In The Future of Faith, legendary theologian Harvey Cox proposes a new interpretation of the history and future of Christianity -- one that explains why Christian beliefs and dogma are giving way to new grassroots movements rooted in social justice and spiritual experience. Cox identifies three fundamental shifts over the last 2000 years of Church history: the Age of Faith, when the early Church was more concerned with following Jesus's teachings than enforcing what to believe about Jesus; the Age of Belief, when the Church focused on orthodoxy and enforcing correct beliefs; and the Age of the Spirit, which is currently shaping not just Christianity but other religious traditions today, in which spirituality replaces formal religion. The Future of Faith is a major statement by one of the most revered and respected religious scholars today.
Harvey Cox is the Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, where he has been teaching since 1965, both at Harvard Divinity School and in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An American Baptist minister, he was the Protestant chaplain at Temple University and the director of religious activities at Oberlin College; an ecumenical fraternal worker in Berlin; and a professor at Andover Newton Theological School. His book Secular City, published in 1965, became an international bestseller and was selected by the University of Marburg as one of the most influential books of Protestant theology in the twentieth century.
"With its overarching themes, Cox's new book can be viewed as the culmination of his life's scholarship." -- Boston Globe--Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God
