Rodney Stark, America’s Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2012). $24.95, 208 pages. Is religion good or bad for society? Read prominent atheists, and the answer is clearly negative. Richard J. Dawkins describes religion as a “delusion.” Christopher Hitchens argues that “religion poisons everything.” And Victor J. Stenger quips, “Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings.” Read Rodney Stark’s new book, on the other hand, and you’re likely to draw an entirely different conclusion. “Americans benefit immensely from being an unusually religious people—blessings that not only fall upon believers but … Continue reading The Social Usefulness of Religion: A Review of “America’s Blessings” by Rodney Stark

 Carl R. Trueman, The Creedal Imperative (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012). $16.99, 208 pages. The Creedal Imperative by Carl R. Trueman presents a biblical, historical, theological, and practical case for creeds and confessions. Trueman is pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Ambler, Pennsylvania, and the Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at nearby Westminster Theological Seminary. Though Trueman writes from a Calvinist (and complementarian) perspective, his argument can be appreciated by orthodox Christians from a variety of theological and ecclesiological traditions. Trueman makes his argument against the frequently heard claim that Christians have no creed but the Bible. He points out … Continue reading No Creed but the Bible? A Review of The Creedal Imperative by Carl R. Trueman

Mark Chaves, American Religion: Contemporary Trends (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). American Religion by Mark Chaves contains little good news for America’s religious leaders. Subtitled Contemporary Trends, the book examines continuity and discontinuity in American religious belief and practice over the last 40 years. While there are significant points of continuity in this time period—of belief in God and weekly attendance at religious services, for example—overall, the trend is toward discontinuity. “The religious trends I have documented point to a straightforward general conclusion,” Chaves writes: “no indicator of traditional religious belief or practice is going up” (emphasis in the … Continue reading “No Indicator of Traditional Religious Belief or Practice Is Going Up”: A Review of “American Religion” by Mark Chaves