Sociological Study Of Religion Research Articles

In plain view: Gender in the work of women healthcare chaplains.

In sociological studies of religion and chaplaincy, there is little research on how gender plays a role in structural inequalities and experiences of women chaplains. Through research on the work of women chaplains in public healthcare in Vancouver (Canada) and London (England) this qualitative study revealed that while they have opportunities for leadership and ministry in chaplaincy, they are often on the margins of the religious institutions they are affiliated with and the secular medical organisations that employ them. Simultaneously, they confront the social structuring of gender and race that can affect them being overlooked. By applying a lived religion and feminist intersectional analysis, this research focuses on an area of study that has received scant attention.

Andrew Junker. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. x, 230 pp. Hardcover $99.99, ISBN 978-1-108-48299-8.

Andrew Junker. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press, . x,  pp. Hardcover $., ISBN ----. In her seminal book The Cult as a Social Problem (New York: Routledge, ), leading British sociologist of religion Eileen Barker juxtaposed Falun Gong with the early Christians, Muslims, and Methodists, as well as the Church of Scientology, the Nation of Islam, and Al Qaida to problematize the social construction of “wrong” or “bad” religions versus “true” and “good” religions. She notes that all the abovementioned groups have been seen as a threat to their own followers and the social well-being at certain points in time. Yet, some have been able to establish themselves and grow into wellrespected religions, while others are perpetually labeled as “cults” and face severe persecutions. Their different fates are the result of both primary and secondary social constructions that involve the practitioners themselves, the anti-cult coalitions, as well as the social scientists who take a scholarly interest in them. Indeed, these alternative or deviant religious groups often attract substantial media and scholarly attention. Through their portrayal in the media, religious cults and sects present a host of social problems, ranging from advocating heretical beliefs, being involving in child abuse or sexual scandals, engaging in illicit activities, exercising mind control techniques, and instigating anti-government political agendas. In contrast, embracing the principle of value neutrality, many social scientists are reluctant to associate the negative connotations with the members of these religious groups, as they tend to be dehumanizing. They adopted the term “new religious movements” (NRMs) to replace “cults” in the study of nonmajority religious groups that are in tension with the wider society, especially those that emerged after the end of the Second World War in a presumed secular rational society. Although there is considerable debate on what constitutes NRMs exactly, the term has taken a strong foothold in the sociology of religion and set the tone for research on a wide range of phenomena that loosely fall under the banner of NRMs. The lasting interest among sociologists in NRMs is not only a response to the return of religion to the public square since the s, but also creates links between the sociological study of religion and other areas of social sciences. Review©  by University of Hawai‘i Press Andrew Junker’s book Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora is an exemplar work that combines a sociological analysis of NRMs with a study of social movements and contentious politics, through a close comparison of Falun Gong and the Overseas Democracy Movement, or Minyun—two of the most visible Chinese diaspora social movements in the reform era. While the title of Junker’s book makes no reference to NRMs in general, nor to Falun Gong in particular, the majority of his research revolves around Falun Gong, an “evil cult” that has been banned in China since  but sustains an influence in the global Chinese diaspora much larger than its membership entails. The decision to publish the book under the current title, instead of another title Making Activists in Global China: Transnational Mobilization in Falun Gong and the Chinese Democracy Movement, may be a tactic to avoid unwanted attention. It is also evident that framing the study as a comparative analysis of social movements rather than a study of Falun Gong per se distinguishes Junker’s work from the sizable literature on Falun Gong that has emerged over the past two decades, which rarely speaks to the literature on Chinese sectarian groups and pays no attention to the “progressive” or “protodemocratic ” characteristics of Falun Gong mobilization. Indeed, the ingenuity of Junker’s work primarily lies in its focus on the “social movement-ness” of Falun Gong. Emerging during the qigong boom in China that began in the s and lasted until , Falun Gong was founded in  by Li Hongzhi, an ordinary person from the northeastern city of Changchun. Combining qigong exercises with ideas borrowed from Buddhism, Taoism, and New Age sources, Falun Gong was able to garner millions of followers in just four years, and became one of the largest and most popular Qigong groups by...

Does the Belief in Biblical Literalism Matter for Mental Health? Assessing Variations by Gender and Dimensions of Religiosity.

Although biblical literalism is one of the most powerful ideological indicators of religiousness in the sociological study of religion, we know very little about its role vis-à-vis mental health. This is a surprising oversight, given the centrality of the Bible to both public and private religious practice in the USA. This study considers whether the belief in biblical literalism is associated with general mental health and anxiety, and whether this relationship is moderated by gender and two dimensions of religiosity: attendance and attachment to God. Data are drawn from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (N = 1360). Regression results suggest that stronger beliefs in biblical literalism are associated with better mental health and lower anxiety, but only among women who attend religious services weekly. However, women holding strong literalist views but falling short of weekly attendance norms reported worse mental health. There was no evidence that the relationship between biblical literalism and mental health differed by attachment to God. The implications of these results for the broader study of religion and health are discussed in light of prior research on the "dark side" of religion, recognizing that causal claims cannot be made due to the cross-sectional nature of the data.

Praktisk teologi i ny skepnad

The article takes its starting point in the return of Practical Theology as a specialization at the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University in 2020, half a century after the discipline was replaced by ecclesiology. The question that the author wishes to answer is how the return may be interpreted. The return of Practical Theology has to do with a reform of both study programmes and organization of research at the faculty, resulting in a new research subject called Empirical-Practical Studies of Religion and Theology. Practical Theology is one of two specializations within the new subject area, the other being Sociology of Religion. Both specializations are possible to study with a profile in Didactics of Religion. The empirical turn in theology and humanities at large is a major driving force behind the creation of the new research subject. Lived religion and lived theology are increasingly at the forefront of studies in Sociology of Religion as well as in Ecclesiology, two former research subjects that now are merged. What unites the previously separate disciplines is a common interest in theories and methods for studying practices in a new multireligious Swedish context, where traditional confessional and religious boundaries are increasingly blurred. The special contribution of Practical Theology is the theological perspective, which consciously brings issues related to belief in God into the discussion.

Virtualization of Religious Communities as a Key Tool to Understanding the Evolution of Sociological Concepts of Religiosity

The article considers the evolution of the sociological vision of religiosity. The relevance of the topic raised is due to the demarcation between the religious and the secular the late Modern and personal identification. The purpose of the article is to outline the retrospective and perspective of sociological studies of religion in historical and socio-reflexive contexts, on pre-theoretical foundations. The main modern trend in religious studies and quantitative methodology is the virtualization of reference religious communities. The first stage of this process corresponds with a real-reference approach to the definition of religiosity, viewing religiosity mostly in the field of the normative behavioral and mental manifestations and mainly in majoritarian confessions. The second stage is associated with transition, which manifests itself in the unification of religiosity criteria, as in formalized multidimensional scales measuring religiosity. The third stage should probably be associated with the emerging virtual reference approach, when a social subject is engaged in the reflexive construction of one’s religious identity, and a sociologist, on the contrary, shifts the research optics to identify the boundless diversity of its manifestations. This implies a retreat of the methodological category of the religiosity degree and any measured religiosity, a deconstruction of a priori models of the latter, reshaping an analysis into one based on unbiased description of religious manifestations in situational contexts.

Re-examining Restructuring: Racialization, Religious Conservatism, and Political Leanings in Contemporary American Life

AbstractThis paper assesses the continued relevance of Robert Wuthnow’s seminal theory of “religious restructuring” for explaining the relationship between religious conservatism and political allegiances in the contemporary United States. Employing a comparative approach, we evaluate the link between doctrinal conservatism (or liberalism) and political conservatism across the seven largest US religious traditions, including Islam. We find that for most Christians and Jews, doctrinal conservatism continues to be tightly linked with conservative political attitudes, even after adjusting for demographic differences and religiosity. For Muslims, Black Protestants, and Latinx Catholics however, doctrinal conservatism is unlikely to be associated with political conservatism. In short, Wuthnow’s theory still holds, but only for religious traditions that are majority white. We speculate that being “racialized religious traditions” explains the lack of restructuring we observe among Muslims, Black Protestants, and Latinx Catholics. External social and political pressures have kept unifying racialized religious identities salient for each of these traditions, preventing the internal bifurcation still characteristic of other major American religions. Our findings and approaches contribute to the two growing trends within the sociological study of religion—the analytical integration of considerations of race and racial politics into scholarship on religious life (called “complex religion”) and a recognition of the importance of cultural “styles” of religion in shaping political and social behaviors.

Bifurcated Conversations in Sociological Studies of Religion and Gender

Feminist sociologists claim that while feminist insights have been incorporated in sociological paradigms and women sociologists have been well-integrated into academia, sociological frameworks have not been transformed, a process known as the missing feminist revolution. Yet, few have examined how the missing feminist revolution operates in specific subdisciplines and the mechanisms that sustain it. This article undertakes these tasks by analyzing religion and gender scholarship published in six sociology journals over the past 32 years. We find evidence of partial integration and continued marginalization. However, we also document disparate networks of interlocutors that operate in two distinct intellectual fields—religion and gender. We argue that this bifurcation partially explains the missing feminist revolution and that insularity of feminist conversations likely contributes to this process. Our findings shed light on obstacles to transforming mainstream disciplines.

Bahasa Agama dalam Wacana Sosiologi Agama

A short study of the history of the sociology of religion is enough to show the importance of religion as a factor relevant to the study of variations, maintenance , language policy and planning are already equipped to work at least some of them are generally regarded as the founder of a branch of linguistics . However , these effects do not stop merely linguistic region but also on the dimensions of the broader culture . Claiming Arabic is the only language of Islam becomes simpler if it is associated with the contestation countries that historically have been quite dominant in the development of Islam . As a sociological study of religion , it has become wide open land research to continue to be observed in the level of practice speaking societies where Islam is the majority religion

The influence of religious preferences on choice of church congregation and church attendance

Rational Choice Theory has transformed the sociological study of religion. However, studies framed by Rational Choice Theory generally assume stable religious demand at the societal level, meaning the effects of individual religious preferences have received little attention. Using a sample of Christian college students from the United States, this article examines whether individual religious preferences are related to choice of congregation and frequency of church attendance. The results suggest that individual religious preferences are indeed related to these measures, meaning future studies might benefit from an increased emphasis on demand-side influences.

Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church by Christian Smith, et al. (review)

Reviewed by: Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church by Christian Smith, et al. David Yamane Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church. By Christian Smith , Kyle Longest , Jonathan Hill , and Kari Christoffersen . New York : Oxford University Press , 2014 . 326 pp. $29.95 . II The field of American Catholic studies is fortunate to be joined by one of today’s leading sociologists of religion, Christian Smith. Smith began his career as a social movements scholar interested in Latin America and religion, publishing his Harvard dissertation as The Emergence of Liberation Theology (Chicago, 1991). Young Catholic America, therefore, represents an intellectual return to Catholicism, one no doubt affected by his move from Chapel Hill to South Bend and his personal journey across the Tiber (see his 2011 book, How to Go From Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in 95 Difficult Steps). Connecting intellectual and personal interests is nothing new for Smith. A graduate of (B.A., ‘83) and former professor (1989–1994) at the evangelical Christian Gordon College, Smith published three books on American evangelicalism from 1998–2000. A hallmark of this work was its ability to speak to broader audiences of the faithful and at the same time have a major influence on the sociological study of religion. Smith’s recent work on the religious practices of American youth is no different. The three waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) have produced considerable public interest and more high quality data than will ever be analyzed fully. Young Catholic America is Smith’s fourth book from the NSYR, and the third based on Wave 3 data collected in 2007–2008 when the respondents were 18–23 years old. All of the Wave 3 books employ psychologist Jeffrey Arnett’s concept of “emerging adulthood.” Although the idea of a new phase of the life course between adolescence and “real” adulthood is compelling to many [End Page 56] of us who work in higher education, I wonder to what extent emerging adulthood is a class-based phenomenon. Smith’s characterization of this stage as entailing “a historically unparalleled freedom to roam, experiment, learn, move on, and try again” (7) seems grounded in a particular middle- and upper-class habitus. Does it characterize the outlook and practices of poor or working class or immigrant Catholics? Indeed, does it characterize the outlook and practices of many 18–23 year-old Catholics at all? Smith’s quantitative results suggest the dominant religious trajectory of Catholic teenagers is “[r]elative stability, not dramatic change” (161). If I substituted a neutral term like “young adult” for the concept of “emerging adult” to describe these subjects, I do not know how the main findings of this book would differ. Something that has changed from Wave 1 of the NSYR is the centrality of “moralistic therapeutic deism” (MTD). In Soul Searching (Oxford, 2005), Smith and Melinda Denton argue that MTD is the de facto faith of American teenagers from 13–17 years of age. This outlook cut across various religious traditions, but was found especially where religious commitment and education were weak. Since Catholics were the least religiously engaged of Christian teenagers, we might expect MTD to be strongest among Catholic emerging adults. In Souls in Transition (Oxford, 2011), Smith and Patricia Snell argue that MTD has been diluted but not disintegrated, but in Young Catholic America it seems to have disappeared entirely. Are Catholics, then, the most lax young adult Christians in the United States, even in this tacit form of religiosity? David Yamane Wake Forest University Copyright © 2014 American Catholic Historical Society

Implicit Soulfulness

The sociological study of religion has established that people do in fact behave in ways which are implicitly religious, without their actually belonging to an explicitly religious organisation of any kind. What remains to be investigated, however, is why they do this. This paper aims to make a contribution to such an enquiry by using theatre to argue that these individuals are drawn in the direction of religious belief by the inalienable characteristics of the human soul—particularly its voraciousness and flexibility.

Warriors and Terrorists: Antagonism as Strategy in Christian Hardcore and Muslim “Taqwacore” Punk Rock

This article contributes to new scholarship in the sociological study of religion, which looks at how people define and communicate religion in secular spheres. I show how U.S. Christian Hardcore and Muslim “Taqwacore” (taqwa means “god consciousness” in Arabic) punks draw on the tools of a punk rock culture that is already encoded with its own set of symbols, rituals and styles to: 1) understand themselves as religious/punk and 2) express religion in punk rock environments. I find that both cases draw on a punk rock motif of antagonism—oppositional attitudes and violent rituals and symbols—to see themselves as religious/punk and express religion in punk in different ways. Christian punks use this motif to condemn other Christians for denouncing punk and create space for Protestant evangelical Christianity in punk. Taqwacores use this motif to criticize Islam for its conservatism as well as non-Muslims for stereotyping Muslims as religious fanatics. In the process, Taqwacores build a space for alienated brown youth who exist on the margins of mainstream American culture and traditional Islam.

Book Review: David Chidester: Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa

David Chidester’s Wild Religion focuses on religious diversity and South Africa “from the advent of democracy in 1994 to the euphoria of the Football World Cup in 2010” (viii). It is not a conventionally defined description of particular faith communities or sacred rituals but rather an attempt to describe in a well-informed story-telling anecdotal way how ritual and the sacred are used (and misused) “for negotiating a human identity” in times of transition. Thus it is “wild” religion, a reaction to a new and “wild” world that throws both punches and surprises. The “sacred” is then used to either vent frustration and anger—thus disruptive of social order, or it can be used in a way to deal with it, to pacify and interpret it, to recreate social order. It is “a hybrid of order and chaos” (4). Wild Religion is a sociological study of religion in an extremely interesting time and place written in an original, scholarly and entertaining way focusing on a truly diverse and multicultural society in transition. However, it discusses the phenomena with examples from all over the world and from various times in history. It never gets dull but it often made me wonder if all of this is really an accurate and a just rendering of reality. One can prove your point that the religious scenario is actually constant chaos by simply telling and quoting enough (well documented!) stories. It truly is a bit wild, like the hair raising stories about hair (5–10)! But I guess that is the point that the author wants to make, it is a messy chaos even though one can find a basic logic that helps one to understand the constant fluctuations. What exactly this basic logic is becomes clear and is well articulated in the final chapter. After critiquing systematic descriptions of the religious system of the Amazulu and the highly respected and often quoted work of John Mbiti, the author concludes that such “utopian” religious systems simply never existed (192). He continues (192): Neither a stable and enduring system nor a perennial mentality that persisted unchanged from time immemorial, African religion is an open set of resources and strategies for sacralising. The word “transact” and “transactions” are often used. They refer to the coping mechanism that people and people groups use to deal with changing realities. The setting of the changing reality is usually illustrated from the context of colonialism as well as the modern era. Religion, in utterly original ways (called “wild”), used the sacred to cope with identity changes and used and misused the processes to the advantage of persons or peoples, often politically, economically and socially. On page 196, after some interesting illustrations, the author once again concludes: …these cases utterly defy any construction of African traditional religion as a stable system or a distinctive mentality. They demonstrate the relational character of indigenous religion. The transactions suggest the variety of ways in which indigenous religion is not preserved in splendid isolation from time immemorial but always entangled in a changing world. The different chapters of the book document the evidence that leads to these conclusions. Chapter two, for instance, maps the morphology of the sacred by looking at the symbolic in the history of Cape Town being the mother city of South Africa. In a truly fascinating way he outlines his case which is a particular understanding of religion (44): I would like to propose in conclusion that the term religion can be recast to designate a category of human activity that comprises not only beliefs and practices, whether in relation to transcendent forces, sacred objects or ultimate concerns, but also resources and strategies – the resources that are appropriated and the strategies that are deployed – within an urban political economy of the sacred. His interpretation of this definition of religion is then very well illustrated by interpreting the recent history of urban gangs in Cape Town with regard to the role that the sacred played. The rest of the chapters deal with violence, fundamentalism, heritage, spirituality, and the quest for purity and power as well as an enjoyable chapter of the influence of the soccer World Cup on the country and on religion in particular. Another very important conclusion one finds on page 198. He calls religion in South Africa “wild” because of its preoccupation with modernity, trying to cope with “what’s next.” “Christianity and indigenous religion have been interwoven in South Africa.” I think this is an important conclusion and applicable to most of sub-Saharan Africa. Whether the hope that the book promised for South Africa is indeed real hope is open to be questioned for the prophecy with which it ends is that religion will stay wild.

Shifting gear: new agendas in the sociological study of religion

Editorial for the special issue on the new agendas in the sociological study of religion

The Korean Protestant Church after Its Rapid Growth: A Sociological Study of Religion

The Korean Protestant Church after Its Rapid Growth: A Sociological Study of Religion

The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS)

The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) is a measure of the centrality, importance or salience of religious meanings in personality that has been applied yet in more than 100 studies in sociology of religion, psychology of religion and religious studies in 25 countries with in total more than 100,000 participants. It measures the general intensities of five theoretical defined core dimensions of religiosity. The dimensions of public practice, private practice, religious experience, ideology and the intellectual dimensions can together be considered as representative for the total of religious live. From a psychological perspective, the five core-dimensions can be seen as channels or modes in which personal religious constructs are shaped and activated. The activation of religious constructs in personality can be regarded as a valid measure of the degree of religiosity of an individual. The CRS thus derives from the five dimensional measures a combined measure of the centrality of religiosity which is suitable also for interreligious studies. The paper presents the theoretical basis and rationale of its construction with different versions of the CRS in 20 languages with norm values for 21 countries. Furthermore, the paper presents versions of different extension and describes specific modifications that were developed for studies with Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims.

Sociological Theory of Religion

AbstractThis article provides an overview of the sociological theory of religion‐ that is, the sociological theory that is used to guide the empirical research in the sociology of religion. Mainstream sociological theory of religion went through four distinct phases: 1) classical (Emile Durkheim and Max Weber) 2) the old paradigm 3) the new paradigm 4) the neo‐secularization paradigm. The article concludes by calling for a critical perspective, which while prevalent in religious studies and the other subfields of sociology is absent from the sociological study of religion.

Ideology and the Market Metaphor in Rational Choice Theory of Religion: A Rhetorical Critique of ‘Religious Economies’

Despite the many criticisms of the empirical and theoretical adequacy of Rational Choice theory, it continues to have considerable influence and appeal in the sociological study of religion. This article examines the use of the market metaphor and its subsidiary metaphors, with a view to understanding how these metaphors work in rational choice theory, and what this might be able to tell us about its enduring influence. I suggest that the metaphor is a useful one for studying religion in a capitalist, commodity oriented society, but when we forget that the ‘religious economy’ is a metaphor, it comes to serve ideological purposes well suited to the neo-liberal agenda. The market (conceived after a neo-conservative fashion) is thereby naturalized and serves to reinforce the ideology of a one-dimensional society.

How compatible were Durkheim and Mauss on matters relating to religion? Some introductory remarks

Mauss's contribution to his uncle's classical study, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, has not been widely acknowledged. It is, however, difficult to assess in the light of inadequate knowledge. This essay is an introduction to the study of the relation of nephew and uncle with regard to this problem. The difference between them as people and their achievements is first briefly considered. Then attention is turned to the way they approached the sociological study of religion. Only two aspects of religion have been selected. The first considers the problems in defining religion. Durkheim holds to the notion of the sacred and Mauss to mana as being central to a definition. The second area is ritual, where there is considerable agreement, although Mauss shows little interest in effervescence. In the final analysis, the two tend to show a complementarity in their work.

De-Centering and Re-Centering: Rethinking Concepts and Methods in the Sociological Study of Religion

Four conceptual and methodological edges or areas of study are outlined. They are located near what have been the boundaries between the sociology of religion and other subfields, where we believe a potential exists to encourage a wide range of scholars to revisit some central concepts. Paying attention to these edges—as a means to de-center to re-center our debates in new ways—not only broadens and deepens our knowledge of the “religious,” it encourages us to reexamine long-standing conceptual tools, unquestioned assumptions, and accepted methods in the sociology of religion. We illustrate these edges through a review of recent literature and examples drawn from our current empirical projects.