Sacralizing Science in Secular Congregations
I am currently working on a book project that examines how nonreligious people are sacralizing science and imagining better futures in an emerging secular congregation movement. The book, entitled Atheist Utopias: Sacralizing Science in Secular Congregations, will draw on a comparative case study of two secular congregations, or what many call “atheist churches,” to explore how the nonreligious are constructing rituals, communities, and conceptions of the “good society” by drawing on a shared faith in science.
Nonreligious Engagement and Wellbeing Survey
In collaboration with Penny Edgell at the University of Minnesota, I am working on constructing a survey that will better measure civic engagement, social connection, and wellbeing among the nonreligious. The Nonreligious Engagement and Wellbeing Survey (NEWS) will investigate nationwide trends regarding how nonreligious people get involved in their communities, how nonreligious beliefs and practices relate to physical and mental wellbeing, and how these relationships change over the nonreligious life course.
Religion and Public Life Program
I worked for two years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University, and I am now a Non-resident Faculty Research Fellow with the program. I am working with the RPLP team on a range of different projects, including on their Science and Religion of the Human Body project to investigate public attitudes toward life extension technologies, their Experiences of Religious Discrimination project to analyze the health and social effects of religious and nonreligious discrimination, and their Faith at Work project to study how the nonreligious navigate their nonreligious identities at work.