Theorising Religion: Classical and Contemporary Debates

by Walliss,John; Beckford,James A.

• ISBN13: 9780754640684
• ISBN10: 075464068X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

While religious forces are powerful in numerous societies, they have little or no significance for wide swaths of public or private life in other places. This book considers the classical roots of ideas about religion that dominated sociological ways of thinking about it for most of the twentieth century. Each chapter offers sound reasons for continuing to find theoretical inspiration and challenge in the sociological classics while also seeking ways of enhancing and extending their relevance to religion today.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	vii
Introduction
James A. Beckford and John Walliss	xiii
PART I: CLASSICAL ROOTS
1 Religion as an Elementary Aspect of Society: Durkheim's Legacy for Social Theory
Philip A. Mellor	3	(16)
2 Weber, Rationalisation, and Religious Evolution in the Modern Era
Colin Campbell	19	(13)
3 Spiritualism and the (Re-)Enchantment of Modernity
John Walliss	32	(12)
4 Trajectories of Faith in the Global Age: Classical Theory and Contemporary Evidence
Frank J. Lechner	44	(16)
5 'Magico-popular Religion' in Contemporary Society: Towards a Post-Western Sociology of Religion
Cristián Parker	60	(17)
PART II: NEW GROWTH
6 Religion in Ultramodernity
Jean-Paul Willaime	77	(13)
7 Theodicy, Distribution of Risk, and Reflexive Modernisation: Explaining the Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements
Robert A. Campbell	90	(15)
8 Privatisation, Globalisation, and Religious Innovation: Giddens' Theory of Modernity and the Refutation of Secularisation Theory
Lorne L Dawson	105	(15)
9 From Creeds to Burgers: Religious Control, Spiritual Search, and the Future of the World
John Drane	120	(12)
10 Understanding Honour and Religion as Resource and Constraint for Young British Asians
Hannah Bradby	132	(17)
11 Preference Structures and Normative Constraints in Movements Outside, Between, and Within Religious Organisations
Darren E. Sherkat	149	(20)
PART III: FRESH BLOOMS
12 Narrative Versus Theory in the Sociology of Religion: Five Stories of Religion's Place in the Late Modern World
James V. Spickard	169	(13)
13 'A Minimalist Sociology of Religion'?
James A. Beckford	182	(15)
14 New Media, Niche Markets, and the Body: Excarnate and Hypercarnate Challenges for Theory and Theology
David Lyon	197	(14)
15 Inner Speech and Religious Traditions
Douglas J. Davies	211	(13)
16 Sickness and Salvation: Social Theories of the Body in the Sociology of Religion
Freda Mold	224	(13)
17 Breaching Bleaching: Integrating Studies of 'Race' and Ethnicity with the Sociology of Religion
Matthew Wood	237	(14)
Index	251