Robert Neelly Bellah (1927–2013) was an American sociologist who helped promote religion as a sociological study. He was concerned with how modern religious practice shapes—and is shaped by—American civic life and social change.
Born in Altus, Oklahoma, Bellah earned a doctorate in sociology and Far Eastern languages from Harvard. He taught at McGill University (1955–57,) at Harvard (1957–58, 1961–66,) and at the University of California-Berkeley (1966–97; then emeritus.)
Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World (1970,) Bellah’s most significant work applies economic theory to culture. The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial (1975) and Varieties of Civil Religion (1980) express Bellah’s belief that the “civil” religious conviction ingrained in educational and legal systems should be encouraged due to its openness and tolerance.
Bellah’s popular books include Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985,) Imagining Japan: The Japanese Tradition and Its Modern Interpretation (2003,) and The Good Society (1991.) His last major work was Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011,) a 700-page treatise on the origin, development, and use of humankind’s myriad varieties of religious experience.
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However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.
—Robert Neelly Bellah
While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.
—Robert Neelly Bellah
Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
—Robert Neelly Bellah
Topics: Self-Discovery
The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.
—Robert Neelly Bellah
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