Diana Butler Bass Quote

At the same moment when massive global institutions seem to rule the world, there is an equally strong countermovement among regular people to claim personal agency in our own lives. We grow food in backyards. We brew beer. We weave cloth and knit blankets. We shop local. We create our own playlists. We tailor delivery of news and entertainment. In every arena, we customize and personalize our lives, creating material environments to make meaning, express a sense of uniqueness, and engage causes that matter to us and the world. It makes perfect sense that we are making our spiritual lives as well, crafting a new theology. And that God is far more personal and close at hand than once imagined.

Diana Butler Bass

At the same moment when massive global institutions seem to rule the world, there is an equally strong countermovement among regular people to claim personal agency in our own lives. We grow food in backyards. We brew beer. We weave cloth and knit blankets. We shop local. We create our own playlists. We tailor delivery of news and entertainment. In every arena, we customize and personalize our lives, creating material environments to make meaning, express a sense of uniqueness, and engage causes that matter to us and the world. It makes perfect sense that we are making our spiritual lives as well, crafting a new theology. And that God is far more personal and close at hand than once imagined.

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About Diana Butler Bass

Diana Butler Bass (born 1959) is an American historian of Christianity and an advocate for progressive Christianity. She is the author of eleven books.
Bass earned a PhD in religious studies from Duke University in 1991 with an emphasis on American ecclesiastical history, studying under George Marsden. From 1995 to 2000, she wrote a weekly column on religion and culture for the New York Times syndicate that appeared in more than seventy newspapers nationwide. She has blogged for the Sojourners God's Politics blog, On Faith at The Washington Post, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. She authored a Substack newsletter, The Cottage.
Bass is associated with Sojourners and is a member of the Episcopal Church.