The Culture of Unbelief

This volume presents to the general public the reflections of a group of social scientists and theologians who gathered in the spring of 1969 in Rome to explore "The Culture of Unbelief," and who have subsequently continued their interest in the subject. The book departs in places from the actual order of events of the symposium to accommodate papers prepared explicitly for publication after the symposium was over.—from the Editors' Preface   This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1971.

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Rocco Caporale was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at St. John’s University. Antonio Grumelli was Professor of Sociology at Pontificia Università Urbaniana.

FOREWORD, by Peter L. Berger
EDITORS' PREFACE
INTRODUCTION, by Rocco Caporale

PART ONE. The Notion of Unbelief: Problems
of Conceptualization and Research

I. Belief, Unbelief, and Religion, by Thomas Luckmann
2. The Historical Background of Unbelief,
by Robert N. Bellah
3. The Study of Unbelief: Perspectives on Research, by
Charles Y. Glock
4. Secularization: Between Belief and Unbelief, by
Antonio Grumelli
5. Variations in Perspective on Secularization and Unbelief:
Round Table Discussion, by Harvey Cox, Jean Danielou,
and Milan Machovec

PART TWO. Responses to Position Papers

6. General Response in a Dialectical Key, by Oleg Mandie
7. Response to Bellah, by Martin Marty
8. Response to Glock, by Bryan Wilson

PART THREE. Views and counterviews:
General Discussions

9. Toward a Definition of Unbelief. Highlights of the
Discussion of Luckmann's Paper
10. On the Development of Unbelief. Highlights of the
Discussion of Bellah's Paper
11. Unbelief: Can It Be Scientifically Studied? Highlights
of the Discussion of Glock's Paper

PART FOUR. Postscripts and New Frontiers

12. Belief, Unbelief, and Disbelief, by Talcott Parsons
13. Unbelief as an Object of Research, by Bryan Wilson
14. Between Religion and Social Science, by Robert N. Bellah

APPENDICES

I. Program of the Symposium on the Culture of Unbelief
2. Biographical Descriptions of Participants in the
Symposium
3. Address by Paul VI to the Participants in the Symposium