Articles and Chapters written by Robert N. Bellah

The following articles by Robert Bellah are available either on this site or at other sites on the web. We will soon be posting additional articles on this site. A complete listing of books and articles are available at Dr. Bellah's bibliography.

Civil Religion in America
An article reprinted by permission from the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Winter 1967
A Polish translation of “Civil Religion in America”
Religious Evolution (PDF format)
This 1964 American Sociological Review article, “Religious Evolution,” sketches the basic argument of Bellah's latest book Religion in Human Evolution and summarizes the ideas that the 2011 book expands upon. Though it is out of date in some respects it does still serve as a brief statement of Bellah’s position.
The Revolution and the Civil Religion chapter in Religion and the American Revolution by Jerald C. Brauer (ed.)
The American Taboo on Socialism
Chapter V in Robert N. Bellah, The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, Second Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 112-138.
Understanding Care in Contemporary America
Originally published in Susan S. Phillips and Patricia Benner, eds., The Crisis of Care: Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Helping Professions. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1994, http://www.press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/crisis-care
Reading and Misreading Habits of the Heart
An article reprinted by permission from the journal Sociology of Religion (68:2 189-193) 2007.
Is There a Common American Culture? Professor Bellah presented this article as a plenary address at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Francisco on November 22, 1997. It was later reprinted in 1998 in The Journal for the American Academy of Religion.
New Religious Consciousness: Rejecting the Past, Designing the Future
This speech was presented to the Division of Education in the Society, National Council of Churches, in New York, 1974.
Biblical Religion and Social Science in the Modern World
A question and answer period followed a 1982 talk of the same title and drawn largely from this paper given at the Holy Spirit Chapel in Berkeley. You may find a transcript of this Q&A within this site.
Max Weber and World-Denying Love: A Look at the Historical Sociology of Religion Professor Bellah presented this essay as a Humanities Center and Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society at the University of California, San Diego on October 30, 1997. The Journal of the American Academy of Religion published the essay in its fall 1998 (Vol. 66, No. 3: 277-304) issue and is reprinted here with permission from Oxford University Press.
Cultural Vision and the Human Future
This essay, along with a more recent one entitled “The Renouncers,” posted on The Immanent Frame Blog (http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/08/11/the-renouncers/), are two of Bellah’s essays where he most explicitly addresses ecological issues and generates insights with strong implications for how we treat and relate to the natural environment.
Symposium on the 270th Anniversary of the Founding of Shingaku, Shingaku and Twenty-First Century Japan
An address given in Kyoto, Japan, October 15, 2000
Cultural Barriers to the Understanding of the Church in Its Public Role (PDF format)

This essay previews some of the things Bellah et al. say in The Good Society. It provides an illuminating dialectical juxtaposition of state totalitarianism with market totalitarianism, critiques an economic understanding of life and clarifies the role of, and provides a model for, the clergy and the church in public life. An earlier version of this essay was presented to the 1990 Annual Meeting of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church. Professor Bellah made a similar presentation two months earlier to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops

New Time Religion
(A book review of Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited By Charles Taylor: Harvard University Press) This article appeared in The Christian Century, May 22-26, 2002, pp. 20-26.
Imperialism, American Style
This article appeared in The Christian Century, March 8, 2003, pp. 20-25.
Individualism and the Crisis of Civic Membership
This article appeared in The Christian Century, March 20-27, l996, pp. 260-265.
Taming the Savage Market
This article appeared in The Christian Century, September 18-25, 1991, pps. 844-849.
Strong Institutions, Good City (with Christopher Adams)
This article appeared in The Christian Century, June 15-22, 1994 , pp. 604-607.
Finding the Church: Post Traditional Discipleship
This article is one in a series from The Christian Century magazine: "How My Mind Has Changed."
The True Scholar
An article posted on the web site for the American Association of University Professors.
At Home and Not At Home: Religious Pluralism and Religious Truth
The article appeared in The Christian Century, April 19, 1995, pp. 423-428.