Religion in a Globalised World:

Abstract

This chapter describes how the field has witnessed a methodological development in the dynamics of the study of religion through the advent of social science methods, leading to an increasing emphasis on observation of what is happening, to an identification of broad patterns and flows in global contexts, allied to processes of globalisation, and to an emphasis on practice and to ?lived' (or common) religion. Social scientific methods of study that revolve around observation of what is happening have produced what Beyer calls a ?renewed visibility of religion', one that contrasts with earlier presumptions in the social sciences that religion was dying as modernity eroded its foundations and reduced it to a restricted area in the realms of the private (the so-called ?secularisation thesis'). Keywords:Beyer; globalisation; renewed visibility of religion; secularisation; social science methods