Social Scientific Study Of Religion Research Articles

“Scholar–Practitioners”, Reflexivity and the Illusio of the Field: Ethnography, Yoga Studies and the Social Scientific Study of Religion

This article dialogues with “yoga studies” and the social scientific study of religion (e.g., the sociology of religion and religious studies), arguing that both substantially neglect a thorough discussion of scholars’ engagement in the field despite being largely composed by “scholar–practitioners”. This is problematic from a methodological point of view as well as from an ethical perspective. Moving in the interstices between biographical reflections, critical social theory and methodological notes on embodied ethnographic research, I self-reflexively discuss my “shifting positionality” from devoted yoga practitioner to critical scholar, mapping the most significant turning points that I encountered during my research on the pedagogies of modern forms of yoga (2017–current). In so doing, I also discuss my overall positioning, participation and ethical reflections in relation to the main object of inquiry of my research. From this, I posit that the positions of scholar and practitioner are, at least in some cases, incommensurable, while the scholar–practitioner may also foster a unique way of knowing based on reflexivity as a living engagement and on the linkages between theory and practice from which there is much to gain.

Religion and politics: challenges to the social scientific study of religion

Based on a literature review, this paper addresses how political science and sociology incorporate religion in their theories and research. A particular focus is placed on how both sciences theorise the relationship between religion and politics. The paper argues that political science and sociology struggle with incorporating religion into their main theories, which reflect different views on religion’s importance and its overall role in contemporary societies. Some key concepts, such as ‘politicisation’ and ‘religionisation’, are also discussed. A brief overview of the scholarship of religion in Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of communism is used as an example of how the radically changed social and political context was reflected in the scholarship. The paper’s final section summarises current debates on religion, populism and culture in political science and sociology. It shows how a new way of communicating political messages produces complex and contradictory references to religion. While this is captured in the literature by interpreting religion as a cultural identity marker, the argument is that this should not be dissociated from the role of secular actors in imposing cultural features on some religions or political features on others.

Eating Your Cake and Having it Too: US Megachurches and Factors Associated with Attending Multiple Congregations.

It is typically assumed in the social scientific study of religion that individuals attend one congregation or none. As such, there is scarce research on individuals who attend more than one congregation yet doing so may affect congregational participation. This study theorizes factors affecting whether someone attends multiple congregations and how this might influence congregational volunteering and giving in the context of megachurches. It hypothesizes that parents, those who are single, those of lower socioeconomic status, those who are racially and ethnically minoritized, and those who are not socially embedded in a congregation will be more likely to attend a megachurch and other congregations. It also theorizes competing hypotheses regarding the association between attending multiple congregations and congregational volunteering and giving. This study draws on survey data from 12 representative megachurches to test the proposed hypotheses using logistic and ordinal logistic regression models. Those who are single, those of lower socioeconomic status, those who are racially and ethnically minoritized, and those who are not socially embedded in the megachurch are more likely to attend multiple congregations simultaneously. Attending multiple congregations is negatively associated with congregational volunteering and giving. The results demonstrate the need to reconceptualize congregational attendance to recognize that individuals may attend more than one congregation. Accordingly, future surveys should allow respondents to identify attending multiple congregations. The results also highlight how congregations may be negatively impacted by non-exclusive attendees who are less likely to volunteer and give money.

Religion as a Resource in an Increasingly Polarized Society

Abstract Recent research in the social scientific study of religion has drawn attention to how distinct religious identities and cultures have supported nationalist impulses and fueled political polarization across a variety of national contexts. This growing body of literature makes it clear that religious ideals and identities can be used to frame issues, draw boundaries, and drive a wedge down the middle of the political landscape. What is less frequently analyzed are the various ways that religion can provide resources to depolarize society. This article identifies the various resources that religion can offer for depolarization, and calls for future research aimed not only at better understanding the extent and nature of religion’s deployment of these resources, but also their effectiveness in countering the polarizing dynamics in contemporary society.

2021 SSSR Presidential Address: Religion as Social Location—Global and Comparative Perspectives

AbstractI argue that scholarship in the social scientific study of religion and its paradigms continue to be focused on the United States and Christianity, particularly on white U.S. Christians. This means that theoretical frameworks in the field tend to be limited and “parochial,” largely ignoring non‐U.S., non‐white, and non‐Christian contexts. I call for scholars to develop a global and comparative perspective on religion and to also examine its impacts on other dimensions of social life. To show how this can be done, I outline an argument about religion as social location, drawing from my research on five religious traditions (Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism) in three countries (India, the United States, and Canada). I demonstrate how religious background can shape social and structural location within societies and globally, in turn, affecting the manifestations of religion and how religion is imbricated with other dimensions of social life.

ANALYSIS OF RELIGIOUS ECONOMY AND ITS PARTICIPATION RATES IN NIGERIA

This paper is a socio-scientific analysis of religion. Its interest in religious economy stems from the enduring tension between theory in its abstract and applied forms. While the principles of religious economy provide a valuable framework for explaining religious change across space and time, they have also proven to be pliable across the same lines of analysis. Doing so will promote more interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue, and will help militate against the problem of parochialism within the social scientific study of religion. This research analyzes the rates of participation in religious economy using Nigeria’s religious free-markets situation as a case study. The phenomenological and analytical methods were employed to accomplish the aim of this paper with the support of secondary data. The research reveals that the Nigerian religious markets are more as of today, competitive and participatory than in the 1960s. The paper concludes that adherents should popularize their religion, or exchange their religion only on the foundation of issues that can be defined rationally and of rewarding benefits. The paper recommends a state-free religious market in Nigeria that promotes religious diversity and freedom in order to maximize religious gains and profits – of which peaceful coexistence is inclusive.

Taking Other Religions Seriously: A Comparative Survey of Hindus in India

AbstractWhile the study of religion in political science has reemerged as a growing field of inquiry in the last few decades, most research still focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What religion is and how it is measured has largely been conceptualized through the lens of these Abrahamic faiths. This article, by contrast, examines Hinduism, the world's oldest and third most populous religion. I randomly assigned closed-ended or open-ended surveys about Hindu religiosity across and within two demographically similar villages in the north Indian state of Bihar. A comparison of survey responses from a sample of 100 respondents suggests that many Hindus: (a) do not recognize basic analytical categories scholars use in the social scientific study of religion; (b) do not differentiate between ostensibly religious and secular categories; and (c) recognize features of everyday life, such as attire or obedience to rules about purity and auspiciousness, as religious in ways that may be different from most Western religious communities. This article productively challenges how political scientists think about what religion is and how to measure it, tasks that must precede explaining how it affects political behavior.

Diversifying the Social Scientific Study of Religion: The Next 70 Years

AbstractHere I argue that we need to diversify the social scientific study of religion and chart a plan for how we are already and will continue to do so. At the time of the 70th anniversary of our association, I reflect on where—as an association—we have come from and where we are going. Our origin story points to an expansive vision for what would become the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), but unfortunately our past has also been marked by an overrepresentation of white male leadership. It was only in 1982 that the society elected its first woman president, Mary Augusta Neal, and only in 2015 that it elected its first person of color, Fenggang Yang. Here, I discuss our hope for a more diverse future: attending to diversity in studies of religion, diversity in the groups of people who are encouraged to study religion, and efforts to translate religion research well to diverse groups of listeners. I share with you pieces of the new SSSR strategic plan, spearheaded in 2018 by Korie Edwards, the first black and woman of color President of the SSSR: particularly the pieces that are most attentive to diversity. I also highlight insights from my own scholarly story about diversity that I have learned through my work with the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University.

Ravidassia Religiosity in the Modern Era: Perspectives in Theory and from the Field

The social scientific study of religion, which has depended on the secularisation theory—the proposition that religion diminishes as a society modernises, fails to take cognisance of the complex nature of the modern religious expressions. Such is the case of the Ravidassias of Punjab, whose assertion of a separate, distinct and autonomous religion is not exclusively theological, but latches onto the notions of secular and egalitarian society. Ravidassia religion is a form of resistance to the religious dominance and control of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). According to the SGPC’s maryada, all the Sikhs ought to believe in one immortal being, ten gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib. The Ravidassia dharmic expression is a complex mix of the language of modern-secular values and equality as well as other-worldly aspirations. This article is an attempt to revisit the Ravidassia expression of faith with reference to the Dera Sachkhand Ballan proposing a new theoretical lens to study, understand and analyse faith based identities in the modern era.

Presidential Address: Religion and Power—A Return to the Roots of Social Scientific Scholarship

AbstractEarly social scientists, including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W. E. B. DuBois, recognized the importance of religion for power systems. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, there has been a decline in scholars examining how religion matters for power. This address proposes that scholars bring religion back to the center of understanding the production, deconstruction, and distribution of power as religion is critical to the flows of power in the social world. I propose that furthering an agenda that interrogates the role of religion for power means we emphasize that (i) religion is an institution; (ii) religious ideas motivate action; (iii) our epistemology sources theories of power rather than those that invalidate the centrality of religion in societies; and (iv) ground‐breaking theoretical and empirical contributions to the social scientific study of religion and power demand that we broaden and diversify the standpoints from which this knowledge is produced.

Religion in the Global East: Challenges and Opportunities for the Social Scientific Study of Religion

This essay is based on the Presidential Address at the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Inaugural Conference on 3–5 July 2018 in Singapore. It discusses some aspects of the key concepts, some of the distinct characteristics of religion in East Asia, and some implications for the social scientific study of religion in general.

Taking Other Religions Seriously: A Comparative Survey of Hindus in India

While the study of religion in political science has reemerged as a growing field of inquiry in the last few decades, most research still focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What religion is and how it is measured has largely been conceptualized through the lens of these Abrahamic faiths. This article, by contrast, examines Hinduism, the world’s oldest and third most populous religion. I randomly assigned closed-ended or open-ended surveys about Hindu religiosity across and within two demographically similar villages in the north Indian state of Bihar. A comparison of survey responses from a sample of 100 respondents suggests that many Hindus: a.) do not recognize basic analytical categories scholars use in the social scientific study of religion; b.) do not differentiate between ostensibly religious and secular categories; and c.) recognize features of everyday life, such as attire or obedience to rules about purity and auspiciousness, as religious in ways that may be different from most western religious communities. This article productively challenges how political scientists think about what religion is and how to measure it, tasks that must precede explaining how it affects political behavior.

Theology as an Ethnographic Object: An Anthropology of Eastern Christian Rupture

This paper draws upon over three years’ research among Eastern Orthodox (principally Antiochian and Greek) communities in London and Mount Athos, Greece. This research came to engage theology quite heavily as part of the ethnographic facts of the fieldsites. This paper reviews some of the existing ways that theology (as both discipline and practice) relate to ethnographic enquiry, particularly as it has arisen in the dialogue with the Anthropology of Christianity and frames this in light of the historical development of Anthropology and its relationship to theology and Christianity. The paper then advances a methodological argument, in favour of further means of relation, specifically in terms of theology as a cultural artefact. Drawing on local practices of liturgical theology and Eastern Orthodox forms of allegorical interpretation, I argue for the inclusion of theological insight and practice within the social scientific study of religion. Working in an Orthodox setting requires the investigation of liturgical theology and brings to light important aspects of the relationship between temporal and sempiternal domains of action. Particularly as it relates to liturgical theology and the practices of interpretation, ethnographic enquiry into Orthodox theology asks for a reconsideration of social scientific methods of analysis and representation.

Assessing attitude toward religious diversity among Muslim adolescents in the UK: the effect of religious and theological factors

Understanding variations in public attitudes toward religious diversity is a matter of concern within both the social scientific study of religion (concerned with religious factors) and empirical theology (concerned with theological factors). Drawing on data provided by 335 13- to 15-year-old Muslim students from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, this study tests the power of religious factors and theological factors to explain variance within the Muslim Attitude toward Religious Diversity Index (MARDI). Regression analyses demonstrate that theological factors account for much more variance than religious factors in explaining individual differences in Muslim students’ attitudes toward religious diversity. In this regard, understanding Muslim students’ theological identity is more important than understanding their religious practice.

The Question of Cultural Change in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: Notes from the Emerging Church

This article explores how anthropological models of cultural change bolster the social scientific study of the Emerging Church movement. A distinction is drawn between market-oriented approaches to change that measure institutional growth and decline and cultural-oriented approaches that address broader effects on sociocultural systems. Emphasis is placed on models that emphasize change occurring internal to cultural systems and that recognize the co-occurrence of cultural durability and transformation. This theoretical exploration is grounded in more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Emerging evangelical communities in the midwestern United States.

Wat telt als godsdienstsociologie?

In 1960, the Dutch journal of the Catholic Social-Ecclesial Institute (Kaski) Sociaal Kompas became Social Compass. This shift rounded off a period now considered as the heyday of Dutch sociology of religion. Ironically, in those years, Catholic sociologists in particular contested the legitimacy of taking religion as an object of sociological study. Each period in the history of sociology of religion appears to present a different face of it due to the interplay between the political field, the religious field, and the academic field, while the self-identification of its practitioners as sociologists of religion is far from self-evident. After 1980, further secularization resulted in a subsequent decline of chairs in sociology of religion. As direct, competitive government funding of academic research gained traction, the social-scientific study of religion continues to be funded. In so far as politicians and religious professionals continue to be concerned about issues such as the rise of Islam and new spirituality, the call for the social-scientific study of religion remains. The identification of these researchers with sociology of religion as a specialty, however, is less self-evident. What makes a sociologist of religion?

A sociologist learns to study religion

It took a very long time before I encountered the systematic study of religious processes and dynamics as a distinctive and expansive area of scholarship. Using an autobiographical account, I trace the development of my scholarship in the social scientific study of religion. I have now experienced a great diversity of approaches to the study of religion. Driven by insatiable curiosity and knowing that no one can capture religion comprehensively, I now am committed to stimulating imaginative, rigorous, and wide-ranging developments in religious scholarship. We require new, inventive, and even incompatible approaches to our study of religion if we ever hope to try adequately grasping the richness of religion.

Rejecting the conflict narrative: American Jewish and Muslim views on science and religion

Sociological research on the US population’s views of science and religion has recently burgeoned, but focuses primarily on Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Our study advances understandings of how Americans of non-Christian faiths – namely Judaism and Islam – perceive the relationship between science and religion. We draw on in-depth interviews (N=92) conducted in Orthodox Jewish, Reform Jewish, and Sunni Muslim congregations in two major cities to elucidate how respondents’ respective traditions help them frame the relationship between science and religion. Findings demonstrate that members of these religious communities distance themselves from the pervasive conflict narrative. They rely on religious texts and historical traditions to instead articulate relationships of compatibility and independence between science and religion, while developing strategies to negotiate conflict around delimited issues. Findings push the social scientific study of religion and science beyond a specifically Christian and conflict-oriented focus.

What Kind of Christian Are You? Religious Ideologies and Political Attitudes

Through measures of orthodoxy, images of God, and instrumental beliefs, scholars of the social scientific study of religion have been able to demonstrate how abstract and specific religious beliefs influence political and social attitudes. Building upon this work, this article uses a unique data set to measure social and prosperity gospel support. Further, it examines the roots and political behavioral consequences of support to these religious ideologies. The results show that religious tradition, congregational messages, and social demographics all influence doctrinal support. However, these relationships are conditional upon race. The results also show that the social gospel promotes an emphasis on the structural sources of social problems and the importance of rehabilitation, which leads to higher levels of self‐expressed liberalism and democratic identification. Conversely, the prosperity gospel promotes holding individuals accountable for social problems and punishing deviant behavior, which leads to higher levels of self‐expressed conservatism and Republican identification. The data also suggest that race matters, as the relationship between prosperity gospel support and political attitudes is more powerful for blacks than whites.

The post-secular

In the twentieth century, the social scientific study of religion was dominated by debates surrounding secularization. Yet throughout its reign, secularization theory was subject to a series of theoretical and empirical challenges. Pronouncements of a forthcoming revolution in theory were frequent, yet secularization theory remained largely undisturbed. However, recent years have seen secularization theory decreased in status. Some have located its heir in the post-secular, yet the concept has invited fractious debate. This article surveys a range of engagements with the post-secular, seeking to identify convergences that sit beneath an otherwise divided field. While this survey reveals the failure of the post-secular to fully supplant secularization theory, it does find that central debates in the field today have departed significantly from earlier generations of scholarship, particularly in a reflexivity toward the field’s basic concepts, a skepticism of teleological theories of history, and a renewed focus on the relationship between religion and politics.