The Secret Despair of the Secular Left
Our Fraying Connections with Our Communities, Our Bodies, and the Earth
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- Pedido anticipado
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- Se espera: 10 jun 2025
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- USD 24.99
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- Pedido anticipado
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- USD 24.99
Descripción editorial
A compelling and timely exploration of the spiritual void in modernity, and an invitation to reclaim a more connected and spiritually fulfilling way of life.
What is lost when we lose our religion? Our traditions? Connection and community? In The Secret Despair of the Secular Left, Ana Levy-Lyons seeks to find out. Levy-Lyons, a rabbinical student with a previous 18-year career as a Unitarian Universalist minister, shares insights into what goes missing when we lose our religious underpinnings and deeply held beliefs and practices. Drawing from a wide range of perspectives, including Jewish, Christian, and eastern religious traditions, Indigenous societies, and countercultural communities, Levy-Lyons aims to understand the sources of our modern despair and help readers find pathways of healing and reconnection.
Levy-Lyons investigates three primary losses in today's world: disconnection, dislocation, and disembodiment. Disconnection refers to the loss of ties to community and each other in a world dominated by virtual interactions and polarizing social media. Dislocation is our separation from the earth and our intrinsic relationship with the land and our roots. Finally, disembodiment finds us alienated from our physical selves and our spiritual essence. In a society increasingly detached from our essential nature, we have forgotten the profound knowledge and wisdom that our bodies hold.
When we realize what we've lost, we experience deep grief. But in exploring and understanding these losses, we are also self-empowered to reclaim pathways to more connected, grounded, and spirit-filled lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this ardent and rigorous manifesto, minister Levy-Lyons (No Other God) explores the ill effects of faith's decline. According to the author, the 20th century saw the rise of a progressivist culture whose capitalist ethos has transformed religion from an intrinsic part of daily life into a commodified "object, separate from oneself, that can be chosen or unchosen." Such a shift unlinks matter from spirit, she argues, setting in motion three chief disconnects: from one's body (which transforms from a sacred vessel into a machine designed to achieve one's ambitions), from the earth (which becomes a utilizable resource rather than God's creation), and from other people. Meanwhile, secular values like meritocracy and self-fulfillment try to fill the gap but lack the spiritual depth to help people "fully receive the sacred gifts of life." Despite a sometimes caustic tone and a few less convincing examples (at one point, she suggests a rise in mastectomies and even formula feeding are symptoms of the "deep-seated spiritual grief" of being severed from "our animal selves"), Levy-Lyons makes a persuasive case that an important aspect of human life gets lost when secular culture makes the notion of "surrender to something larger than ourselves" superfluous. It's a probing critique.
