Biblicism, an approach to the Bible common among some American evangelicals, emphasizes together the Bible's exclusive authority, infallibility, clarity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability. Acclaimed sociologist Christian Smith argues that this approach is misguided and unable to live up to its own claims. If evangelical biblicism worked as its proponents say it should, there would not be the vast variety of interpretive differences that biblicists themselves reach when they actually read and interpret the Bible. Far from challenging the inspiration and authority of Scripture, Smith critiques a particular rendering of it, encouraging evangelicals to seek a more responsible, coherent, and defensible approach to biblical authority.
This important book has generated lively discussion and debate. The paperback edition adds a new chapter responding to the conversation that the cloth edition has sparked.

Everyday Knowledge and Uncommon Truths: Women of the Academy is a thirteen chapter volume which draws on the life experience and varied backgrounds of academic women from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The book addresses a variety of issues pertaining to women’s home lives, education, teaching, research, writing, and activism. To provide diverse perspectives on women’s experiences of being and knowing in and outside the academy, contributors draw on a range of critical approaches derived from feminism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, critical education theory, discourse theory and analysis, narrative inquiry and life histories. Lately, there has been considerable interest by women in the academy in a discernment process involving an examination of the historically, politically and culturally situated nature of their knowledge of the world, their work in the academy and other activities in which they engage. These examinations, especially in the form of narrative inquiry, life histories and deconstructive language practices such as discourse analysis, figure prominently in breaking silences and giving voice to the many tensions that women experience in the academic workplace and other settings.

A woman is incomplete without a man, motherhood is a woman's destiny, and a woman's place is in the home. These conservative political themes are woven throughout teen romance fiction's sagas of hearts and flowers. Using the theory and interpretive methods of feminism and cultural studies, Christian-Smith explores the contradictory role that popular culture plays in constructing gender, class, race, age and sexual meanings. Originally published in 1990, Becoming a Woman through Romance combines close textual analyses of thirty-four teen romance novels (written in the United States from 1942-1982) with a school study in three midwestern American schools. Christian-Smith situates teen romance fiction within the rapidly changing publishing industry and the important political and economic changes in the United States surrounding the rise of the New Right. By analysing the structure of the novels in terms of the themes of romance, sexuality and beautification, and the Good/Bad and Strong/Weak dichotomies, she demonstrates how each has shaped the novels' versions of femininity over forty years. She also shows that although romance fiction is presented as a universal model, it is actually an expression of white middle class gender ideology and tension within this class. This high readable, comprehensive and coherent work was the first to combine in one volume three vital areas of cultural studies research: the political economy of publishing, textual analysis, and a study of readers. The first full-scale study of teen romance fiction, Becoming a Woman through Romance establishes the importance of the study of popular culture forms found in school for understanding the process of school materials in identity formation.

Everyday Knowledge and Uncommon Truths: Women of the Academy is a thirteen chapter volume which draws on the life experience and varied backgrounds of academic women from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The book addresses a variety of issues pertaining to women’s home lives, education, teaching, research, writing, and activism. To provide diverse perspectives on women’s experiences of being and knowing in and outside the academy, contributors draw on a range of critical approaches derived from feminism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, critical education theory, discourse theory and analysis, narrative inquiry and life histories. Lately, there has been considerable interest by women in the academy in a discernment process involving an examination of the historically, politically and culturally situated nature of their knowledge of the world, their work in the academy and other activities in which they engage. These examinations, especially in the form of narrative inquiry, life histories and deconstructive language practices such as discourse analysis, figure prominently in breaking silences and giving voice to the many tensions that women experience in the academic workplace and other settings.

A woman is incomplete without a man, motherhood is a woman's destiny, and a woman's place is in the home. These conservative political themes are woven throughout teen romance fiction's sagas of hearts and flowers. Using the theory and interpretive methods of feminism and cultural studies, Christian-Smith explores the contradictory role that popular culture plays in constructing gender, class, race, age and sexual meanings. Originally published in 1990, Becoming a Woman through Romance combines close textual analyses of thirty-four teen romance novels (written in the United States from 1942-1982) with a school study in three midwestern American schools. Christian-Smith situates teen romance fiction within the rapidly changing publishing industry and the important political and economic changes in the United States surrounding the rise of the New Right. By analysing the structure of the novels in terms of the themes of romance, sexuality and beautification, and the Good/Bad and Strong/Weak dichotomies, she demonstrates how each has shaped the novels' versions of femininity over forty years. She also shows that although romance fiction is presented as a universal model, it is actually an expression of white middle class gender ideology and tension within this class. This high readable, comprehensive and coherent work was the first to combine in one volume three vital areas of cultural studies research: the political economy of publishing, textual analysis, and a study of readers. The first full-scale study of teen romance fiction, Becoming a Woman through Romance establishes the importance of the study of popular culture forms found in school for understanding the process of school materials in identity formation.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.

Despite the crucial role of religion in most societies, religious activism remains largely uninvestigated. Based on empirical evidence, this book also addresses many theoretical issues arising in the study of social movements.

Popular fiction continues to be the object of both academic and political interest as educators seek to understand the role literacy plays in constructing the gender, class, race, ethnic, age, sexual and national subjectivites of youth. This book focuses on the role of teen romance fiction in the construction and reconstruction of femininity internationally. Developed in the United States amid the conservative political restoration of Reganism, teen romance fiction condenses and articulates the long standing fears and resentments of conservative groups regarding feminism and women's growing independence and political power. Drawing on multidisciplinary approaches from cultural studies and feminist theories, psychoanalysis, semiotics, reader research, and critical theory, these essays signal the complexity of the world wide teen romance novel phenomenon and the political character of women's literacy. The book is aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students of literacy, women's studies, sociology of education and cultural studies.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415921058

The most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children, youth, and teenagers is their parents. A myriad of studies show that the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives. We know a lot about the importance of parents in faith transmission. However we know much less about the actual beliefs, feelings, and activities of the parents themselves, what Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk call the "intergenerational transmission of religious faith and practice." To address that gap, this book reports the findings of a new national study of religious parents in the United States. The findings and conclusions in Handing Down the Faith are based on 215 in-depth, personal interviews with religious parents from many traditions and different parts of the country, and sophisticated analyses of two nationally representative surveys of American parents about their religious parenting. Handing Down the Faith explores the background beliefs informing how and why religious parents seek to pass on religion to their children; examines how parenting styles interact with parent religiousness to shape effective religious transmission; shows how parents have been influenced by their experiences as children influenced by their own parents; reveals how religious parents view their congregations and what they most seek out in a local church, synagogue, temple, or mosque; explores the experiences and outlooks of immigrant parents including Latino Catholics, East Asian Buddhists, South Asian Muslims, and Indian Hindus. Smith and Adamczyk step back to consider how American religion has transformed over the last 100 years and to explain why parents today shoulder such a huge responsibility in transmitting religious faith and practice to their children. The book is rich in empirical evidence and unique in many of the topics it explores and explains, providing a variety of sometimes counterintuitive findings that will interest scholars of religion, social scientists interested in the family, parenting, and socialization; clergy and religious educators and leaders; and religious parents themselves.

How parents approach the task of passing on religious faith and practice to their children How do American parents pass their religion on to their children? At a time of overall decline of traditional religion and an increased interest in personal "spirituality," Religious Parenting investigates the ways that parents transmit religious beliefs, values, and practices to their kids. We know that parents are the most important influence on their children's religious lives, yet parents have been virtually ignored in previous work on religious socialization. Renowned religion scholar Christian Smith and his collaborators Bridget Ritz and Michael Rotolo explore American parents' strategies, experiences, beliefs, and anxieties regarding religious transmission through hundreds of in-depth interviews that span religious traditions, social classes, and family types all around the country. Throughout we hear the voices of evangelical, Catholic, Mormon, mainline and black Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist parents and discover that, despite massive diversity, American parents share a nearly identical approach to socializing their children religiously. For almost all, religion is important for the foundation it provides for becoming one's best self on life's difficult journey. Religion is primarily a resource for navigating the challenges of this life, not preparing for an afterlife. Parents view it as their job, not religious professionals', to ground their children in life-enhancing religious values that provide resilience, morality, and a sense of purpose. Challenging longstanding sociological and anthropological assumptions about culture, the authors demonstrate that parents of highly dissimilar backgrounds share the same "cultural models" when passing on religion to their children. Taking an extensive look into questions of religious practice and childrearing, Religious Parenting uncovers parents' real-life challenges while breaking innovative theoretical ground.

How parents approach the task of passing on religious faith and practice to their children How do American parents pass their religion on to their children? At a time of overall decline of traditional religion and an increased interest in personal "spirituality," Religious Parenting investigates the ways that parents transmit religious beliefs, values, and practices to their kids. We know that parents are the most important influence on their children's religious lives, yet parents have been virtually ignored in previous work on religious socialization. Renowned religion scholar Christian Smith and his collaborators Bridget Ritz and Michael Rotolo explore American parents' strategies, experiences, beliefs, and anxieties regarding religious transmission through hundreds of in-depth interviews that span religious traditions, social classes, and family types all around the country. Throughout we hear the voices of evangelical, Catholic, Mormon, mainline and black Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist parents and discover that, despite massive diversity, American parents share a nearly identical approach to socializing their children religiously. For almost all, religion is important for the foundation it provides for becoming one's best self on life's difficult journey. Religion is primarily a resource for navigating the challenges of this life, not preparing for an afterlife. Parents view it as their job, not religious professionals', to ground their children in life-enhancing religious values that provide resilience, morality, and a sense of purpose. Challenging longstanding sociological and anthropological assumptions about culture, the authors demonstrate that parents of highly dissimilar backgrounds share the same "cultural models" when passing on religion to their children. Taking an extensive look into questions of religious practice and childrearing, Religious Parenting uncovers parents' real-life challenges while breaking innovative theoretical ground.

In his 2010 book What Is a Person?, Christian Smith argued that sociology had for too long neglected this fundamental question. Prevailing social theories, he wrote, do not adequately "capture our deep subjective experience as persons, crucial dimensions of the richness of our own lived lives, what thinkers in previous ages might have called our 'souls' or 'hearts.'" Building on Smith's previous work, To Flourish or Destruct examines the motivations intrinsic to this subjective experience: Why do people do what they do? How can we explain the activity that gives rise to all human social life and social structures? Smith argues that our actions stem from a motivation to realize what he calls natural human goods: ends that are, by nature, constitutionally good for all human beings. He goes on to explore the ways we can and do fail to realize these ends-a failure that can result in varying gradations of evil. Rooted in critical realism and informed by work in philosophy, psychology, and other fields, Smith's ambitious book situates the idea of personhood at the center of our attempts to understand how we might shape good human lives and societies.

More than a decade ago, a group of researchers began to study the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. They tracked these young people over the course of a decade, revisiting them periodically to check in on the state -and future- of religion in America, and reporting on their findings in a series of books, beginning with Soul Searching (2005). Now, with Back-Pocket God, this mammoth research project comes to its conclusion. What have we learned about the changing shape of religion in America? Back-Pocket God explores continuity and change among young people from their teenage years through the latter stages of "emerging adulthood." Melinda Lundquist Denton and Richard Flory find that the story of young adult religion is one of an overall decline in commitment and affiliation, and in general, a moving away from organized religion. Yet, there is also a parallel trend in which a small, religiously committed group of emerging adults claim faith as an important fixture in their lives. Emerging adults don't seem so much opposed to religion or to religious organizations, at least in the abstract, as they are uninterested in religion, at least as they have experienced it. Religion is like an app on the ubiquitous smartphones in our back pockets: readily accessible, easy to control, and usefulbut only for limited purposes. Denton and Flory show that some of the popular assumptions about young people and religion are not as clear as what many people seem to believe. The authors challenge the characterizations of religiously unaffiliated emerging adults -sometimes called "religious nones"- as undercover atheists. At the other end of the spectrum, they question the assumption that those who are not religious will return to religion once they marry and have children.

Sexting. Cyberbullying. Narcissism. People-and especially the media-are consumed by fears about the effect of social media on young people. We hear constantly about the dangers that lurk online, and about young people's seemingly pathological desire to share anything and everything about themselves with the entire world. Donna Freitas has traveled the country, talking to college students about what's really happening on social media. What she finds is that, while we focus on the problems that make headlines, we are ignoring the seemingly mundane, but much more widespread, problems that occur every day. Young people, she shows, feel enormous pressure to look happy all the time-and not just basically content, but blissful, ecstatic, inspiring and successful in their personal, professional, and academic lives-regardless of how they actually feel. Of course, these young adults are not that happy, at least not all of the time, and the constant exposure to the seemingly perfect lives of other people on social media only makes them feel worse. What's more, far from wanting to share everything about themselves, they are terrified of sharing something that will come back to haunt them later in life. The rise of social media has brought about a dramatic cultural shift: the need to curate a perfect identity online that often has little to do with reality. The consequences, Freitas shows, can be very real. Drawing on an online survey and in-person interviews with students from thirteen campuses around the U.S, Freitas offers a window into the social media generation and how they use Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter, and other online platforms. She presents fascinating insights about how these people are consciously creating alternate identities for themselves, while also suffering from the belief that the other people they encounter online really are as perfect as their profiles appear. This is an eye-opening look at the real world of social media today.

A groundbreaking new theory of religion Religion remains an important influence in the world today, yet the social sciences are still not adequately equipped to understand and explain it. This book advances an innovative theory of religion that goes beyond the problematic theoretical paradigms of the past. Drawing on the philosophy of critical realism and personalist social theory, Christian Smith explores why humans are religious in the first place-uniquely so as a species-and offers an account of secularization and religious innovation and persistence that breaks the logjam in which religious scholarship has been stuck for so long. Certain to stimulate debate and inspire promising new avenues of scholarship, Religion features a wealth of illustrations and examples that help to make its concepts accessible to readers. This superbly written book brings sound theoretical thinking to a perennially thorny subject, and a new vitality and focus to its study.

Did you know God loves to color too?...His crayon box is full of glorious colors that even helped make you This book is very unique. It was made by the Smith Family, a multi-ethnic, homsechooling family to help kids learn the majesty of God's colors and how He took loving care to color us each in our own special, beautiful shade of skin color. The book was Illustrated by the author's entire family, from his four-year-old daughter to his twin eight-year-old boys and even his precious wife. Your kids will love this book It's all about God and His big crayon box that colored the world and everything we see. But it's much more than that. It's about a God who loved us and created us and colored us too for His special purpose. Children will love the idea that other kids helped illustrate the pictures for this book. Additionally, there is a page that can be personalized with your child's photograph so they can visually see just how important they are to God