Sociology of Religion

Womanist approaches to the study of religion and society have contributed much to our understanding of Black religious life, activism, and women's liberation. Deeper Shades of Purple explores the achievements of this movement over the past two decades...

Science and religion are often thought to be advancing irreconcilable goals and thus to be mutually antagonistic. Yet in the often acrimonious debates between the scientific and religious communities, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that both...

The essays presented in this volume are among the most wide-ranging, intellectually rich, and diverse of Christopher Dawson's reflections on the relations of faith and culture. In them, he explores the contact between the spiritual life of the individual...

Many people these days regard religion as outdated and are unable to understand how believers can intellectually justify their faith. Nonbelievers have long assumed that progress in technology and the sciences renders religion irrelevant. Believers, in...

Religious groups constitute a large part of America's voluntary sector, yet relatively few works have investigated them broadly. This collection of essays investigates the public roles of religious congregations and associations. With contributions by...

A Systems Theory of Religion, still unfinished at Niklas Luhmann's death in 1998, was first published in German two years later thanks to the editorial work of Andre Kieserling. One of Luhmann's most important projects, it exemplifies his later work...

This book will appeal to scholars and students of political science and public policy, religious studies, sexuality studies, sociology, education studies, and Canadian political history.Book InformationISBN 9780774835596Author David RaysideFormat...

Theodore Parker was one of the most controversial theologians and social activists in pre-Civil War America. A vocal critic of traditional Christian thought and a militant opponent of American slavery, he led a huge congregation of religious dissenters...

Godly Love: Impediments and Possibilities examines the theory of "Godly Love," understood as including a vertical axis denoting the love of God and a horizontal axis involving the love of others, is at the core of a new field of research that...

How evangelical churches in the United States convert migrant distress into positive religious devotion Why do migrants become more deeply evangelical in the United States and how does this religious identity alter their self-understanding? In the Hands...

How evangelical activism in England contributes to the secularizing forces it seeks to challengeOver the past two decades, a growing number of Christians in England have gone to court to enforce their right to religious liberty. Funded by conservative...

How faith, the natural world, and community can provide complementary paths for leading a good life People have long looked to nature and the divine as paths to the good. In this panoramic meditation on the harmonious life, Michael Mayerfeld Bell traces...

How we came to seek absolute good in religion and nature-and why that quest often leads us astrayPeople have long looked to nature and the divine as paths to the good. In this panoramic meditation on the harmonious life, Michael Mayerfeld Bell traces how...

An exploration of how ordinary U.S. Christians create global connections through the multibillion-dollar child sponsorship industry Child sponsorship emerged from nineteenth-century Protestant missions to become one of today's most profitable private...

An exploration of the interdisciplinary methods used to understand religious practice Religion is commonly viewed as something that people practice, whether in the presence of others or alone. But what do we mean exactly by "practice"? What...

It is sometimes said that the most segregated time of the week in the United States is Sunday morning. Even as workplaces and public institutions such as the military have become racially integrated, racial separation in Christian religious congregations...

Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of other non-Western religions have become a significant presence in the United States in recent years. Yet many Americans continue to regard the United States as a Christian society. How are we adapting to the...

Through two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a megachurch, sociologist Sarah Diefendorf investigates the ways in which the evangelical church is working to grow during a time in which cultural shifts are leading young people to leave religion behind...

Written in an engaging and accessible tone, Religion in America probes the dynamics of religious beliefs and behaviors of Americans in recent decades. Charting trends over time using demographic data, the book examines how patterns of religious...

The ubiquity of friendship in human culture contributes to the fallacy that it is universal. It is only when we begin to inquire into the nature and significance of the concept in specific contexts that we discover how complex it truly is. Covering the...

In this timely book, an interdisciplinary group of scholars investigates the recent resurfacing of White Christian nationalism and racism in populist movements across the globe. Religion, Populism, and Modernity examines the recent rise of White...

How do ordinary men and women in Muslim-majority societies create religion-informed views of political topics such as democracy and economics? Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and variety of...

How do ordinary men and women in Muslim-majority societies create religion-informed views of political topics such as democracy and economics? Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and variety of...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the international religions that have arrived from abroad to find adherents in Ireland. Drawing on fieldwork in two LDS communities, Hazel O’Brien explores how these adherents experience the...

This book presents a crisis of religion and belief literacy to which education at every level is challenged to respond. As understanding different religions, beliefs and influences becomes increasingly important, it fills a gap for a resource in bringing...

Scientific breakthroughs have led us to a point where soon we will be able to make specific choices about the genetic makeup of our offspring. In fact, this reality has arrived - and it is only a matter of time before the technology becomes widespread...

This book examines the incorporation of newly accessible mass media into practices of religious mediation in a variety of settings including the Pentecostal Church and Islamic movements, as well as the use of religious forms and image in the sphere of...

This book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in learning about the many ways in which religious diversity is manifest in day-to-day life Canada. Each chapter addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with...

A fascinating exploration of the way in which animals are 'framed' - contextualized, decontextualized - in contemporary visual culture. Written in a highly engaging style, this book challenges the field, dealing with some highly controversial aspects of...

While some intellectuals at the end of the 19th century argued that scientific progress would eventually cause the demise of religion, it is evident that this has not been the case and that contemporary science is in fact not necessarily inimical to a...

Over the last decade the sociology of religion and religious studies have experienced a surge of ethnographic research. Scholars now use ethnography, as anthropologists have long done, as a valued source of knowledge from which they draw their pictures...

With vocal public figures such as Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam often appears to be a male-centric religious movement, and over 60 years of scholarship have perpetuated that notion. Yet, women have been pivotal in...

So much has been written about the Rastafari, yet we know so little about why and how people join the Rastafari movement. Although popular understandings evoke images of dreadlocks, reggae, and marijuana, Rastafarians were persecuted in their country,...

Yoga, karma, meditation, guru-these terms, once obscure, are now a part of the American lexicon. Combining Hinduism with Western concepts and values, a new hybrid form of religion has developed in the United States over the past century. In Transcendent...

In the past twenty years, many traditionally white campus religious groups have become Asian American. Today there are more than fifty evangelical Christian groups at UC Berkeley and UCLA alone, and 80% of their members are Asian American. At Harvard,...

Every December 12th, thousands of Mexican immigrants gather for the mass at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day. They kiss images of the Virgin, wait for a bishop's blessing-and they also carry signs...

Every December 12th, thousands of Mexican immigrants gather for the mass at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day. They kiss images of the Virgin, wait for a bishop's blessing-and they also carry signs...

In the early 1990s, the animist and Hindu traces in adat, or Malay custom, became contentious for resurgent Islam in Malaysia. Reclaiming Adat focuses on the filmmakers, intellectuals, and writers who reclaimed adat to counter the homogenizing aspects of...

Clothing and appearance are steeped in social and personal significance, conveying individuals' gender, class, culture, and occupation. In the communal setting of long-term residential care, where residents' autonomy and mobility are often limited but...

How parents approach the task of passing on religious faith and practice to their children How do American parents pass their religion on to their children? At a time of overall decline of traditional religion and an increased interest in personal...