Grace Without God: The Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging in a Secular Age

Show Summary: American culture is seeing two apparently opposed trajectories: the science that religious belief improves quality of life, and the statistics that show Americans are increasingly rejecting organized religion. But that doesn’t necessarily add up to a rejection of spirituality. The same people who’ve stopped going to the chapel or stopped tithing at the church are finding their own rituals and belief systems. Drawing on hodgepodge of traditional worship trappings – incense, candles, prayers – this “do it yourself” faction is finding meaning outside the four walls of mainstream religion.     Katherine Ozment’s book “Grace Without God” grew out of a desire to answer her son’s profound questions about life’s meaning. In the book and in her many articles, she probes the common ground between the secular and religious, and the reach of these questions into politics and larger culture.