith-in-action, American Prophets will change the way we think about the intersection of politics and religion.
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Reorganized Religion
- By: Bob Smietana
- Narrator: AW Miller
- Length: 6 hours 37 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: August 30, 2022
- Language: English
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4.17(70 ratings)
4.17(70 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDUncover the ways the Christian church has changed in recent years–from the decline of the mainline denominations to the mega-churchification of American culture to the rise of the Nones and Exvaneglicals–and a hopeful reimagining of whatUncover the ways the Christian church has changed in recent years–from the decline of the mainline denominations to the mega-churchification of American culture to the rise of the Nones and Exvaneglicals–and a hopeful reimagining of what the church might look like going forward.
The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented spiritual, technological, demographic, political and social transformation– moving from an older, mostly white, mostly Protestant, religion-friendly society to a younger diverse, multiethnic, pluralistic culture, where no one faith group will have the advantage. At the same time, millions of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether in favor of disorganized disbelief.
Reorganized Religion is an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues. But it also accepts the dismantling of what has come before and try to help readers reinvent the path forward. This book looks at the future of organized religion in America and outline the options facing churches and other faith groups. Will they retreat? Will they become irrelevant? Or will they find a new path forward?
Written by veteran religion reporter Bob Smietana, Reorganized Religion is a journalistic look at the state of the American church and its future. It draws on polling data, interviews with experts, and reporting on how faith communities old and new are coping with the changing religious landscape, along with personal stories about how faith is lived in everyday life. It also profiles faith communities and leaders who are finding interesting ways to reimagine what church might look like in the future and discuss various ways we can reinvent this organization so it survives and thrives. The book also reflects the hope that perhaps people of faith can learn to become, if not friends with the larger culture, then at least better neighbors. ... Read more -
Why Religion?
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrator: Eunice Wong
- Length: 7 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 15, 2019
- Language: English
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3.96(1916 ratings)
3.96(1916 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0020.99 USDNew York Times bestseller One of PW’s Best Books of the Year One of Amazon’s Best Books of the Month Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape theNew York Times bestseller
One of PW’s Best Books of the Year
One of Amazon’s Best Books of the Month
Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not? In Why Religion? Elaine Pagels looks to her own life to help address these questions.
These questions took on a new urgency for Pagels when dealing with unimaginable loss–the death of her young son, followed a year later by the shocking loss of her husband. Here she interweaves a personal story with the work that she loves, illuminating how, for better and worse, religious traditions have shaped how we understand ourselves; how we relate to one another; and, most importantly, how to get through the most difficult challenges we face.
Drawing upon the perspectives of neurologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as her own research, Pagels opens unexpected ways of understanding persistent religious aspects of our culture.
A provocative and deeply moving account from one of the most compelling religious thinkers at work today, Why Religion? explores the spiritual dimension of human experience.
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The Moral Landscape
- By: Sam Harris
- Narrator: Sam Harris
- Length: 6 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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3.91(20420 ratings)
3.91(20420 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0018.95 USDNew York Times bestselling author Sam Harris’s first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people–from religious fundamentalists to non-believingNew York Times bestselling author Sam Harris’s first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people–from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists–agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the primary justification for religious faith.
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In this highly controversial book, Sam Harris seeks to link morality to the rest of human knowledge. Defining morality in terms of human and animal well-being, Harris argues that science can do more than tell how we are; it can, in principle, tell us how we ought to be. In his view, moral relativism is simply false–and comes at an increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our “culture wars,” Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation. -
Waking Up
- By: Sam Harris
- Narrator: Sam Harris
- Length: 5 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.9(36473 ratings)
3.9(36473 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDFor the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology.From Sam Harris, neuroscientist andFor the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology.
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From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives.
Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris–a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic–could write it. -
The Power of Ritual
- By: Casper ter Kuile
- Narrator: Casper ter Kuile
- Length: 5 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 23, 2020
- Language: English
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3.9(3938 ratings)
3.9(3938 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDCasper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices–yoga, reading, walking the dog–intoCasper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices–yoga, reading, walking the dog–into sacred rituals that can heal our crisis of social isolation and struggle to find purpose–a message we need more than ever for our spiritual and emotional well-being in the age of COVID-19.
“After half a decade of research and hundreds of conversations with people around the country, I am convinced we are in the midst of a paradigm shift. That what used to hold us in community no longer works, and that the spiritual offerings of yesteryear no longer help us thrive.”-Casper ter Kuile
What do Soul Cycle, gratitude journals, and tech breaks have in common? For ter Kuile they offer rituals that create the foundation for our modern spiritual lives.
We are in crisis today. Our modern technological society has left too many of us–no matter our ages–feeling isolated and bereft of purpose. Previous frameworks for building community and finding meaning no longer support us. Yet ter Kuile reveals a hopeful new message: we might not be religious, but that doesn’t mean we are any less spiritual.
Instead, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which we seek belonging and meaning in secular practices. Today, we find connection in:
- CrossFit and SoulCycle, which offer a sense of belonging rooted in accountability and support much like church groups
- Harry Potter and other beloved books that offer universal lessons
- Gratitude journals, which have replaced traditional prayer
- Tech breaks, which provide mindful moments of calm
In The Power of Ritual, ter Kuile invites us to deepen these ordinary practices as intentional rituals that nurture connection and wellbeing. With wisdom and endearing wit, ter Kuile’s call for ritual is ultimately a call to heal our loss of connection to ourselves, to others, and to our spiritual identities.
The Power of Ritual reminds us that what we already do every day matters–and has the potential to become a powerful experience of reflection, sanctuary, and meaning.
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Our Endangered Values
- By: Jimmy Carter
- Narrator: Jimmy Carter
- Length: 4 hours 52 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2005
- Language: English
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3.88(3341 ratings)
3.88(3341 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0015.95 USDGRAMMY AWARD-WINNER FOR BEST SPOKEN WORD ALBUM! President Jimmy Carter offers a passionate defense of separation of church and state, warning that fundamentalists are deliberately blurring the lines between politics and religion.In Our EndangeredGRAMMY AWARD-WINNER FOR BEST SPOKEN WORD ALBUM!
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President Jimmy Carter offers a passionate defense of separation of church and state, warning that fundamentalists are deliberately blurring the lines between politics and religion.
In Our Endangered Values, Jimmy Carter offers a personal consideration of “moral values” as they relate to the important issues of the day. He puts forward a passionate defense of separation of church and state, and a strong warning about where the country is heading as the lines between politics and rigid religious fundamentalism are blurred.
Carter describes his reactions to recent disturbing societal trends that involve both religious and political worlds as they increasingly intertwine and include some of the most crucial and controversial issues of the day. Many of these matters are under fierce debate. They include preemptive war, women’s rights, terrorism, civil liberties, homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, environmental degradation, nuclear arsenals, America’s global image, fundamentalism, and the melding of religion and politics.
Sustained by his lifelong faith, Jimmy Carter assesses these issues in a balanced and courageous way. -
Free Will
- By: Sam Harris
- Narrator: Sam Harris
- Length: 1 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2012
- Language: English
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3.87(29295 ratings)
3.87(29295 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.009.95 USDFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, “brilliant and witty” (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will–and the implications that it is an illusion.A belief in free will touchesFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, “brilliant and witty” (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will–and the implications that it is an illusion.
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A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality–as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement–without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.
In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life. -
God’s Harvard
- By: Hanna Rosin
- Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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3.69(511 ratings)
3.69(511 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDSince 2000, America’s most ambitious young evangelicals have been making their way to Patrick Henry College in Virginia, a small Christian school that has earned the nickname “God’s Harvard.” Most of these students areSince 2000, America’s most ambitious young evangelicals have been making their way to Patrick Henry College in Virginia, a small Christian school that has earned the nickname “God’s Harvard.” Most of these students are homeschoolers whose idealism and discipline put the average American teenager to shame. The school grooms them to become the Christian elite of tomorrow, dispatching them to the front lines of politics, entertainment, and science to wage the battle to take back a godless nation.
Hanna Rosin spent a year and a half following these students from campus to Congress, conservative think tanks, Hollywood, and other centers of influence. Her account captures a nerve center of the evangelical movement at a moment of maximum influence and also crisis, as it struggles to remake the modern world in its own image.
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The Religion of Small Societies
- By: Ninian Smart
- Narrator: Ben Kingsley
- Length: 2 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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3.19(43 ratings)
3.19(43 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0011.95 USDThe religious practices and understandings of small indigenous societies are recognized by many to be in no way inferior to other religious beliefs. Many such cultures still exist; their prescientific, even prehistoric social and intellectualThe religious practices and understandings of small indigenous societies are recognized by many to be in no way inferior to other religious beliefs. Many such cultures still exist; their prescientific, even prehistoric social and intellectual pattern includes shamans, sacrifices, totems, animism, taboos, and certain rituals and myths that reflect their unique and increasingly rare way of life.
The Religion, Scriptures, and Spirituality Series describes the beliefs, religious practices, and the spiritual and moral commitments of the world’s great religious traditions. It describes a religion’s way of understanding life and its attitude and relationship to society.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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