In his groundbreaking book Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah conducts a deep sociological dive into U.S. culture and religiosity. Despite how influential the book has been for generations of sociologists and religion scholars, it nonetheless fell short.
Specifically, Bellah gave minimal attention to race. Although race and ethnicity are covered in the book, they remain on the margins of the discourse.
Missing is any profound examination concerning the Black church, Indigenous spiritual traditions, Latine hybrid religiosity, or liberative movements rooted in the gospel message. So when Bellah makes claims concerning his findings about U.S. culture and religiosity, he really is discussing a white Eurocentric culture and religiosity.
Still, the book does reveal some profound insights. Specifically, he argued that the salient characteristic of U.S. culture is an expressive and utilitarian hyper-individualism that frays the communal bonds required for civic responsibility.
The focus of Eurocentric culture is not what we owe our community, but what we can get out of it. And if the community doesn’t accept the same way of believing as I do, then to hell with them—literally.
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