Prayer Is a Place: America's Religious Landscape Observed

by Phyllis Tickle

A leading authority on religion and spirituality in America recounts the changes she witnessed from 1992–2004, a period she compares to the tumultuous years of the Reformation and Peri-Reformation in Europe.

As the founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly , Phyllis Tickle was a key figure in bringing discussions about religion into the nation’s cultural and intellectual mainstream. Prayer Is a Place is her insightful first-person account of the people she has met and the trends she has observed over twelve crucial years of change in American religion.

Tickle writes about her face-to-face meetings with such luminaries as the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Chief Mullah of Jerusalem; describes speeches and conferences that redefined traditional religions; and chronicles the birth of new approaches to religion and spirituality. The result is a fascinating overview of the reconfiguration of religion in America and its impact on our culture.

In charting the changes, passions and innovations that have occurred, Tickle remains a clear-eyed, unbiased and sympathetic observer. From her lively reminiscences of the 1003 Parliament of the World’s Religions—a seminal gathering of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists—to an intriguing look at the rise of Gnosticism in the country to a cogent analysis of the spirituality movements that swept through America during the last decades of the twentieth century, Prayer Is a Place reminds readers that reverence can be expressed in many different forms and in many different settings.

Genres: Religion

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Phyllis Natalie Tickle was an American author and lecturer whose work focuses on spirituality and religion issues. After serving as a teacher, professor, and academic dean, Tickle entered the publishing industry, serving as the founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, before then becoming a popular writer. She is well known as a leading voice in the emergence church movement. She is perhaps best known for The Divine Hours series of books, published by Doubleday Press, and her book The Great Emergence- How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Tickle was a member of the Episcopal Church, where she was licensed as both a lector and a lay eucharistic minister. She has been widely quoted by many media outlets, including Newsweek, Time, Life, The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS, The History Channel, the BBC and VOA. It has been said that "Over the past generation, no one has written more deeply and spoken more widely about the contours of American faith and spirituality than Phyllis Tickle." A biography of Tickle, written by Jon M. Sweeney, was published in February 2018. Phyllis Tickle: A Life (Church Publishing, Inc), has been widely reviewed.

Reviews

[Audrey Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting life story full of intriguing insights

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were many very good insights in this book and a little too much namedropping but overall a very worthwhile book.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in a day. about the rise of religion in publishing and her place in it.