The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism

By James C. Edwards

Book Overview

What could it mean to be religious in a world where religion no longer retains its former authority? Posing this question for his fellow Western intellectuals who inhabit just such a world, James C. Edwards investigates the loss of religion's traditional power in a culture characterized by what he calls "normal nihilism"--a situation in which one's commitment to a particular set of values is all one really has, and in which traditional religion is only a means of interpretation used to preserve what one most cares about. Recognizing the important historical role of religion in making us the people we are, he seeks to establish a viable understanding of religion without traditional beliefs and within the context of contemporary skepticism.

The Plain Sense of Things is a book more interested in the power of religion that in its truth and in what happens to that power when the claims to truth slacken their grip.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0271016787
• ISBN13: 9780271016788
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"