Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution

Written by Diana Butler Bass

Narrated by Diana Butler Bass

The headlines are clear: Religion is on the decline in America as many people leave behind traditional religious practices. In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed book Christianity After Religion, Diana Butler Bass argues that what appears to be a decline actually signals a major transformation in how people understand God. The distant God of conventional religion has given way to a more intimate sense of the sacred with us in the world. This shift is at the heart of a spiritual revolution that surrounds us—and that is challenging religious, political, and social institutions.


Grounded explores this cultural turn as Bass unpacks how people are finding new spiritual ground by discovering and embracing God everywhere in the world around us: in the soil, the water, the sky, in our homes and neighborhoods, and in the global commons. Faith is no longer a matter of mountaintop experience or institutional practice; instead, people are connecting with God through the environment in which we live. Grounded guides listeners through our contemporary spiritual habitat as it points out the many ways in which people experience a God who animates creation and community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jul 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781515976363

Diana Butler Bass

Diana Butler Bass (Ph.D., Duke) is an award-winning author of eleven books, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America's most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, especially where faith intersects with politics and culture. Her bylines include The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Atlantic.com, USA Today, Huffington Post, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has commented in the media widely including on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and in multiple global news outlets. Her website is dianabutlerbass.com and she can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She writes a twice-weekly newsletter - The Cottage - which can be found on Substack. 

Reviews for Grounded

[al9g · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Parts of this book were really good, but overall it was just okay. I resonated with her journey in many places and found it inspiring to be reminded of some of the same things that I have also discovered, especially regarding "Dirt" and "Commons". Her bibliography is excellent and I found several titles that will have to go on my reading list. She continues to write from a perspective that is widely known as 'Emergent' Christianity which I also resonate with despite being part of the institution. After years of study among Native Americans on spirituality there is much here that relates as well. There is also overlap with Celtic understandings and all of these, Native, Celtic, and Emergent, resonate deeply with my own spiritual understandings. So in places I really identified with this and with her journey. Perhaps that is why I can only give mixed reviews because I really identified more closely in some places than in others. And perhaps another reader might have a broader connection. Regardless it was worth the read.