The works shown on the books page show a certain progression. An initial study of lay religion led to a general consideration of the processes of secularization and of the concept of secularization. Then I used the study of attitudes toward children to illuminate several things, including society's view of the future, of human nature, and of what is most important to preserve through education. More recently, a consideration of the effects of daily publication schedules (of "news product") has been used to explain some of the dysfunctions of societies that are held together by such media.

All of these efforts feed into my current project, which is less historical than philosophical and sociological. I am working on a general definition of religion or religious, which will work for scholarly, scientific, legal, political, and educational purposes. It is particularly in the area of law and education that this is becoming increasingly problematic in contemporary society. But I believe I have an approach that has not been tried before (using a "nominal" rather than a "real" definition, of the word rather than the thing). Some of the results of this project can already be seen in my most recent publications, but I plan a book bringing it all together. It is an effort to speak to the larger problems of life and thought in what I think of as our "Post-Secular" world.