Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularisation and the State

by Bryan S. Turner

• ISBN13: 9780521675321
• ISBN10: 0521675324
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-09
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Religion is now high on the public agenda, with recent events focusing the world's attention on Islam in particular. This book provides a unique historical and comparative analysis of the place of religion in the emergence of modern secular society. Bryan S. Turner considers the problems of multicultural, multifaith societies and legal pluralism in terms of citizenship and the state, with special emphasis on the problems of defining religion and the sacred in the secularization debate. He explores a range of issues central to current debates: the secularization thesis itself, the communications revolution, the rise of youth spirituality, feminism, piety and religious revival. Religion and Modern Society contributes to political and ethical controversies through discussions of cosmopolitanism, religion and globalization. It concludes with a pessimistic analysis of the erosion of the social in modern society and the inability of new religions to provide 'social repair'.

Author Biography

Bryan S. Turner is the Presidential Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and Director of the Committee on Religion, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, University of Western Australia, Sydney. He is a prominent figure in the field of the sociology of religion and editor of The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (2006).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Introduction: the state of the sociology of religion	p. viii
Theoretical frameworks: the problem of religion in sociology	p. 1
Religion, religions and the body	p. 3
Émile Durkheim and the classification of religion	p. 30
Max Weber and comparative religion	p. 53
Talcott Parsons and the expressive revolution	p. 71
Mary Douglas and Modern Primitives	p. 84
Pierre Bourdieu and religious practice	p. 102
Religion, state and post-secularity	p. 125
The secularisation thesis	p. 127
Legal pluralism, religion and multiculturalism	p. 151
Managing religions: liberal and authoritarian states	p. 175
Religious speech: on ineffable communication	p. 194
Spiritualities: the media, feminism and consumerism	p. 209
Religion, globalisation and cosmopolitanism	p. 228
Civil religion, citizenship and the business cycle	p. 255
The globalisation of piety	p. 271
References	p. 298
Index	p. 333
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