The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion

Notes on Contributors viii
 
Introduction: Mapping the Sociology of Religion 1
Bryan S. Turner
 
PART I THE FOUNDATIONS 31
 
1 The Sociology of Religion: The Foundations 33
Andrew McKinnon
 
2 Durkheim and After: Religion, Culture, and Politics 52
William Ramp
 
3 The Functional Theory of Religion 76
Victor Lidz
 
4 Recent Developments in the Anthropology of Religion 103
Simon Coleman
 
PART II FROM SECULARIZATION TO RESACRALIZATION 123
 
5 Secularization 125
Steve Bruce
 
6 American Exceptionalism? 141
John Torpey
 
7 Resacralization 160
Grace Davie
 
PART III NEW DEVELOPMENTS 179
 
8 Rational Choice and the Sociology of Religion 181
David Lehmann
 
9 The Religious Habitus: Embodiment, Religion, and Sociological Theory 201
Philip A. Mellor and Chris Shilling
 
10 Women, Religions, and Feminisms 221
Fang-Long Shih
 
PART IV INSTITUTIONALIZATION: OLD AND NEW FORMS 245
 
11 New Research on Megachurches: Non-denominationalism and Sectarianism 247
Stephen Ellingson
 
12 The Sociology of Spirituality: Refl ections on a Problematic Endeavor 267
Matthew Wood
 
13 Arguing against Darwinism: Religion, Science, and Public Morality 286
Michael S. Evans and John H. Evans
 
PART V SOCIOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS 309
 
14 The Sociology of Early Christianity: From History to Theory, and Back Again 311
Joseph M. Bryant
 
15 Judaism: Covenant, Pluralism, and Piety 340
Alan Mittleman
 
16 Sociology and Anthropology of Islam: A Critical Debate 364
Gabriele Marranci
 
17 Approaches to the Study of Buddhism 388
Catherine Newell
 
18 Sociology of Hinduism 407
Pratap Kumar Penumala
 
19 Religious Awakening in China under Communist Rule: A Political Economy Approach 431
Fenggang Yang
 
20 Native American Religious Traditions: A Sociological Approach 456
Dennis F. Kelley
 
PART VI

Bryan S. Turner is the Presidential Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York Graduate School and Director of the Committee on Religion and Director of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and subsequently Professor of Sociology in the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Professor Turner was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Bielefeld University, Germany, a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, the Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor at Wellesley College, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. He recently published The Body and Society, third edition (2008), and edited The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory (2009).