This is a timely book, although one might think that what is meant by the words “religious,” “spiritual,” and “secular” is a more or less settled matter. The book is timely, in part, because of the significance of the first part of the title, “religion in the national agenda.” As Stanley Fish said recently when asked about the next big issue in the academy, he answered in a flash, “religion.” John Sommerville has been paying attention as well, not only by the book before us but also in his The Decline of the Secular University in which he deals with some of the same themes central to Religion in the National Agenda. By “national agenda,” Sommerville has in mind the variety of contemporary cultural contexts in which religion takes on public significance.

The book is also timely because of the growing confusion in our culture over the words “religion,” spirituality,” and “secularization.” Sommerville's discussion is particularly helpful in distinguishing religion and spirituality. The central purpose of Sommerville's book is to make the case for a nominative definition of religion, that is, one that arises out of our common English usage and thereby actually names something. And what does this word name? Religion is our word, Sommerville claims, “for a certain kind of response to a certain kind of power, the response and the power both understood as beyond anything else in our experience” (40). This way of defining religion is superior to alternatives, Sommerville believes, such as functional ones (e.g., psychology of religion, sociology of religion) or essentialist ones (e.g., philosophy of religion, phenomenology of religion), because a nominative definition is not only the way we generally use the term, but it also clarifies religion in relation to neighboring words, such as spirituality. When the term spirituality is used today, it is not in reference to a power beyond us requiring a response, but more in the vein of a feeling or an aesthetic. Put otherwise, religion makes demands; spirituality produces a “feel good” awareness.

This nominative definition of religion has helpful, albeit potentially controversial implications. What traditions qualify as religions? Certainly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do, but Sommerville is doubtful the major Asian traditions do. Hinduism may best be thought of as a civilization; Buddhism as a philosophy of life; Confucianism as a system of moral precepts. Yes, we commonly refer to these as religions, but that is a confusion of the term. As Sommerville notes, “It is one thing to recognize that Asian cultures have sophisticated worldviews and ethical codes, aiming at harmony with cosmic law. It is another thing to insist that these are religions” (44). Why? They lack the aspect of response to a power beyond human experience.

One may ask: What difference does that make? Most of Sommerville's book is devoted to showing the importance of the difference in a number of contexts, such as education, law, politics, science, and even theology. First of all, however, the fact of clarity itself is critically important. Scholars, such as historians of religion, have stretched the meaning of the word “religion” beyond coherence by trying to include far more than our common understanding. Granted, Sommerville's way of understanding religion might privilege Western religious traditions, but he insists that our Western religious traditions “are more exceptional than we might have thought, … [and we need not be] overcome with embarrassment by that fact” (52).