Try free for 30 days

  • Getting Religion

  • Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama
  • By: Kenneth L. Woodward
  • Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
  • Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
Getting Religion cover art

Getting Religion

By: Kenneth L. Woodward
Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

Impeccably researched, thought challenging, and leavened by wit, Getting Religion, the highly anticipated new book from Kenneth L. Woodward, is ideal for listeners looking to understand how religion came to be a contentious element in 21st-century public life.

Here the award-winning author blends memoir (especially of the postwar era) with copious reporting and shrewd historical analysis to tell the story of how American religion, culture, and politics influenced each other in the second half of the 20th century. There are few people writing today who could tell this important story with such authority and insight. A scholar as well as one of the nation's most respected journalists, Woodward served as Newsweek's religion editor for nearly 40 years, reporting from five continents and contributing over 700 articles, including nearly 100 cover stories, on a wide range of social issues, ideas, and movements.

Beginning with a bold reassessment of the '50s, Woodward's narrative weaves through the civil rights era and the movements that followed in its wake: the anti-Vietnam movement, liberation theology in Latin America, the rise of Evangelicalism and decline of mainline Protestantism, women's liberation and the Bible, the turn to Asian spirituality, the transformation of the family and emergence of religious cults, and the embrace of righteous politics by both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Along the way Woodward provides riveting portraits of many of the era's major figures: preachers like Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell; politicians Mario Cuomo and Hillary Clinton; movement leaders Daniel Berrigan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Richard John Neuhaus; influential thinkers ranging from Erik Erikson to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross; feminist theologians Rosemary Reuther and Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza; and est impresario Werner Erhardt, plus the author's longtime friend the Dalai Lama.

For listeners interested in how religion, economics, family life, and politics influence each other, Woodward introduces a fresh vocabulary of terms such as embedded religion, movement religion, and entrepreneurial religion to illuminate the interweaving of the secular and sacred in American public life.

This is one of those rare books that changes the way Americans think about belief, behavior, and belonging.

©2016 Kenneth L. Woodward (P)2016 Random House Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

More from the same

What listeners say about Getting Religion

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.