Sociological Study Of Religion Research Articles

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Hijab and the Abrahamic Traditions

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Hijab and the Abrahamic Traditions

Old, New, And Emerging Paradigms In The Sociological Study Of Religion

This article argues that a significant shift is taking place in the sociological study of religion, and seeks to outline its main features. In order to do so it returns to Stephen Warner’s classic article of 1993 which drew a contrast between ‘old’ and ‘new’ paradigms in the sociology of religion. It develops Warner’s analysis by setting these paradigms in their European and American contexts respectively, and argues that there are signs of a third, ‘emerging’ paradigm which moves beyond these dichotomous alternatives. Not by coincidence, the emerging paradigm also moves beyond methodological nationalism, taking a more global view of religion. In addition, it breaks free from captivity to a single theoretical perspective (whether ‘secularisation’/religious decline or ‘rational choice’/religious vitality), and embraces broader theoretical, conceptual, and methodological

Rephrasing the Question: A Response to Smith

Christian Smith's (2007) essay, Why Christianity Works, is a provocative attempt to explain persistence of religion. His argument employs critical real ism and sociological phenomenology in explaining centrality of emotions to Christianity. He writes the belief content of Christian faith gives rise to cer tain practices and experiences,-particularly emotional ones-that many people find highly engaging, compelling, persuasive, and convincing (p. 167). Smith's article is an important attempt at addressing issues within socio logical study of religion. First, he recognizes that quantitative research is ulti mately unable to explain persistence of religion (p. 167). He also states that religion is likely to continue to persist for foreseeable future (p. 177). These two points demonstrate need for studies such as his: Christianity continues to exert strong influence on people despite opposition from various directions. Attempts to justify religion through what might be termed harder science have proven insufficient. By employing a slightly softer approach, Smith hopes to both supplement this previous research while addressing a lack of attention to sig nificance of emotion for religious practice and tradition (p. 169). While acknowledging these strengths, there are three points at which I think Smith's argument should be developed further: (1) he does not define Christianity nor justify his conclusion that Christianity works; (2) he needs to explain relationship between cognition and emotion, and how Christianity is transmitted to non-believers; and (3) he needs to explain his notion of human nature. I will conclude with a discussion of theological issues in Smith's work.

Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion. By Dean M. Kelley. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. 184pp

Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion. By Dean M. Kelley. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. 184pp

To Study or Not to Study Religion and Society

In the work of many of the classics of sociology, religion plays a major role. In post-World War II sociology, however, the study of religion gradually ended up in a marginal position. This article discusses the status of the sociological study of religion in Finland from the post-war period to the present. The focus in the article is on the institutional evolution of the field and the influence of that evolution on the role of the sociology of religion within Finnish sociology. Finnish sociology of religion is divided into three categories: studies carried out in sociology departments, sociological studies carried out within religious studies and church and social studies. The article examines the development and characteristics of each of these disciplines as well as the consequences of institutional scattering for the sociology of religion. The aversion of religion within sociology, the focus on folklore in religious studies and the public identification of church sociology with theology are identified as the reasons for the marginal position of the sociology of religion in Finland. The article closes with a review of recent studies in the sociology of religion and the `new rise' of the field due to the rise in the societal significance of religion.

O sagrado e o profano no tribunal do júri brasileiro

Este artigo foi especialmente elaborado para a disciplina chamada Tópicos Especiais: Estudos Sociológicos da Religião, cursada no mestrado em Sociologia na Universidade Federal de Sergipe (UFS), Núcleo de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (NPPCS). Discutimos a posição institucional do júri como um locus em que, por trás de sua aparência secular, encontramos, no contexto de um ritual indispensável à afirmação do vínculo da sociedade com a justiça, a dialética entre o sagrado e o profano. Ao fazermos isso, estamos não apenas descrevendo como se organiza e se executa o rito do tribunal do júri do ponto de vista da teoria sociológica da religião, mas também revelando o que faz dessa instituição político-social um dos poucos exemplos de estabilidade institucional na história brasileira.

Cognition and Religion*

Recent developments inspired by cognitive science have significant implications for the sociologi cal study of religion. Studies in cognitive anthropology and related fields such as neuroscience, cogni tive psychology, and linguistics clarify the processes by which information is structured, given mean ing, and remembered. This work provides new concepts and techniques for investigating topics that have long been central to the study of religion, including cultural schemas, metaphors, and narratives. These topics hold special promise for applications to the study of religious identity, practice, and expe rience.

What Would Jesus Buy: American Religious Consumption in the 21st Century

This article examines an important and understudied part of the sociological study of religion: consumption of religious materials. We use data from the Baylor Religion Survey and present an initial look at which Americans read the Left Behind series, viewed The Passion of the Christ, or purchased religious paraphernalia such as “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets. Drawing on cultural consumption and religious capital research we explore class, demographic, and religious influences on consumption patterns. We find some support for each of these perspectives, which suggests that religious consumption is not a subset of cultural consumption nor of religious practice but is some combination of both.

Decentering the Study of Jewish Identity: Opening the Dialogue With Other Religious Groups

While social science research in Jewish studies is important for the particular knowledge it conveys about and for Jews, it also raises more general questions about the complicated and sometimes ambivalent nature of contemporary ethnic and religious identity in the sociological study of religion and ethnicity. This article focuses on Jewish identity as a way of raising questions about the relationship between religiosity and ethnicity; the dialectical nature of assimilation; and the methodological implications raised by defining identity subjectively or objectively for both qualitative and quantitative research. Our aim in sharing these explorations is to raise questions about the ways in which particularistic concerns and explorations of one group can deepen and/or provoke similar explorations in other contemporary religious and ethnic groups and vice versa.

The Forms of Brotherly Love in Max Weber's Sociology of Religion

This article examines the concept of “brotherliness” as presented in Max Weber's sociological studies of religion. It argues that Weber presents a complex, if at times implicit, understanding of a number of contrasting forms of brotherliness: charis-matic, Puritan, mystic, and medieval Christian. The article suggests that although these contrasting forms have been largely overlooked by Weberian scholars, they add an important dimension to Weber's understanding of the costs and paradoxes of Western rationalization.

Ascription, Choice, and the Construction of Religious Identities in the Contemporary United States

Within the past 15 years, sociological studies of religion have emphasized the chosen, achieved nature of religious identities and have deemphasized ascription or tribalism as the basis of Americans' construction of religious selves. The accounts many people develop in narrating their religious life experiences, however, often combine notions of ascription and achievement in ways scholars have not clearly conceptualized. This article develops an approach to religious identity that shows how, rather than being treated as a dichotomy, the concepts of ascription and achievement are integrated in nuanced ways in the narratives of religious identity told by first‐generation immigrant Thai Buddhists and third‐generation Jews, two groups with strong inherited religious identities. The comparison between Jews and Buddhists shows how members of both groups blend the concepts of ascription and achievement in similar and different ways, particularly around practice, regardless of their participation in religious organizations.

Public Religions and Civil Society

Amendments to secularization theory have brought the issue of public religions to the fore in recent years. In particular, the work of Casanova and Beyer has maintained the importance of functional differentiation whilst pointing to the flow of religious discourses across social boundaries. These issues, however, have received little ethnographic attention, such that many of the problems associated with theories of differentiation and globalization have not been engaged in a sustained manner. Research within black majority London Methodist congregations is drawn upon to suggest ways in which these theories can be reconsidered. Three related issues are focused upon: the continued importance of the nation-state (including national stratifications); the importance of a practical approach to religion, such that discourses are understood as ?practical discourses?; and the importance of not privileging religion by reifying it in functional terms. These considerations have ramifications not only for secularization theory, but the general field of the sociological study of religion.

Progress and Cumulation in the Sociology of Religion: A Symposium

Mark Chaves: Introduction to the SymposiumN.J. Demerath III: Diagnosing the Reverend Dr. Dumpty “After the Fall”Mary Jo Neitz: Eve, Lilith, and the Sociology of Religion: Comments on ZaldRobert Wuthnow: Practice and Progress in the Study of ReligionMayer N. Zald: Where Are We in the Sociological Study of Religion? Continuing the Conversation

Secularization in Max Weber. On current usefulness of re-accessing that old meaning

The author argues that the treatment of the secularization thesis by Brazilian empirical studies in sociology of religion is theoretically deficient. In the article, having regard to the empiricist and ill-advised celebration of recent religious ferments that are supposed to be turning our times into a de-secularized or post-secularized age, the author supports the claim for resetting the conceptual discussion. He suggests that it would be very useful to Brazilian sociology of religion to cope again with the old political-juridical meaning through which the problem of a socio-historical process of dessacralization was conceptualized, taking place above all in the sphere of political-juridical normativity. This is the meaning unfolded by Max Weber, considered the major proponent of the secularization theory, in his sociology of law.

Encyclopedia of Religions and Society

The Encyclopedia ofReligion and Society can be regarded as the fmt substantialreference work specifically concerned with the sociological study ofreligion. Simply by filling this gap in the existing literature, it is a book thatdeserves to be widely recognized for making this contribution to the field.Although Islam and consideration of Islam in relation to the social sciencesmakes only a very limited appearance in the volume, this new work needs tobe thoroughly assessed for its value in the social scientific study of Muslimcommunities and Islamic societies.One hundred and nine international experts in the sociology of religion havecontributed to the volume. Reflecting the development of the discipline, theencyclopedia has an interdisciplinary character, which makes it a usefulresource not only for sociologists, but also for scholars from anthropology,psychology, and religious studies. As a reference work in the sociology of religion,it would be hard to identify any gaps in terms of entries, especially as allthe standard terms and theories are comprehensively covered. Many conceptsmore closely associated with mainstream sociology (such as “deviance,” “attitude,”“research methods”) also carry an entry and their particular relationshipto the sociology of religion is often drawn out. An especially valuable featureof the work is that there are entries for people and organizations, thereby makingit possible to identify key personalities, publications, and professional societies,past and present. Through the encyclopedia it is possible to piece togetherthe academic and institutional development of the discipline. There is a criticalaspect to most of the longer entries, and this evaluative dimension makesthe book a valuable resource for students. ’Ihe varying length of entries, fromjust a few sentences to essay-length, appears to be carefully and appropriatelyjudged. Most entries carry either a short bibliography or references thus assistingresearchers to locate key texts. The helpful and extensive cross-referencingprovides a further pointer to related concepts and terms, whilst the avoidanceof complex technical jargon makes the book accessible to a wide readership,and those new to the field. The encyclopedia’s very comprehensive anddetailed index will help readers to locate all the occurrences of theories and ...

The tilted playing field: Accounting for religious tastes. a more general model for the sociology of religion

A “more general”; theory is proposed speculatively for the sociological study of religion which combines narrative theory, socialization theory, and rational choice theory. The first describes what religion is, the second how it is passed on, and the third why there is a propensity for adults to remain in the religious culture of their childhood. This theory helps to account for the remarkable durability of religion and religious affiliation and provides a broader approach to the social science study of religion. An illustration is provided of how the theory might be applied in data analysis.

Paul Between Jews and Gentiles in Corinth

In 1 Corinthians, Paul advised Christians that they should not be polytheists (idolaters) and that they must confine sex to marriage. He thus took a normal Jewish stance toward Graeco-Roman culture. Yet he did not seek to make Gentile Christianity merely one form of Judaism, for he elsewhere vigorously opposed Jewish principles. The modern sociological study of religion allows us to realize that Paul was engaging in boundary definition for nascent Christianity. In this boundary definition he was, unlike other wings of early Christianity, successful.

Religion and Views on Reproductive Technologies: A Comparative Study of Jews and Non-Jews

Volume 10, No.1 Fall1991 57 RELIGION AND VIEWS ON REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF JEWS AND NON-JEWS1 Harriet L. Parmet and Judith N. Lasker Harriet L. Parmet is Lecturer in Hebrew in the modern foreign languages department at Lehigh University. She has a particular interest in modern Israeli literature, especially the work of women writers. She is currently conducting research on the life of freedom fighter Haviva Reik, who was killed after returning from Israel to her native Czechoslovakia during World War II to fight the Nazis. Judith N. Lasker is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Relations at Lehigh University. Her research has been primarily in medical sociology and women's health issues, in particular on the impact of pregnancy loss and infertility. She is co-author of Mzen Pregnancy Fails: Families Coping with Miscamage, Ectopic Pregnancy, Stillbirth and Infant Death and of In Search of Parenthood: Coping with Infertility and High-Tech Conception. New developments in reproductive technology have proliferated throughout the last decade and received enormous attention from the public. In vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and surrogate motherhood have all been the subject of controversy at the same time as they are becoming more widely used by infertile people seeking a solution to their desire for children. A few public opinion polls have been conducted in an attempt to assess attitudes toward these methods of conception.2 None have considered the possible impact of religious affiliation or of religious commitment on these 1Acknowledgments are due to Alice Mesaros and Aileen Wells for assisting with the data analysis and to the Lehigh University Unsponsored Research Fund for financial support. Thanks to Marshall Sklare, Daniel Lasker, Steven M. Cohen, Larry Greil, and Jonathan Parmet for their suggestions on earlier drafts and to Renee Cohen at the American Jewish Committee for supplying data on college freshmen . An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Association for Jewish Studies meetings, December 1986. 58 SHOFAR attitudes, although religious leaders have often taken strong positions (both for and against) on the new technologies, and religious affiliation and religiosity are often important predictors of beliefs and attitudes. In this paper we report the results of a study of college students' attitudes to a variety of reproductive technologies, comparing the results for Jews, Protestants, and Catholics in order to assess whether there is a significant difference in attitudes among the three groups. We are also interested in whether variations in self-reported religiosity in the sample as a whole are associated with differences in opinions on these new methods of conception. Background Research on the relationship of religious affiliation to attitudes has consistently uncovered distinctions among Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. This has been true in the American political arena, where Protestants have been more likely to vote Republican, while Jews and Catholics have traditionally been more inclined to the Democrats. There are also differences in attitudes toward issues such as civil rights, with Jews consistently taking what has been cOnsidered a more liberal position.3 Protestants have regularly been found to be more conservative than non-Protestants on a variety of attitudes.4 Gerhard Lenski, in his classic study of American religious groups. The Religious Factor,5 found that only Jews were consistently liberal on each of four socio-political issues (freedom of speech, foreign aid, welfare state, and racial integration). Everett Ladd, in reviewing studies of the relative liberalism of Jews, Protestants, and Catholics,6 concluded that Jews continue to be appreciably more liberal in their views and continue to describe themselves as more liberal than the other two groups. The differences were particularly 2Judith N. Lasker and Susan Borg, In Search ofParenthood: Coping with Infertility and High Tech Conception (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987). 3Michael Argyle and Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Social Psychology of Religion (London: Routledge, 1975). 4Adrian Furnham, Christopher Johnson, and Richard Rawles, "The Determinants of Beliefs in Human Nature," Personality and Individual Differences 6 (1985): 675-684; Adrian Furnham and B. Gunter, "Just World.Beliefs and Attitudes Toward the Poor," British Joumal ofSocial Psychology 23 (1984): 265-269. 5Gerhard E. Lenski, The Religious Factor: A Sociological Study ofReligion's Impact on Politics, Economics, and...

Anciennes et nouvelles pratiques religieuses des ruraux

Sociological studies of religion in rural France were previously focussed on surveys on church attendance (Boulard) and the part played by the Agricultural Catholic Youth. This article provides tracks for a further updating of these studies : to what extent does religion remain a symbolical element of life among country communities ? What has become of catholic movements and their militants ? How is religious power shared out with decreasing number of priests ? What about the other religions ?

Anciennes et nouvelles pratiques religieuses des ruraux

Sociological studies of religion in rural France were previously focussed on surveys on church attendance (Boulard) and the part played by the Agricultural Catholic Youth. This article provides tracks for a further updating of these studies : to what extent does religion remain a symbolical element of life among country communities ? What has become of catholic movements and their militants ? How is religious power shared out with decreasing number of priests ? What about the other religions ?