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Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion takes an in-depth look at the generation of post-WWII babies who came of age in the 1960s, and how they acted as a transitional generation between religious parents and non-religious children and grandchildren, forged different practices and sites of meaning, morality, community, and transcendence.
List of contents
- Part 1: And in the Beginning was the End
- 1: Who are the Baby Boomers?
- 2: Church: A Social Thing
- 3: Enabling Ambivalence
- 4: Teen Angst: Confirming doubts
- Part 2: Believing in Leaving
- 5: Drifting Away, Fading Away
- 6: Blinding Light on the Road from Damascus: Climbing the Moral High Ground
- 7: 1960s Cultural Revolution: Sex and Sensibilities
- 8: Adulthood and Acceptance, with Lingering Trails
- Part 3: Shaping Belief and Belonging
- 9: Belief in Spirits: Extraordinary Relationality
- 10: Belonging and Behaving
- 11: The Next Generations: Raising the 'Nones'
- Appendix: Interviewing Online
About the author
Abby Day, Professor in Race, Faith, and Culture, specialises in religion, critical race theory, and critical criminology. Following an award-winning MA and then PhD at Lancaster University, she researched and taught at the universities of Sussex and Kent. In 2013 she joined the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her most recent, highly acclaimed book, The Religious Lives of Older Laywomen: the Last Active Anglican Generation was the first to explore this silent, disappearing generation: the Baby Boomer mothers. Former chair of the BSA Sociology of Religion study group, she sits on numerous international funding and editorial boards.
Summary
Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion takes an in-depth look at the generation of post-WWII babies who came of age in the 1960s, and how they acted as a transitional generation between religious parents and non-religious children and grandchildren, forged different practices and sites of meaning, morality, community, and transcendence.
Additional text
This book is of particular interest to scholars in sociology and religious studies and is an important contribution to advancing existing scholarship on secularisation, religious change, and decline amongst ex-Anglican Baby Boomers. It is easy to read, and its empirical data provide the reader with a sense of how religious decline can play out on the individual level.
