Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It

by David Zahl

David Zahl's popular and enlightening exploration of our unintended replacement religions--career, parenting, technology, food, politics, and romance--is new in paperback, now updated and expanded with a chapter on celebrity. In our striving, we are chasing a sense of enoughness . But it remains ever out of reach, and the effort and anxiety are burning us out. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism" and its cousins, highlighting both their ingenuity and mercilessness, all while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. Zahl unmasks the competing pieties around which so much of our lives revolve, and he does so in a way that's at points playful, personal, and incisive. Ultimately he brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder. New edition includes a bound-in small group discussion guide perfect book clubs, church groups, and more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Theology, Religion, Christian, Faith, Cultural, Christian Living

257 pages, Paperback

Published August 25, 2020

About the author

David Zahl is the director of Mockingbird Ministries and editor-in-chief of the Mockingbird blog. He and his wife currently reside in Charlottesville, VA, with their two sons where David also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle brilliantly captures the message of this book. With humor and wisdom, Zahl guides us through the rapidly expanding labyrinth of “religions” that wear the masks of everything from food to exercise. Kitchens become temples and gyms become churches. Rather than becoming less religious, we’ve become more religious, in all the wrong ways. A fantastic read.

[Gabrielė Bužinskaitė · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You see, meditation has never been more stressful. The moment that mindfulness appeared to be working was the moment it became a target for seculosity, a harness for self-improvement and therefore self-justification, another instrument of credit. Today, apps like Headspace and Calm allow you to track and display the consecutive days that you’ve meditated, encouraging users to compete for the longest streaks. You can sign up for services that ding your credit card $10 every time you miss a session. … In this way, a practice designed to alleviate guilt and anxiety becomes the source of it.”

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling, humorous, and well written, Zahl gives a name and shape to the deeply religious nature of modern Americans — and how we’re prone to worshiping almost anything these days (work, the gym, parenting, healthy eating, etc.). Seculosity is a clear-headed reminder of how we energetically transform almost anything into a religion and yet still find ourselves empty and exhausted at the end of the day. Highly recommended!

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had high expectations for this one and it rose to the occasion. Zahl shines light on our ability to take any left-hand kingdom "thing" and turn it into a religion all our own. You can really hear Zahl's voice in this, with the same calm tone and a few good-natured puns that you'd hear in his live talks. It's a simple, easy read (I read it in 2 days), while still giving you a lot to discuss and think about. I want a sequel!

I see Zahl was also a contributor to Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners.

[Hiram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I needed to read this book and so do you. A challenging read and a comforting read at the same time. Looking for “enoughness” outside of Christ is a useless/fruitless endeavor.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on the ills of 21st century America that I’ve read - an eloquent, readable, convicting diagnosis of what’s getting us down these days.

David Zahl posits that, contrary to the evidence from church attendance polls, we Americans are just as religious as ever. Human nature fundamentally seeks a source of hope, purpose, and most of all enoughness,, and even as “big R” Religion has seemingly begun to fade, other contenders have stepped in to meet our need for “small r” religion, or “that which we rely on not just for meaning or hope but enoughness” (p. xiv).

This "seculosity" - defined as "religiosity that's directed horizontally rather than vertically" (p. xxi) - is at work all over. Whether we turn to work, romance, politics, or parenting to validate our existence, we have all set before ourselves some sort of scorecard for life, hoping that if we can just check enough boxes, we'll have done enough to satisfy that existential longing.

Zahl shines a light on a few of the ways seculosity pervades our culture - in busyness, romance, parenting, technology, work, leisure, food, politics, and "Jesusland" (since the church is far from immune from these impulses!). In each chapter, he highlights with good humor but pointed accuracy the ways in which these aspects of our lives - all good in themselves - have morphed into cults offering false promises of peace, perfection, and belonging.

Possibly the true success of this book lies in the fact that it reads like a fresh, innovative take on society and why we’re miserable, but truly breaks no new ground. Behind the references to Harambe and Seinfeld, Zahl’s writing shimmers with echoes of Christian thinkers from Augustine to C.S. Lewis. He strips away conventional religious terminology and provides new vocabulary and a framework to help us see ourselves and the spiritual condition of our culture with fresh eyes. He lays bare the ways our 21st century obsessions are merely the newest iteration of the age-old human condition, and then points us back to the cross as the only way out of the hamster wheel of works righteousness.

Highly recommend to anyone feeling burned out by life.

[Rev Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wasn’t sure what to make of this book when I started it. The only reason I read Seculosity was because a long time viewer of the channel recommended it and I gotta say – great recommendation.
Seculosity is an ideal read to evaluate the idols in your life and I think it would be an especially good book to read for the start of a new year. If you feel like the 21st century world is running you ragged and the very things that were intended to make your life better were instead making your life, feel impossible – Seculosity is the book for you.

Doesn’t happen all that often, but I have nothing negative to say about Seculosity. I enjoyed it that much. Although enjoy might not always be the right word. Even when I was troubled by Zahl’s insight into the places where I am setting up idols, I still found his wisdom to be seasoned with honey or you could say this book is medicine going down with a spoonful of sugar.
Zahl argues that one of the reasons people are going to church less today is because we have replaced the religion of Christianity with a charcutier board of religions from our obsession with our cell phones to the manner in which we parent our children to our food to our sports teams.
Now some of the chapters you will read and laugh along in ease because you don’t treat that part of our life as a religion. Like me – I could sit in ease and read through the food chapter, because while I foods I certainly prefer before others. Give me a steaming bowl of crawfish etoueffe and I will love you. But I don’t base my worth and my morality based on my food.
I’ll eat my wife’s home cooking. I’ll eat Drago’s chargrilled oysters. I’ll eat a McDonald’s mcdouble and none of those options will make me feel better or worse about myself than the other. I just try not to overeat, so food isn’t a thing for me.
But it was still fascinating and enlightening to read all the ways that food has become a religion, you could even say like an idol for people in our culture today. Take Jim Gaffigan’s joke where he laughed at the sad reality that many Americans would rather be caught picking up a prostitute than picking up McDonald’s. So many people assign their value of others and self based on the food they consume. We are the same as the old Legalizers who judged others for eating pork.
For me, the most convicting chapter was on Leisure. Our hobbies. Here’s how I knew this was the chapter that was most needed for me. It wasn’t long into the chapter where I mentally began to argue with the points Zahl was making.
David, I typically refer to authors by their first name in my brain while reading a book, David, it isn’t that my running is a religion. I am just competitive. That’s all it is. Yeah, so I have one of those exercise watches that track my heartbeat and my steps and my speed and on and on. I am not being religious about my running. I just want to know how to improve.
And my reading, I am just striving to read 100 books because it is cool goal and not so I will feel so superior in comparison to other or just plain old better about myself. It’s not a religion. I’m just competitive, even when no one is competing against me.
Well, suddenly I realize, uhhhhh my hobbies are my 2nd religion. He’s right. I need to revalute the way I view running and reading to find my worth and my importance in Jesus Christ and not in these extras that should just be the side, the sprinkles of life.
So here is my advice for reading Seculosity – first read it. It is pretty eye opening on how we have turned nearly every part of life into a religion and the damage that does to us. But second, when you find yourself arguing with David that you are just eating healthy or I can stay off social media whenever I want.
*Hold I just thought of something I need to Tweet*
When you find yourself in the strongest disagreement with David that just be where you need to reexamine your life the most.
I also loved how the book. His advice on getting off the hamster wheel of Seculosity was beautiful – it was about grace. He wrote, I’ve run into too many former, or “recovering” Evangelicals to discount the deep-seated and oppressive performancism at work, where what matters more than what God has done for you is what you can and need to do for God.
He then wrote the following on grace in religion: a religion of capital-G Grace would hold to Jesus Christ as the central revelation of who God is, and the cross as the central revelation of who Christ is – not just in terms of sacrificial love, but in terms of law-fulfilling righteousness imputed to nontransformed sinners like you and me. For this reason, a grace-centered Christianity would not balk from heralding-at the full volume and without fingers crossed – the good news that nothing that needs to be done hasn’t already been done.
Grace says Jesus is enough and I can rest in Him and that is the key to overcoming Seculosity. I don’t need my parenting style, the quality of my marriage, the accomplishments of my employment, or the number of books I have read this year to make me measure up. I am right with God because of grace and I can rest in the grace of Christ and live for God without a need to fall into shame or rise into pride because of how I am handling the various parts of my life.
I highly recommend Seculosity. It really touched me in a few areas of my life. I found it to be personal, profound, and yet light hearted at the same time. It would make for a really good read to start the new year.
This is a transcript for a video review. You can watch the review at YouTube.com/revreads

[Daniel van Voorhis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t say enough about this book- Zahl’s work at MBird.com has long been a favorite- in this book he has sharpened his thoughts, arranged the ideas, and put together THE book on modern secular religion. That he nails that, and provides a wonderful antidote in a Gospel that is good news for those of us at our wits end. I won’t tell you often to buy something- but get this on your shelf post haste- reflective, incisive, and with a wink that reminds us that there is one who has abolished religion for those who seek.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it was hard truths I wasn't ready to hear or maybe I would have liked it better as an essay. Either way, I have been procrastinating finishing it because I found it repetitive and boring. Finally finished to tonight, and I don't know that I am any better for it.

[George P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

American organized religion is declining. According to Gallup data, only one percent of U.S. adults claimed no religious affiliation in 1955. By 2017, that percentage had grown to 20. The younger the adult, the likelier the lack of religious affiliation. For adults ages 30–39, the percentage is 28. For those ages 21–29, it’s 33. If you’re looking for evidence of secularization in America, this rise of the Nones is Exhibit A.

And yet, David Zahl claims inhis new book that “the marketplace in replacement religion is booming.” Those replacements don’t look or feel religious, however — at least not in the capital-R sense of the term, which Zahl describes as “robes and kneeling and the Man Upstairs.” They don’t necessarily look like “folkloric beliefs” or “occult belief systems” either: things like charms, telepathy, or astrology.

Instead, replacement religions center around everyday concerns such as — to list the topics of the book’s chapters — busyness, romance, parenting, technology, work, leisure, food, and politics. Zahl calls each of these replacements “seculosity,” a portmanteau of “secular” and “religiosity.” Seculosity is a religious impulse “directed horizontally rather than vertically, at earthly rather than heavenly objects.”

Why does Zahl considers these secular concerns religious? And why should we do so too? Those are fair questions, good ones even, because they go straight to the heart of what our culture thinks religion is.

We typically think of religion in of capital-R Religion terms, that is, organized religion with its concerns for doctrine, ritual, community, and institutions. Those are the outward manifestations of an inward impulse, which Zahl calls “the justifying story of our life.” According to him, religion is “what we lean on to tell us we’re okay, that our lives matter.” It is “our preferred guilt-management system.” In other words, religion is what “we rely on not just for meaning or hope but enoughness.” This search for enoughness characterizes religious Nones just as much as it does the traditionally religious. It is a universal longing.

Take the everyday concern about busyness, for example. Ask people how they’re doing, and they’ll probably reply, “Busy.” I certainly would. Between work, marriage, parenting, and life in general, it feels like every moment of every day is accounted for…and then some. I tell myself to rest, but the moment I start to do so, the nagging suspicion takes hold that a book needs to be read, an article needs to be written, a chore needs to be accomplished, my kids need to be helicoptered over, my wife needs to be date-nighted, the latest blockbuster movie needs to be watched, etc. (Notice, by the way, that even our leisure activities such as dating and movie-watching become have become to-do items.)

These nagging suspicions arise from what Zahl calls “performancism.” He writes: “Performancism turns life into a competition to be won (#winning) or a problem to be solved, as opposed to, say, a series of moments to be experienced or an adventure to relish. Performancism invests daily tasks with existential significance and turns even menial activities into measures of enoughness.”

And woe betide those who fail at these tasks, because “if you are not doing enough, or doing enough well, you are not enough.” Zahl doesn’t quote Blaise Pascal at this point, but there’s a lot of wisdom in the latter’s statement, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Now that I’ve quoted Pascal, however, I’m feeling guilty that I’m not checking off that to-do item either.)

Performancism is “one of the hallmarks of all forms of seculosity,” their underlying assumption, affecting how we approach everyday life. It cripples seculosity’s practitioners with anxiety (Am I enough?), shame (Do they think I’m enough?), and guilt (Have I done enough?). “The common denominator [in all forms of seculosity] is the human heart, yours and mine,” Zahl explains, referring to what motivates our behavior. “Which is to say, the problem is sin.”

In theological terms, you see, seculosity is just the latest example of a “religion of law.” It is a form of self-justification or works-righteousness. And like all such schemes, it is doomed to failure because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We are not enough. We have not done enough. We cannot do enough.

The antidote to seculosity is a “religion of grace,” Zahl concludes. “Sin is not something you can be talked out of (‘stop controlling everything!’) or coached through with the right wisdom. It is something from which you need to be saved.” And that salvation depends on the sacrificial love of the One doing the saving. He is enough, and only in Him can you be too.

Book Reviewed
David Zahl, Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What To Do About It (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2019).

P.S. If you liked my review, please click "Helpful" on my Amazon review page.

P.P.S. This review is forthcoming in the July-August 2019 print issue of Influence magazine.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zahl contends that if we define “religion” as the “controlling story” that determines “how we dispose our energies, how we see fit to organize our own lives and, in many cases, the lives of others,” then we Americans are a very religious people indeed. It’s just that we try to find ultimate meaning and the feeling that we are “enough” through our performance in multiple everyday activities — such as being the perfect parent, finding the the ideal romantic soulmate, doing important fulfilling work, espousing the proper politics, or even just expressing our importance though sheer busyness. It’s this exhausting constant striving to be better that makes Christianity such good news, because it’s a religion of grace, instead of yet another program to push us to just try harder. “Genuine transformation is the fruit of grace, not its precondition. Put in nonreligious terms, people only truly change when they no longer feel they have to in order to be loved. What makes Christianity a religion of grace, ultimately, is its essential revelation: of a God who meets us in both our individual and collective sin with a love that knows no bounds, the kind of love that lays down its life for its enemies.”
I think Zahl is right, although I wish he’d go just a little deeper.


As per usual, once I type out a review, I find one that is better and think, “that’s what I should have said.” Like this one:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And here’s another great one:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Ben Smitthimedhin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seculosity is an assessment of the cultural competition surrounding American culture primarily, especially as these forces have been exacerbated by social media. Zahl's book is not an exegesis of these rival liturgies, however. It's more of a general explanation for those who live their lives without realizing that hustle culture is fundamentally changing them into anxious pricks.

I think it's fair for me to claim that Seculosity is essentially You Are What You Love with a Lutheran twist. Zahl seems to suggest that accepting the Gospel will ultimately prove countercultural enough for the believer to set him free from proving his worth via cultural capitalism. This fits in neatly with Luther's view of law vs. grace (intentionally), here defined as fighting to feel "enough" vs. accepting that Jesus has already made you "enough" by His blood. So stop trying so hard.

And though Zahl's prose is fun to read, his ideas are fairly late to the game. The book feels similar to others in the "liturgical revival in evangelicalism" category which picked up in the 2010s. My personal disagreement with Zahl is similar to my own disagreements with Luther; maybe the solution isn't submission but negation, not just acceptance but asceticism. Though then I'd be accused of pushing "law" onto people again.

[Justin & Danette Edgar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Dave wrestles with his heart, my heart, our hearts & the need to be enough. We all search for enoughness, and in our secular age, this means we search for it in what we do, thinking what we do makes up who we are. Our search for enoughness wrangles it’s way through our work, our romance, our parenting, our technology use, our busyness and over-committedness, our leisure pursuits, our food, our politics and even our faith. In every pursuit, we are hoping to be enough. We leave our search anxious, depressed, numb or despairing, and yet here is where our Savior saves us, amidst the riptide of being swept away into being enough. Jesus by his life and death and resurrection swims on by and saves us from having to be enough. Dave intersects this narrative with great personal stories, articles, short stories, movies, tv shows and other sticky things that will give you eyes to see all the ways being enough makes everything religious, everything an attempt to find the transcendent in the immanent frame. Read this book!

[Lucy Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well observed, excellent observations about the way that we behave in the 21st century, and some fascinating perspectives on faith.

[Natalie Herr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on how the various places we look for our “enoughness” in American culture. Zahl writes that we are very religious in America, but not just about “Capital R Religion”- about things like success, relationships, food, etc. I appreciated his thoughts in the end about how the American church can better reach our neighbors (and fellow-church goers/ourselves) with a message of grace and not performance.

[Persis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve read this year! I’d add a picture of all the sticky tabs marking pages if I could figure out how to do it. The chapters on the Seculosity of busyness, parenting, eating, politics, and Jesusland are worth the price of the book. I wish I had read the busyness and parenting chapters decades ago.

The antidote to Seculosity? Grace - which needs to be recovered in Christianity.

[MK Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting!! will change the way that i view the pursuit of all that is not unabated, true, unfiltered gospel. caused as much internal as external reflection

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Seculosity David Zahl argues that our secular world has not so much discarded the religious desire for righteousness as transmuted it. We create our own righteousnesses: from parenting to political allegiance to dating, to the grocery stores we shop at.

Zahl’s thesis is important and eye-opening. Once you see the contemporary landscape the way Zahl does, you can’t unsee it. Zahl argues that we are made for righteousness, and when we disconnect ourselves from God, our thirst for righteousness, for “enoughness” doesn’t dampen, it just gets changes location. Our secular world multiplies its demand for our performance faster. Zahl explains, “Performancism is the assumption, usually unspoken, that there is no distinction between what we do and who we are. Your resumé isn’t part of your identity; it is your identity.”

Piety isn’t merely the domain of religion, it is where we all live, the question is what piety will we run after? Zahl says, ““Listen carefully and you’ll hear that word enough everywhere, especially when it comes to the anxiety, loneliness, exhaustion, and division that plague our moment to such tragic proportions. You’ll hear about people scrambling to be successful enough, happy enough, thin enough, wealthy enough, influential enough, desired enough, charitable enough, woke enough, good enough. We believe instinctively that, were we to reach some benchmark in our minds, then value, vindication, and love would be ours—that if we got enough, we would be enough.”

Zahl believes that Christ offers the solution to our endless chasing after piety. It is Christ and Christ alone who is righteous and offers us his righteousness.

It is all the more disheartening, then, when Christianity succumbs to seculosity. Zahl says, “One of the chief ways Christianity morphs into seculosity occurs under the heading transformation. As exciting a prospect as transformation may be, when it takes center stage in a person's spiritual life, it swallows up grace and turns Christianity into a vehicle of anxiety and exhaustion...Christianity itself starts to resemble a self-improvement scheme on spiritual steroids, only as reliable as the personal growth it may have produced, which we know - from both experience and Scripture - is not always that reliable.”

We all thirst for righteousness. Even a secular age, running from its God-haunted dreams, can’t help but pursue righteousness of its own devising. We need our Creator and Savior to satisfy a hunger we cannot. I commend Zahl’s Seculosity to you. I think it will change the way you read the news, talk to your neighbor, and consider the desires of your own heart.

For more reviews see www.thebeehive.live.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was hard to read criticisms of the small-r religions that I hold close (am guilty of? is this something to feel guilty of?), especially the chapters on food, politics, and politics in church. Not to spoil, but I'm still wrestling with Zahl's poignant final chapter. He explores this notion that our church should aspire to be a community built resembling the model of Alcoholics Anonymous, in which we enter our sacred spaces all acknowledging that we equally are sinners, and that is it. We share that burden, and we have been freely given the grace that absolves us of this truth. Our existence is the only prerequisite to being "enough."

What I'm still wrestling with, though, is that I agree with Zahl on this idea. Church should be grace-filled. And I also still believe that the church can call us to social justice. I believe too that the church did its best work around shared dinner tables, and that food is a human right, and our food system should be built in a way that does not exploit our land, our farmworkers, or our health. I, like Alice Waters (who Zahl references in his chapter on how we worship at the altar of food), believe that "every single choice we make about food matters." How do I reconcile the two? I think a partial answer is in this final chapter in which Zahl describes the "theology" of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"God is who you need to save you—without whose intervention you will die—and the rest is just window-dressing. Oddly enough, this emphasis on personal salvation above all else creates a community of mutual service and sacrifice that puts most churches to shame, perhaps because it flows out of shared weakness—persistent shared weakness—rather than any shared strength. Humility is both the beginning and end."

What I'm still wondering is, how can the church still call us to be an advocate for the marginalized, bring a terrestrial here-and-now justice built on true beloved community, while still living into the promise that through grace, we are all already enough? Perhaps a good start is the humility to say we don't deserve to be called "enough" and yet still we are. Maybe, counterintuitively, if humility and grace are our animating forces instead of holy action and good "works," the things we desperately want for the world will emerge organically. Swim with the riptide, not rage against it. Maybe Zahl would say I completely missed the point because I'm still set on my own idols (I'm not convinced that I would call them "idols" though), and am searching for a new means of getting there. I suppose that's the mark of a good book that I left feeling sufficiently challenged.

[Doug Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I've read in quite a while. I'm buying copies for friends.

David Zahl captures something I've been trying to process, describe, and communicate for a while but does it with a clarity that I could never quite get to. The idea that we're all in 'church' all the time, whether or not you set foot in a church building. That is, we're in church if you define church as a place where you are given a description of an ideal and instructed on the many ways you must improve yourself to get there.

He goes into how each of these areas in the title (and more) all promise a salvation, a way to be 'enough', but then lays out a never ending list of things to do to get there. And yes, the Christian Church does this as well.

I parts of this book will hit home with anyone who reads it. I would ask my non-Christian friends to read and consider it, but I'd almost more strongly ask my Christian friends to do so. We Christians may use the words that we are "saved by grace" but upon closer examination may find that we are trying to be "good enough" on our own strength both in and outside the Church.

[Patrick Poteet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism" and its cousins, highlighting both their ingenuity and mercilessness, all while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. Zahl unmasks the competing pieties around which so much of our lives revolve, and he does so in a way that's at points playful, personal, and incisive. Ultimately he brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder."

When I first began this book I thought I was wasting my time in that I was not really gaining anything new. However, as I got to the middle of the book there was thoughtful interaction with areas of life and culture that were insightful. In the end, I found this read delightful, insightful and helpful.

[Victoria Bylin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I wanted to round out my 2019 reading challenge with some nonfiction. Mission accomplished--and so much more. This is the best description of our modern culture I've ever read or heard. It's poignant, funny, deeply touching, personal, intellectually satisfying and highly entertaining.

Recommended for everyone struggling to be "enough."

[Eric Chappell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book of 2019.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible Book- Must read- Just do it. Period.
From ME

[Joshua Reitano · Rating 5 out of 5]

2021: Maybe the best book I read this year!

UPDATE 2023: Second time through it, and this time with a group of 30 from my church. Was great for discussion.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this book, and Zahl is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers in general, and certainly one of my favorite cultural critics/commentators. He seamlessly weaves between "high" and "low" (or pop) culture references, incorporates gentle humor and cutting observations, and most impressively to me, edges into religious/theological territory without it ever feeling forced. Honestly, I think the average atheist/skeptic/non-religious person could read "Seculosity" without ever feeling insulted or coerced by the religious language. It's a stellar example of confidently articulating the gospel with a deep and empathic posture towards the ills of our cultural moment.

Every chapter is excellent, but I was gobsmacked by the final chapter (on "Jesusland") and will be returning to that one again and again.

[Hannah Blanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haiku review:

Simply "be" not "do."
Enoughness comes from God's grace.
Let go of control.
•
Thoughts and quotes!
-This has been a good book for me to read. I feel like I have learned a lot about our culture and myself.
-This book reminds me a lot of " The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry" especially the mini section on Sabbath and the chapter on Busyness.
-I really enjoyed the chapter on Technology. I felt like the author and I were agreeing on the caution around media consumption/technology overload really well.
-What would it look like for our society and culture to simply be? To not feel like we have to perform or do but just exist? Hmm...
-"The truth is that the higher we climb on the ladder of self-justification, the longer it gets - and the further apart the rungs grow."
-The author's analogy for letting go in a riptide being the equivalent to surrendering and letting go of control was really well written.

[Randi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am actually rating this book 3.5 stars. The premise of this book is that as Americans have left organized religion, they have look to every day activities for identity, purpose and meaning. Examples include: parenting, romance, politics, technology, food, and more. This has led to anxiety, strained relationships, and performancism.

Some of the analysis in the book was familiar and contained nothing groundbreaking, while other parts of the book gave me a totally new way of looking at things and several aha moments. If you enjoy reading analysis of our current culture, then you may enjoy this book.

[Trevor Atwood]

A great concept. Simple but engaging writing.

It’s a good book for a beginner’s understanding of things we replace religion with.

In the end, it’s more observation than prescription- and the message tends toward a “Let Go and Let God” (though not quite that simple).

Along with some good quotes, there are good ideas for exposing idolatry. The author also keeps a balance of exposing both conservative and liberal politics/theology.

I took more than a page of notes- so it’s worth the read for me.

[Rob Schoonover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zahl’s suggestion that America is more religious than it has ever been may shock some, but after finishing this book and immediately looking on twitter I’m realizing just how right he is. If you’re looking for words to describe America’s obsession with performance and achievement, this book is a great place to start.