Available From UC Press

The United States is one of the most highly educated societies on earth, and also one of the most religious. In The God Problem, Robert Wuthnow examines how middle class Americans juggle the seemingly paradoxical relationship between faith and reason.

Based on exceptionally rich and candid interviews with approximately two hundred people from various faiths, this book dispels the most common explanations: that Americans are adept at keeping religion and intellect separate, or that they are a nation of “joiners." Instead, Wuthnow argues, we do this—not by coming up with rational proofs for the existence of God—but by adopting subtle usages of language that keep us from making unreasonable claims about God. In an illuminating narrative that reveals the complex negotiations many undertake in order to be religious in the modern world, Wuthnow probes the ways of talking that occur in prayers, in discussions about God, in views of heaven, in understandings of natural catastrophes and personal tragedies, and in attempts to reconcile faith with science.

Robert Wuthnow is Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and Director of the Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion. Among his books are After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s and Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches, both from UC Press.

“With his keen eye for spotting insights in data, Wuthnow presents a wonderful study of the mental maps people use to be religious in the modern world. As usual, he has identified something that we all think about obliquely and tackled it head on. The God Problem is a huge achievement.”—John H. Evans, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego

“In The God Problem, Wuthnow sheds new light on the American debate over religious belief versus non-belief. Wuthnow’s insight offers a nuanced portrayal of the religious situation in our time. This is a significant and insightful book.” —Wade Clark Roof, J.F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society, University of California, Santa Barbara