Recognizing the Non-religious

Reimagining the Secular

Lois Lee

The first book of its kind, examining the role of non-religious cultures in the world today
Provides overview of concepts and theories relating to atheism, non-religion, secularity, and secularization
Provides the first glossary and detailed discussion of core terms
Provides methodological guidance for this new field of research
Combines accessible empirical research with theoretical analysis

Recognizing the Non-religious

Reimagining the Secular

Lois Lee

Description

In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries, especially in Europe, have increasingly large nonaffiliate, "subjectively secular" populations, while non-religious cultural movements like the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity, irreligion, and the relationship between them has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of modern life.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, Recognizing the Non-religious develops a new vocabulary, theory, and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial - involving merely the absence of religion - and substantial - involving beliefs, ritual practice, and identities that are alternative to religious ones. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious therefore opens up new, more egalitarian and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are "not religious." It is also argued that recognizing the non-religious allows us to reimagine the secular itself in new and productive ways.

This book is part of a fast-growing area of research that builds upon and contributes to theoretical debates concerning secularization, "desecularization," religious change, postsecularity, and postcolonial approaches to religion and secularism. As well as presenting new research, this book gathers insights from the wider studies of non-religion, atheism, and secularism in order to consolidate a theoretical framework, conceptual foundation and agenda for future research.

Recognizing the Non-religious

Reimagining the Secular

Lois Lee

Introduction
1. Contradistinctions In Terms: Vocabulary for the Study of Secularity and Non-religion
2. The Insubstantial and the Substantial Secular: Theories of Secularity and Non-religion
3. The Unwaved Flag: Material and Banal Forms of Non-religion
4. Out of the Shadows: Non-religious and Secularist Bodies in Relief
5. Friends And 'Anti-Fennelists': Non-religious Relationships and Solidarities
6. Disaffiliation and Misaffiliation: Identifying Non-religion in Public Life
7. Beyond Unbelief: Non-religion and Existential Culture
Conclusion
Appendices

Recognizing the Non-religious

Reimagining the Secular

Lois Lee

Author Information

Lois Lee is Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kent. She is a sociologist whose work focuses on the empirical study of nonreligion and atheism and, more widely, on the theory and study of culturally diverse and differentiated societies. Lois is founding director of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network and co-edits the journal Secularism and Nonreligion. As well as work in academic journals and the media, Lois' publication include the edited volumes Secularity and Non-religion and Negotiating Religion. She is co-editor of the book series, Religion and Its Others: Studies in Religion, Nonreligion and Secularity.

Recognizing the Non-religious

Reimagining the Secular

Lois Lee

Reviews and Awards

"Lee's book should be studied by theologians, seminary professors, those engaged in the sociological study of religion, secularization, and by the secular and non-religious." -- Lois Lee, Reading Religion

"Lois Lee offers a nuanced account of how secular society sits in relation to religion ... The book is well written and carefully argued ... The book contributes to the vocabulary, theory and methodology of studying and understanding religion and secularity and will be of interest to anyone versed in these sociological debates ... However, there is value too for non-specialists; for anyone interested in engaging with society around them, it expands how we might think about people's relation to religion." -- Fran Porter, Anvil

"This is, in many ways, an important book. Lee's work is part of a new wave of anthropological and sociological studies of secular, atheist, irreligious and non-religious formations. These new studies have asked whether questions that have been asked about religion - questions of embodiment, materiality or performance - might be productive when applied to humanists, atheists (new or old) or agnostics. Lee herself has been an important catalyst for much of this new work: she set up the NRSN (the Nonreligion and Secularity Network) that, through its journal and events, has provided an important platform for new research and experiments. On that basis alone, this book should be on the reading lists of students interested both in theoretical innovations in religious studies as well as new research on secular and non-religious formations."--Paul-François Tremlett, Religion

"This book is both innovative and insightful. In it, Lois Lee recognises non-religious experience as a lived and above all social reality, rather than a reasoned and individualized epistemology. The shift in emphasis from the hollowly secular to the substantively non-religious will, I have no doubt, provoke a lively debate." --Grace Davie, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Exeter

"This is simply the most analytically sophisticated discussion of non-religion/secularity written to date. Ambitious, thorough, commanding, and piercing, this book takes our understanding of-and theorising about- non-religion to a whole new, and thoroughly satisfying, level. This book is a veritable scholarly feast." --Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College

"This is a book that expertly binds the empirical and theoretical concerns of an under-researched set of groups in society and comes down in favor of a substantial understanding of the unreligious. Rather than a mere reaction against the dominance of the institutionally religious, unreligiousness is an orientation that produces landscapes and commitments of its own...I would recommend this as a text for any course in the social sciences struggling to escape the unhelpful binaries of theist/atheist, religious/non-religious, orreligious/secular practices."--Religious Studies Review

Recognizing the Non-religious

Reimagining the Secular

Lois Lee

From Our Blog

Beyond the 'God Wars'

For many years ' running into decades, even centuries ' the idea of a fundamental opposition between believers and non-believers has anchored public discussion about religion. The metaphors are of battles: these are 'God Wars', with 'zealous religionists' mounting their defences against 'militant atheists'.

Posted on September 24, 2015

Read the blog post