Class 200: New Studies in Religion #: Sincerely Held

American Secularism and Its Believers

Class 200: New Studies in Religion #: Sincerely Held
Charles McCrary
RRP:
NZ$ 56.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 45.59
Paperback
h229 x 152mm - 304pg
8 Apr 2022 US
International import eta 10-30 days
9780226817958
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
A novel account of the relationship between sincerity, religious freedom, and the secular in the United States. "Sincerely held religious belief" is now a common phrase in discussions of American religious freedom, from opinions handed down by the US Supreme Court to local controversies. The "sincerity test" of religious belief has become a cornerstone of US jurisprudence, framing what counts as legitimate grounds for First Amendment claims in the eyes of the law. In Sincerely Held, Charles McCrary provides an original account of how sincerely held religious belief became the primary standard for determining what legally counts as authentic religion. McCrary skillfully traces the interlocking histories of American sincerity, religion, and secularism starting in the mid-nineteenth century. He analyzes a diverse archive, including Herman Melville' s novel The Confidence-Man, vice-suppressing police, Spiritualist women accused of being fortune-tellers, eclectic conscientious objectors, secularization theorists, Black revolutionaries, and anti-LGBTQ litigants. Across this history, McCrary reveals how sincerity and sincerely held religious belief developed as technologies of secular governance, determining what does and doesn' t entitle a person to receive protections from the state. This fresh analysis of secularism in the United States invites further reflection on the role of sincerity in public life and religious studies scholarship, asking why sincerity has come to matter so much in a supposedly "post-truth" era.

Awkward Rituals: Sensations of Governance in Protestant America
Profaning Paul
Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers
Unbridled: Studying Religion in Performance

"Charles McCrary' s brilliant Sincerely Held shows the declining fortunes of truth and the steadily appreciating value of sincerity to be sides of a single American coin. As the acceptable face of religion under secular law, sincerity severs belief from veracity, hedges it with protections, and exempts it from democratic accountability. McCrary' s genealogy of sincerity moves deftly among con artists, purveyors and suppressors of vice, war resisters, and conscientious objectors to secular law to show sincerely held belief to be a technology of racial governance and an engine of state violence. Remarkably, he excavates from the same history the radical possibility that sincerely held belief might yet be summoned to advance good-faith engagement across differences rather than shut it down. A book of uncommon intelligence, daring, grace, and verve, Sincerely Held is cultural criticism a secular age deserves. " -- Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University "Anyone interested in the politics of U. S. religion must grab a copy of Sincerely Held. Over eight chapters populated with con artists, credulous dupes, earnest petitioners, conscientious objectors, indignant inmates, principled paper-pushers, and discriminating judges, McCrary sketches the multifaceted and mercurial figure of the true believer. And just as the legal category of sincerely held belief imagines a world of external guises and hidden truths, McCrary skillfully balances his main text with illuminating discursive footnotes that both perform and subvert the practices of disclosure he so ably describes. Others have written convincingly about the form of secularism, but McCrary captures its irregularly beating heart. " -- Jolyon Thomas, University of Pennsylvania "McCrary' s incisive study of secularism and the secular brings to life the paradoxes of religion and law in the U. S. His colorful characters come from literature, legal proceedings, and even bureaucratic forms to illuminate how sincerity became a legal category and what that means for law' s imagination of religion. " -- Sarah Imhoff, Indiana University, Bloomington This is a riveting cultural history of that strange and peculiarly American character: the "sincere religious believer. " Indeed, one of the many strengths of this fascinating and utterly persuasive book, is the way Charles McCrary defamiliarizes the secular obviousness of both "sincere believers" and "sincerely held religious beliefs. " Braiding together 19th-century worries over con-men and charlatans with a series of 20th-century legal cases that sought to distinguish the religious from the not-religious, McCrary demonstrates the secular state' s increasing reliance on sincerity-ascertaining it, measuring it-as a way to sort true from false (including the religiously false). In so doing, McCrary reveals religious sincerity' s crucial role in both secular governance and racial formation. At a time when sincerely held religious beliefs are increasingly invoked by Christian conservatives to justify limits on women' s reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ equality, Sincerely Held is bracing and urgent reading. -- Ann Pellegrini, New York University
Charles McCrary is a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780226817958
Published: 8 Apr 2022
Published In: United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Format: Paperback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Pages: 304

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information