Formations of Belief: Historical Approaches to Religion and the Secular

Just published in September 2019 by Princeton University Press, Formations of Belief: Historical Approaches to Religion and the Secular examines changing attitudes toward religion and spirituality as secularism declines. The essay collection explores new perspectives on the ebb and flow of beliefs, their core orientations, and how the Reformation along with the Renaissance enabled the rise of the secular in the industrialized Western world. In this event, editor Philip Nord will be interviewed by Libby Zinman Schwartz, a Princeton-based freelance writer and therapist combining Eastern theory with Western psychotherapy, as part of a discussion with audience members. Open to the public.

Within Formations of Belief, various authors theorize that the rise of a global economy may have contributed to the formation of new belief systems, and that the religious and the secular might connect to each other more closely than earlier believed. A global economy marked by intense competition, confusion and conflicts between nations and peoples seems to create fear as well as insecurity. As beliefs shift through a decline of the old and an adjustment to the new, religion and spirituality seem to have once again established a footing, fulfilling needs no longer satisfied by secularism.

This event is part of the Being Human Festival 2019 of the Humanities Council.