Everyday Religion Observing Modern Religious Lives

by Ammerman, Nancy T.

• ISBN13: 9780195305418
• ISBN10: 0195305418
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Social scientists sometimes seem not to know what to do with religion. In the first century of sociologys history as a discipline, the reigning concern was explaining the emergence of the modern world, and that brought with it an expectation that religion would simply fade from the scene as societies became diverse, complex, and enlightened. As the century approached its end, however, a variety of global phenomena remained dramatically unexplained by these theories. Among the leading contenders for explanatory power to emerge at this time were rational choice theories of religious behavior. Researchers who have spent time in the field, observing religious groups and interviewing practitioners, however, have questioned the sufficiency of these market models. Studies abound that describe thriving religious phenomena that fit neither the old secularization paradigm nor the equations predicting vitality only among organizational entrepreneurs with strict orthodoxies. In this collection of previously unpublished essays, scholars who have been immersed in field research in a wide variety of settings draw on those observations from the field to begin to develop more helpful ways to study religion in modern lives. The authors examine how religion functions on the ground in a pluralistic society, how it is experienced by individuals, and how it is expressed in social institutions. Taken as a whole, these essays point to a new approach to the study of religion, one that emphasizes individual experience and social context over strict categorization and data collection.

Author Biography

Nancy T. Ammerman is Professor of Sociology of Religion, School of Theology, and Professor of Religion at Boston University. She is the past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Contributors

Introduction

Tradition Dislodged but Not Lost

Vicarious Religion: A Methodical Challenge

Religion as Communication: The Changing Shape of Catholicism in Europe

The New Voluntarism and the Case of Unsynagogued Jews

Religion, Twice Removed: Exploring the Role of Media in Religious Understandings among "Secular" Young People

Virtually Boundless? Youth Negotiating Tradition in cyberspace

Religion "Out of Place"

Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Transnationalization of Religious Life

When a Funeral Isn't Just a Funeral: The Layered Meaning of Everyday Action

A Place on the Map: Communicating Religious Presence in Civic Life

Connections and Contradictions: Exploring the Complex Linkages between Faith and Family

Producing Everyday Religious Lives

Beyond Literalism: Reflexive Spirituality and Religious Meaning

Embodied Practices: Negotiation and Resistance

Touching the Transcendent: Rethinking Religious Experience in the Sociological Study of Religion

Studying Everyday Religion: Challenges for the Future

Index

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