Seasonal gifts from our shop

It can be difficult to think of something unusual and unique to give to those we care for at the festive season. Maybe the NSS shop can help you solve the problem. We have gifts that can’t be found elsewhere for the secularist/atheist/heretic or freethinker in your life (or maybe just as a little indulgence for yourself).

As well as a wonderful selection of books (some of them imported from the USA and uniquely available in Britain from our shop) we have mugs, mouse pads, t-shirts, DVDs and a selection of badges and pins to suit all tastes. Our hand-polished atheist pin (discreet enough to be worn anywhere, elegant enough to make an impression everywhere) is £2.99, our badges inscribed with “secularist”; “atheist”; “apostate” and with the NSS logo are a mere £1.99 each or £5 for the set of four.

Robert Stovold’s new take on the pagan origins of Christmas is available at £2.99 plus 50p postage. Did Christians Steal Christmas? would make an excellent alternative to a straight greetings card. It tells how Christianity usurped the yuletide season from the ancient pagan religions – but, try as it may, it hasn’t quite managed to divest itself of the ancient traditions. There’s a discount offer for ordering in bulk on our website shop.

Another new book in the shop is The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, And The Modern West by Mark Lilla. This searching history of western thinking about the relationship between religion and politics was inspired not by 9/11, but by Nazi Germany, where, says University of Chicago professor Lilla, politics and religion were horrifyingly intertwined. To explain the emergence of Nazism's political theology, Lilla reaches back to the early modern era, when thinkers like Locke and Hume began to suggest that religion and politics should be separate enterprises. Some theorists, convinced that Christianity bred violence, argued that government must be totally detached from religion. Others, who believed that rightly practised religion could contribute to modern life, promoted a liberal theology, which sought to articulate Christianity and Judaism in the idiom of reason. (Lilla's reading of liberal Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen is especially arresting.)

Liberal theologians, Lilla says, credulously assumed human society was progressive and never dreamed that fanaticism could capture the imaginations of modern people – assumptions that were proven wrong by Hitler. If Lilla castigates liberal theology for its naïveté, he also praises America and Western Europe for simultaneously separating religion from politics, creating space for religion, and staving off sectarian violence and theocracy. Lilla's work, which will influence discussions of politics and theology for the next generation, makes clear how remarkable an accomplishment that is. Hardback £16.99 plus £2 p&p (US import).

Have a browse through the cornucopia that is the NSS on-line shop at or order any of the above by post from NSS Merchandise, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL.