Unbelievers - An Emotional History of Doubt

"How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie's alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present."
-Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age

Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, pointing to science and reason as the twin culprits, but in this lively, startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through the heart more than the mind.

Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, he shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. As Protestant radicals eroded time-honored certainties and ushered in an age of anger and anxiety, some defended their faith by redefining it in terms of ethics, setting in motion secularizing forces that soon became transformational. Unbelievers tells a powerful emotional history of doubt with potent lessons for our own angry and anxious times.

"Well-researched and thought-provoking...Ryrie is definitely on to something right and important."
-Christianity Today

"A beautifully crafted history of early doubt...Unbelievers covers much ground in a short space with deep erudition and considerable wit."
-The Spectator

"Ryrie traces the root of religious skepticism to the anger, the anxiety, and the 'desperate search for certainty' that drove thinkers like...John Donne to grapple with church dogma."
-New Yorker

About the author

Alec Ryrie is a prizewinning historian of the Reformation and Protestantism. He is the author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt and Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World. Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London.

Product details

• Authors: Alec Ryrie
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 28.02.2022
• EAN: 9780674260337
• ISBN: 978-0-674-26033-7
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 210 mm x 19 mm
• Weight: 249 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; RELIGION / Christianity / Protestant, HISTORY / World, RELIGION / Christianity / History, RELIGION / Christianity / General, RELIGION / Atheism, RELIGION / Agnosticism, Christianity, General & world history, History of Religion, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, General and world history, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, c 1500 to c 1600, Agnosticism and atheism, Agnosticism & Atheism, Protestantism & Protestant Churches, Protestantism and Protestant Churches