This article looks at how the new atheist phenomenon has been interpreted and appropriated by those involved in atheist and secular humanist organizations. We see a connection between new atheism as a broad social phenomenon and the publicly emerging needs and desires of secularists; they are both cause and effect of the transformation of experience with the expansion of electronic communication technologies. While even some secularists claim the new atheists are doing more harm than good, we argue that such critiques ultimately miss the function of the books. Taken collectively they provide a highly diverse population of secularists with a common and general set of issues and ideas in which to imagine a sense of community. form the "canon" of the new atheism, but media in the form of magazines, Web sites, blogs, online forums, and other books have also played an important role in driving this social phenomenon. This is especially the case with new media; they have created new forms of interaction and communication among secularists who may feel isolated in their communities. In highlighting the role of media, we look at both the content and the medium. An analysis of articles on atheism in two secularist magazines, coupled with an Internet survey of self-identified atheists on the new atheism and their use of the media, allows us to see how secularists themselves are interpreting and evaluating the new atheism. Medium theory situates these interpretations and evaluations in a broader media context; conceiving of such as ongoing effects resulting from the process of mediation that secularists themselves go through in defining and understanding themselves as secularists. Examining the relation Correspondence should be addressed to Richard Cimino,
In this article we examine the Internet's role in facilitating a more visible and active secular identity. Seeking to situate this more visible and active secularist presence-which we consider a form of activism in terms of promoting the importance of secularist concerns and issues in public discourse-we conclude by looking briefly at the relationship between secularist cyber activism and secular organizations, on one hand, and the relationship between secularist activism and American politics on the other. This allows us to further underscore the importance of the Internet for contemporary secularists as it helps develop a group consciousness based around broadly similar agendas and ideas and secularists' recognition of their commonality and their expression in collective action, online as well as off.
This article examines the interaction between congregations and the process of gentrification in the sections of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. Gentrification has been thought to encourage secularization, but the various waves of newcomers that have arrived in Williamsburg-Greenpoint and the subsequent relocation of the area's long-time residents has not dissipated religious life as much as segmented it as congregations seek to fill and exploit various niches to meet religious needs and reaffirm their identities. I create a typology based on a study of 30 congregations that delineates the characteristics of three major niches: lifestyle enclaves, neighborhood-social center congregations, and ethnic and religious enclaves. While most congregations seek both to adapt to and exert agency during gentrification, their different repertoires of theology, organizational history, and access to networks and resources suggest they can only fill specific niches.While there has been a good deal of research on the structural and economic impact of gentrification, there has been less attention given to the way this process of neighborhood change affects moral-religious communities. In much of the literature on gentrification, religious institutions and how they respond to neighborhood change is viewed as being largely marginal to larger social and economic changes; in some cases, such forces are portrayed as encouraging secularization of the area (Lees, Slater, and Wyly, 2008).Congregations play vital social roles in cities, including building bridges between residents, providing community services, and injecting a moral tone in their neighborhoods, both on the level of discourse, including advocating for marginalized residents, and on the level of behavior, such as increasing safety and encouraging community standards (Sampson, 1999;Putnam and Campbell, 2010). The presence of congregations is reported to have at least modest effects on neighborhood stability (Kinney and Winter, 2006). The weak congregational ties of newcomers to gentrified neighborhoods-young, single, and highly educated-have been amply documented (Wuthnow, 2007). This pattern of disaffiliation suggests that congregations in such urban zones may have shrinking constituencies and thus limited resources to expend in their neighborhoods. Yet my research in the Williamsburg and Greenpoint sections of Brooklyn suggests that religious revitalization can also result from gentrification, although it is expressed in congregations
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