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Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology.This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods (surveys, polls, demographic and census analysis) and of qualitative approaches (such as participant observation, interviewing, and analysis of archival ...
In the sociology of religion, the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology. The typology is differently construed by different sociologists, and various distinctive features have been proposed to characterise churches and sects. On most accounts, the following features are deemed relevant:
Nancy T. Ammerman is Professor Emerita of Sociology of Religion at Boston University.Her edited anthology Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives [2] was a significant advance in the study of everyday religion—the term she tends to prefer—by bringing together work by scholars such as Courtney Bender [4] and Meredith McGuire [5] who have shaped the study of living religion ...
In sociology and especially the sociological study of religion, plausibility structures are the sociocultural contexts for systems of meaning within which these meanings make sense, or are made plausible. Beliefs and meanings held by individuals and groups are supported by, and embedded in, sociocultural institutions and processes.
Bellah's magnum opus, Religion in Human Evolution (2011), [22] traces the biological and cultural origins of religion and the interplay between the two. The sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas wrote of the work: "This great book is the intellectual harvest of the rich academic life of a leading social theorist who has assimilated a vast range of biological, anthropological, and ...
The theories by Tylor and Frazer (focusing on the explanatory value of religion for its adherents), by Rudolf Otto (focusing on the importance of religious experience, more specifically experiences that are both fascinating and terrifying) and by Mircea Eliade (focusing on the longing for otherworldly perfection, the quest for meaning, and the ...
Whereas the sociology of religion broadly differs from theology in assuming the invalidity of the supernatural, theorists tend to acknowledge socio-cultural reification of religious practise. The sociology of religion also deals with how religion impacts society regarding the positive and negatives of what happens when religion is mixed with ...
Beckford is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Warwick, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a former president of both the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. He has authored or edited a dozen books about new religious movements and cult controversies and has ...