SSSR’s Distinguished Book Award for The Deconstructed Church

DSC00307I’m pleased to share that my latest book, co-authored with Gerardo Marti, The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity (Oxford, 2014) has been awarded the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s 2015 Distinguished Book Award. The announcement was made at the SSSR Annual Meeting in Newport Beach, California, 23-25 October.

Founded in 1949, SSSR fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration among scholars from sociology, religious studies, psychology, political science, economics, international studies, gender studies, and many other fields. Its flagship publication, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, is the most cited resource in the field.

You can read a number of reviews of the book on this website by clicking here and scrolling down. The book is available for £22.99 on Amazon.

The selection committee provided the following citation about the book:

We received 34 submissions for the SSSR Book Award this year, a high number and a welcome one.

In The Deconstructed Church, authors Gerardo Marti and Gladys Ganiel provide a careful sociological analysis of the Emerging Church Movement in the US, UK, and Ireland. Using cross-national data gathered through multiple methods, Marti and Ganiel’s book is exemplary in its measured approach and in its nuanced understanding of the complexities that surround their topic. The Deconstructed Church offers a steady analytic rudder that not only introduces the reader to the diversity of perspectives that constitute the movement but also to the underlying themes that connect and produce these perspectives. In doing so, The Deconstructed Church offers a strong contribution to the social-scientific study of religion. Marti and Ganiel’s work illuminates one of the emerging ways through which individuals and groups are reconfiguring their religious and spiritual lives in response to the ongoing developments of modernity. The Deconstructed Church is especially deserving of the SSSR’s Annual Book Award as it demonstrates the kind of scholarship that offers widespread relevance to those seeking to understand religion and spirituality in the contemporary world. We choose this book for its methodological thoroughness, for its empirical depth, for its innovative theorization, as well as for its fine attunement to lived religion today.

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