Grounded : Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution
Author(s): Diana Butler Bass
Winner of the RNA Book Award, Nautilus Award, and Wilbur Award.
This special paperback edition includes a 40-day devotional that pairs passages from Grounded with prayers and reflections, ideal for use during the Lenten season or any season of reflection.
The headlines are clear: religion is on the decline in America as many people leave behind traditional religious practices. Diana Butler Bass, leading commentator on religion, politics, and culture, follows up her acclaimed book Christianity After Religion by arguing that what appears to be a decline actually signals a major transformation in how people understand and experience God. The distant God of conventional religion has given way to a more intimate sense of the sacred that is with us in the world. This shift, from a vertical understanding of God to a God found on the horizons of nature and human community, is at the heart of a spiritual revolution that surrounds us — and that is challenging not only religious institutions but political and social ones as well.
Grounded explores this cultural turn as Bass unpacks how people are finding new spiritual ground by discovering and embracing God everywhere in the world around us—in the soil, the water, the sky, in our homes and neighborhoods, and in the global commons. Faith is no longer a matter of mountaintop experience or institutional practice; instead, people are connecting with God through the environment in which we live. Grounded guides readers through our contemporary spiritual habitat as it points out and pays attention to the ways in which people experience a God who animates creation and community.
Bass brings her understanding of the latest research and studies and her deep knowledge of history and theology to Grounded. She cites news, trends, data, and pop culture, weaves in spiritual texts and ancient traditions, and pulls it all together through stories of her own and others' spiritual journeys. Grounded observes and reports a radical change in the way many people understand God and how they practice faith. In doing so, Bass invites readers to join this emerging spiritual revolution, find a revitalized expression of faith, and change the world.
Review(s):
“With her usual blend of plain-talking and sharp insight, Diana Butler Bass brings into focus the usually fuzzy realm of the spiritual but not religious, providing a much-needed guidebook for... the often-perplexing but growing turn away from organized religion.”
“I’ve been grateful for Bass’s sharp mind, but upon finishing Grounded, I found myself in love with her mystical heart and gorgeous storytelling. We need to believe that God is with us, in dirt and water and suffering and homes and neighborhoods. God is definitely in this book.”
“Provocative and well-researched, Grounded is an admirable contribution to the understanding of contemporary American Christianity, which is in constant needs of reformation. May the church listen.”
“A profound and literary book.”
“Bass’ credentials... frequently help bridge the gap between those who practice Christianity and those who research it. ‘What makes her an unusual voice among commentators in American religion right now is that she’s a proponent of hopeful religion.’… Grounded champions a return to nature and an embrace of hospitality.”
“In her excellent treatise, [Bass] declares the current state of religion as not dying but transforming…. Bass’s biblical and effusive style, always mixing the personal with the political and scriptural, finds a deeper, more profound register in this latest book.”
“Grounded is a wise and beautiful book. It is, in fact and in places, almost an anthem to the sacred unity of the physical and the spiritual in the formation of human faith and in the maturation of the human soul.”
“In Grounded, Diana Butler Bass brings theology back down to earth. She writes about the environment and about the church in a way that makes sense, feels authentic, and doesn’t put you to sleep. A stunning book that will open up new conversations in the church and beyond.”
“I absolutely love this book. I’ve long respected Diana Butler Bass for her intelligent, academic approach to the religious conversation, and never more so than in the pages of this book. Grounded made me love this beautiful world more deeply, and made God’s presence more visible everywhere I looked.”
“An absolutely gorgeously written book about real faith in the real world.”
ISBN: 9780062328564