Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital

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Stef Aupers, Dick Houtman
BRILL, 2010 - Religion - 273 pages
Religions of Modernity challenges the social-scientific orthodoxy that, once unleashed, the modern forces of individualism, science and technology inevitably erode the sacred and evoke the profane. The book's chapters, some by established scholars, others by junior researchers, document instead in rich empirical detail how modernity relocates the sacred to the deeper layers of the self and the domain of digital technology. Rather than destroying the sacred tout court, then, the cultural logic of modernization spawns its own religious meanings, unacknowledged spiritualities and magical enchantments. The editors argue in the introductory chapter that the classical theoretical accounts of modernity by Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and others already hinted at the future emergence of these religions of modernity
 

Contents

Religions of Modernity Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital
1
Real Religion and Fuzzy Spirituality? Taking Sides in the Sociology of Religion
31
I Did It My Way? Individual Choice and Social Conformity in New Age Religion
49
Private Religion in the Public Sphere Life Spirituality in Civil Society
69
Seeing Invisible Religion Religion as a Societal Conversation about Transcendent Meaning
89
Ethics of Sensitivity Towards a New Work Ethic
115
Beyond the Spiritual Supermarket The Social and Public Significance of New Age Spirituality
135
Silicon Valley New Age The CoConstitution of the Digital and the Sacred
161
Science Fiction and Religion About Real and Raelian Possible Worlds
187
Religion and Spirituality in Science Fiction Narratives A Case of Multiple Modernities?
205
Where the Zeroes Meet the Ones Exploring the Affinity between Magic and Computer Technology
219
Digital Apocalypse The Implicit Religiosity of the Millennium Bug Scare
239
Name Index
261
Subject Index
267
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Stef Aupers (Ph.D., 2004) is Associate Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and a member of the Center for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology (CROCUS). He published on contemporary spirituality, conspiracy culture, internet culture and authored Under the Spell of Modernity (Ashgate, 2010).
Dick Houtman (Ph.D., 1994) is Professor of Cultural Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam and member of the Center for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology (CROCUS). He studies cultural change in the contemporary west, particularly the spiritualization of religion and culturalization of politics.

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