Module Handbook: The Sociology of Religion – 30 credits
(SOC 3015)
Semester One, 2007-08
Professor Grace Davie
g.r.c.davie@ex.ac.uk, 01392 263302, Room A350
Rebecca Catto
r.a.catto@exeter.ac.uk
Aims
The module aims to do three things: to introduce students to the major theoretical
approaches within the sociology of religion; to broach a variety of contemporary debates
(for example the secularization debate, fundamentalisms, globalization, and so on.); and
to examine these within a variety of contexts (Britain, Europe, North America, and
beyond). Methodological issues will be considered an integral part of the course.
Intended learning outcomes
Subject-specific skills: The acquisition of knowledge in the sociology of religion,
together with an analytical understanding of the subject which takes into account
appropriate historical and theoretical perspectives.
Core academic skills: The ability to relate a body of knowledge to a specific historical
context. Competence to think clearly and argue logically about contemporary – as well
as historical – material. The ability to articulate complex ideas both orally and in writing.
Personal and key skills: Independent study and group work. The ability to select
appropriately from a wide range of material and to present key arguments clearly. The
capacity to empathize with religious minorities and to appreciate that the familiar is not
necessarily the norm.
Assignments
Regular preparation for classroom presentations, written work of various kinds, and one
exercise in observation (to be completed during Reading Week).
Assessment and coursework
Formative work:
One book review (500 words) and one non-assessed essay based on your exercise in
observation (2000 words)
Due date: Tuesday 20 November 2007.
Summative work
One assessed essay (4000 words) worth 33% of the final mark.
Due date: Thursday 17 January 2008
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A two-hour exam in which students are required to answer two questions. The exam is
worth 67% of the final mark. Please note: questions answered in the exam should not
duplicate material from the assessed essay.
More information regarding assignments, including a list of essay titles, can be found on
pp. 18-20 of this outline. Careful instruction about the exam will be given in the final
session.
Penalties
School procedures regarding absence and late submission of assessed work will apply.
These, together with the penalties that may be incurred, are outlined in the undergraduate
student handbook: http://www.huss.ex.ac.uk/studentUG/handbook/. Please read this
very carefully.
Lecture topics and reading
Topics and related reading are listed below. You should read as much as possible, and
learn to find your own sources. Be prepared to browse; to get to know the library
shelves, especially at 301.58, 305.6 and 306.6 and thereabouts, and to make use of other
library facilities – e.g. the Old Library, St Luke’s, other university libraries, public
libraries and electronic resources. Use the latter wisely, and remember to cite your
source when you use websites (author, date, title, URL and the date accessed).
Students are also expected to follow current debates on religious issues. These are many
and varied. Take care to keep accurate files on the chains of events as they unfold and
think carefully about how to interpret these.
Abbreviations
ASR: American Sociological Review
BJS: British Journal of Sociology
CUP: Cambridge University Press
JSSR: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
OUP: Oxford University Press
UP: University Press
Some basic reading
Course text:
G. Davie Sociology of Religion. London: Sage 2007
See also:
W. Swatos (ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. Walnut Creek CA: Alta Mira
1998 – available on line
J. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion.
London: Sage 2007
(This handbook will be published in November 2007; it will contain an enormous
amount of material relevant to this module.)
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G. Davie Religion in Britain since 1945. London: Blackwell 1994
G. Davie Religion in Modern Europe. Oxford: OUP 2000
G. Davie Europe: the Exceptional Case, Parameters of Faith in the Modern World.
London: Darton, Longman and Todd 2002
S. Bruce Religion in Modern Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995
S. Bruce From Cathedrals to Cults: Religion in the Modern World. Oxford: OUP1996
S. Bruce Politics and Religion. Cambridge: Polity Press 2003
P. Berger The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics.
Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans 1999
After Secularization: Charlottesville, VA: Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture,
University of Virginia, 2006
Please note: Items marked ** on the following reading list will be made available to
students through TR, through photocopies or by means of the following web-space:
http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/grcdavie/
Outline Syllabus (with dates)
Week 1 (October 2)
Week 2 (October 9)
Week 3 (October 16)
Week 4 (October 23)
Week 5 (October 30)
Introduction, outline of the module
Definitions of religion
The classics
Understanding secularization
Rational choice theory
Religion and modernity
Religion in modern Britain
Planning your assignments
Methodologies
Into the field (RC)
November 6 (no classes – reading week). I suggest that you complete your observation
in this week
Week 6 (November 13)
Week 7 (November 20)
Week 8 (November 27)
Week 9 (December 4)
Week 10 (January 8)
Week 11 (January 15)
Religion in Europe: mainstreams and
margins
Stepping Westward: the United States and
beyond
Understanding fundamentalism(s): some examples – the
New Christian Right, Iran
Multiple modernities: some examples – Latin America,
China; Assessed essays
Religion and the everyday: welfare and well-being;
gender and age; death and dying
Conclusion and questions; Preparation for the exam
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Detailed plan of work
Week 1: Introduction and definitions
In addition to G. Davie (2007), the following are useful references for this and indeed the
next section of the module
W. Swatos (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Religion and Society. Walnut Creek CA: Alta Mira
1998. Also available on line: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/index.html
R. Fenn (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion. Oxford:
Blackwell 2000
R. Segal (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell
2006.
J. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion.
London: Sage 2007
J. Beckford Religion and Advanced Industrial Society. London Unwin Hyman 1989
J. Beckford Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge: CUP 2003
R. O'Toole Religion: Classic Sociological Approaches. Toronto: McGraw-Hill
Ryerson 1984
Introduction and outline
** Please read Chapter 1 of G. Davie The Sociology of Religion
This will be circulated before the first tutorial:
Definitions of religion
Appropriate sections of Davie (2007), Beckford (2003) and O'Toole (1984)
A. Blasi ‘Definitions’, in W. Swatos (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Religion and Society
E. Barker ‘The scientific study of religion? You must be joking!' JSSR, (34) 1995
E. Durkheim The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: Allen Unwin 1976
(first published 1913), ch.1
R. Wallis and S. Bruce 'Religion: The British Contribution', British Journal of
Sociology, (3) 1989
K. Thompson 'Religion: The British Contribution', British Journal of Sociology, (4)
1990. (Thompson is a reply to Wallis and Bruce)
Why is it so difficult to define religion? Why is it important to try? What practical
questions follow from this in modern societies including our own? Legal as well as
sociological questions are significant.
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Weeks 2 and 3: Theoretical approaches
The Classics
Appropriate sections of Davie (2007), Beckford (1989), O'Toole (1994) and Swatos
(1999)
K. Marx and F. Engels On Religion
D. McLellan Marxism and Religion. London: MacMillan 1987
D.B. McKown The Classic Marxist Critique of Religion: Marx,
Engels and Kautsky. The Hague: Nijhoff 1975
N. Birnbaum 'Beyond Marx in the sociology of religion', in C.Y. Glock and P.
Hammond (eds) Beyond the Classics? Essays in the Study of Religion. New
York/London: Harper Row 1973
M. Weber The Sociology of Religion, Methuen 1965 (first
published 1922)
M. Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Scribner’s and
Sons 1958 (first published 1904)
S. Sharot A Comparative Sociology of World Religions. New York: New York
University Press 2001
E. Durkheim The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: Allen Unwin 1976 (first
published 1913), ch.1
W. Pickering Durkheim on Religion. London: Routledge 1975
S. Lukes Emile Durkheim: his Life and his Work. London: Allen
Lane 1973
R. Bellah 'Civil Religion in America', Daedalus 96 (1967), reprinted in R. Bellah
Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post Traditional World. New York:
Harper and Row 1970
To what extent do the insights of the founding fathers of sociology continue to inform the
debate about religion in the modern world? Can we build on to their theoretical
foundations or is it necessary to make a new start for the twenty-first century?
Secularization: Process and Theory
Appropriate sections of Davie (2007), Beckford (2003) and Swatos (1999)
After Secularization: Charlottesville, VA: Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture,
University of Virginia, 2006 – a recent and very interesting set of articles
B. Wilson 'Secularization: the inherited model', in P.E. Hammond (ed.) The Sacred in
a Secular Age. Berkeley CA: University of California Press 1984; note other
essays in this collection which are more hesitant about secularization
B. Wilson Religion in a Sociological Perspective. Oxford: OUP 1982
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B. Wilson (ed.) Religion: Contemporary Issues. The All Souls Seminars in the
Sociology of Religion. London: Bellew 1992
B. Wilson ‘The Secularization thesis: criticisms and rebuttal’, in B. Wilson, J. Billiet
and R.Laermans (Eds), Secularization and social integration: Papers in honour
of Karel Dobbelaere. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
D. Martin A General Theory of Secularization. London: Blackwell 1979
D. Martin 'The secularization issue: prospect and retrospect'. BJS 1991/3
D. Martin On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory. London: Ashgate
2004 (on order for the library)
S. Bruce (ed.) Religion and Modernization. Oxford: OUP 1992
S. Bruce From Cathedrals to Cults: Religion in the Modern World. Oxford: OUP 1995
S. Bruce God is Dead. Oxford: Blackwell 2002
K. Dobbelaere 'Secularization: a multi-dimensional concept'. Current Sociology, 29/2,
1981
E. Barker, J. Beckford and K. Dobbelaere (eds) Secularization, Rationalism and
Sectarianism, Clarendon Press, 1993
R. Laermans, B. Wilson and J. Billiet (eds) Secularization and Social Integration :
papers in honour of Karel Dobbelaere, Leuven University Press 1999
A great deal of material within the sociology of religion has been 'ordered' within the
framework of secularization. Why should this be so? Is the framework still appropriate?
The complexity of the secularization process. The gradual emergence of alternative
frames of reference.
Please note: The work of Peter Berger and Jose Casanova will be dealt in the lecture(s)
on religion and modernity
Rational Choice Theory
Appropriate sections of Davie (2007) and Swatos (1999)
L. A. Young Rational Choice Theory and Religion: Summary and Assessment. New
York/London: Routledge 1997
R. Stark and W. Bainbridge The Future of Religion. Berkeley CA: University of
California Press 1985
R. Stark and W. Bainbridge A Theory of Religion. New York: Peter Lang 1987
R. Stark and R. Finke Acts of Faith. Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley
CA: University of California Press 2000
R. Stark and L. Iannaccone 'A supply-side reinterpretation of the "secularization" of
Europe'. JSSR (33) 1994
E. Hamberg and T. Pettersson 'The religious market: denominational competition and
religious participation in contemporary Sweden'. JSSR (33) 1994
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S. Bruce Choice and Religion: a Critique of Rational Choice Theory. Oxford: OUP
1999
S. Bruce 'The truth about religion in Britain'. JSSR (34) 1995; this article is full of
additional references to the rational choice debate.
S. Bruce ‘The pervasive world-view: religion in pre-modern Britain’. BJS 1997/
D. Voas, D. Olsen and A. Crockett ‘Religious pluralism and participation: why previous
research is wrong?’ ASR (67) 2002
Rational choice theory is an example of relatively recent sociological thinking applied to
religious issues. It has generated a very considerable literature. Its main protagonists are
Stark, Bainbridge, Finke and Iannaccone. Bruce takes a very different view. This
material is also useful for comparisons between Europe (including Britain) and the
United States. Keep an eye on the sequence of articles in JSSR from 1990 on – you will
find any number of case studies here.
Religion and Modernity
Appropriate sections of Davie (2007)
P. Berger A Far Glory; the Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity. New York:
Doubleday 1992
P. Berger (ed.) The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World
Politics. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans 1999
G. Davie Religion in Modern Britain. Oxford: Blackwell: 1994, especially chapter 10
G. Davie Europe: the Exceptional Case. Parameters of Faith in the Modern World,
London: DLT 2002
S. Eisenstadt ‘Multiple Modernities’. Daedalus 129/1, 2000, and ‘Early Modernities’.
Daedalus, 127/3 1998
J. Beckford Religion and Advanced Industrial Society. London Unwin Hyman 1989,
chapter 4 and conclusion
J. Beckford Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge: CUP 2003
S. Bruce From Cathedrals to Cults: Religion in the Modern World. Oxford: OUP 1996
S. Bruce Politics and Religion. Cambridge: Polity Press 2003
J. Casanova Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press 1994
K. Flanagan and P. Jupp (eds) Postmodernity, Sociology and Religion. London:
Macmillan 1996, especially the chapter on Danièle Hervieu-Léger
P. Heelas (ed.) Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell 1998
P. Heelas and L.Woodhead (eds) Religion in Modern Times. Oxford: Blackwell 1999
P. Beyer Religion and Globalization. London: Sage 1994
A. Ahmed Postmodernism and Islam. London: Routledge, 1993
E. Gellner Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London: Routledge, 1993
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The mutations of modernity provide a framework within which the various strands of the
module - both theoretical and empirical - can be brought together. The lecture will
introduce the concepts of ‘multiple modernities’ and ‘European exceptionalism’ – issues
to be revisited later in the module.
Weeks 4 and 5: Preparing for fieldwork
Please note: At this point in the module, you should be thinking through the various
assignments required of you. Think of these in the round so that each piece of work
contributes to the whole.
The context: Religion in modern Britain
Background reading
P. Brierley (ed.) UK Christian Handbook. London: Christian Research Association
(latest edition)
P. Weller (ed.) Religions in the UK : a multi-faith directory. Derby: University of Derby
in association with The Interfaith Network for the United Kingdom (latest edition)
G. Davie Religion in Britain since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell 1994
** G. Davie. ‘From Obligation to Consumption: a Framework for Reflection in Northern
Europe’. Political Theology, 6/3, 2005
G. Davie, P. Heelas and L. Woodhead Predicting Religion: Christian, Secular and
Alternative Futures. London: Ashgate 2002
S. Bruce Religion in Modern Britain. Oxford: OUP 1995
C. Brown The Death of Christian Britain. London: Routledge 2000
G. Parsons The Growth of Religious Diversity, Vols 1 & 2, London: Routledge (with the
Open University) 1993
P. Lewis Islamic Britain: Religion, Politics and Identity among British Muslim:
Bradford in the 1990s. London: Tauris 1994
T. Modood Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity, and Muslims in Britain.
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press 2005
J. Fetzer and C.J. Soper Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany.
Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 2005
E. Poole Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims. London : I.B.
Tauris, 2002
The material on Islam in Europe is growing all the time. Much of it is held in the Old
Library which is well worth a visit if you want to work in this area.
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Note the information available from the 2001 British Census:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census/. Put ‘religion’ into the search box.
** D. Voas and S. Bruce ‘Research note. The 2001 census and Christian identification
in Britain’. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19, 2004
** P. Weller ‘Identity politics and the future(s) of religion in the UK. The case of the
religion questions in the 2001 decennial census’. Journal of Contemporary
Religion, 19, 2004
See also:
(a) the European Values Survey (EVS) material (listed under Religion in Modern
Europe) and increasingly frequent, up to date press articles on many aspects of religion
in Britain.
(a) the reading on age and gender (listed under Religion and the Everyday).
From believing without belonging to vicarious religion: frameworks for understanding
G. Davie Religion in Britain since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell 1994
** G. Davie 'Believing without belonging. Is this the future of religion in Britain'.
Social Compass 1990/4
G. Davie '”An Ordinary God”: The paradox of religion in contemporary Britain’. BJS
1990/3
G. Davie ‘Religion in modern Britain: changing sociological assumptions’. Sociology,
2000/1
G. Davie ‘The persistence of institutional religion in modern Europe’, in P. Heelas and
L. Woodhead (eds), Peter Berger and the Study of Religion. London: Routledge,
2001
** G. Davie ‘Vicarious religion: a methodological challenge’, in N. Ammerman (ed.),
Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives. New York: Oxford 2006
T. Jenkins Religion in Everyday English Life. New York: Berghahn Books 1999
Note the critique of this approach in S. Bruce Religion in Modern Britain, and D. Voas
and A. Crockett ‘Religion in Britain: Neither believing nor belonging’, Sociology, 39,
2005.
Is believing without belonging a helpful concept in the understanding of religion in
modern Britain? What are the possible alternatives? What is meant by ‘vicarious
religion’? How does this differ from believing without belonging? How might
either/both of these perspective help you to interpret the observations that you make in
the field?
What about Exeter/Devon? How do they differ from the national norm? What features
exist in the South-West in particular? How might you take these into account?
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Getting started
Read Chapter 6 in Davie (2007) and think carefully about what you have learnt about
research methods in other modules. To what extent can you apply the general methods of
social science to the religious field? What factors must you take into consideration in
order to answer this question? At the same time, think carefully about what you are
trying to do. Remember that this is an exercise in observation, not a full-scale
sociological enquiry.
In this lecture we will spend time thinking about possible research sites, about gaining
access and how to conduct your fieldwork. This introduction will be followed up in
tutorials.
A worked example: Rebecca Catto will do this for us, drawing on the fieldwork that she
has completed both for her MA and for her Ph D.
Please note: If you want to do your observation on a small group or minority religion,
please be sure that you have prepared adequately for this. It is very important that you
are confident about this task. Please ask for more information if you are not sure about
what to do.
Weeks 6 to 9: Comparative perspectives
R.Wuthnow (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. London/New York:
Routledge 1998 and G. Davie: Europe: the Exceptional Case will be useful for the
section as a whole. If you can get hold of the 2006 edition of Wuthnow, so much the
better.
Religion in Modern Europe: Unity and Diversity
G. Davie ‘Europe: the exception that proves the rule’, in P. Berger (ed.) The
Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand
Rapids MI: Eerdmans 1999
G. Davie Religion in Modern Europe: a memory mutates. Oxford: OUP 2000
G. Davie Europe: the Exceptional Case. London: DLT 2002
G. Davie ‘Is Europe an exceptional case?’ The Hedgehog Review, 8/1-2
** G. Davie ‘Religion in Europe in the 21st century: the factors to take into account’,
Archives européennes de sociologie/ European Journal of Sociology, 65
A. Greeley Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium: A Sociological
Profile. London: transaction 2003
T. Byrnes and P. Katzenstein (eds) Religion in an Expanding Europe. New
York/Cambridge: CUP 2006
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P. Jenkins God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis.
Oxford: OUP 2007
G. Robbers (ed.) State and Church in the European Union. Baden-Baden: Nomos
Verlagsgesellschaft 2005
The following 6 studies contain material from the 1981 and 1990 enquiries of the
European Values Study.
M. Abrams, G. Gerard and N Timms (eds) Values and Social Change in Britain.
Basingstoke: MacMillan 1985
N. Timms Family and Citizenship, Values in Contemporary Britain. Aldershot:
Dartmouth 1992
S. Harding, D. Phillips with M. Fogarty Contrasting Values in Western Europe.
Basingstoke: MacMillan 1986
S. Ashford and N. Timms What Europe Thinks: a Study of Western European Values.
Aldershot: Dartmouth 1992
** D. Barker, L. Halman and A. Vloet The European Values Study 1981-1990:
Summary Report, European Values Group 1992
P. Ester, L. Halman and R. de Moor The Individualizing Society. Value Change in
Europe and North America. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press 1994
Material from the 1999/2000 EVS study is also available. See
http://www.europeanvalues.nl/index2.htm for up to date details of the EVS project and
the publications that are emerging from this.
Religious minorities in Europe
J. Webber (ed.) Jewish Identities in the New Europe. London: Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization 1994.
B. Wasserstein Vanishing Diaspora. The Jews in Europe since 1945 London: Hamish
Hamilton 1996
A note for those of you doing the option on The Holocaust and Society; there are clear
cross-overs between the two modules at this point.
J. Cesari (ed.) When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United
States. New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2004
** G. Davie ‘Pluralism, tolerance and democracy: theory and practice in Europe’, in T.
Banchoff (ed.) Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism. Oxford: OUP 2007
J. Fetzer and C. Soper Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany.
Cambridge/New York: CUP 2004
J. Klausen The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe. New York:
OUP 2005
J. Nielsen Muslims and Western Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP 2004
S. Vertovec and C. Peach (ed.) Islam in Europe: the Politics of Religion and
Community. Basinstoke: MacMillan and CRER 1997
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If you are interested in material on new religious movements/other minority religions, see
the excellent and frequently updated website of CESNUR (Centre for Studies on New
Religions): www.cesnur.org and J. Beckford Cult Controversies, Tavistock Publications
1985, chapters 7 and 8
Are the patterns of religion in modern Britain similar to or different from our European
neighbours? It will be possible within this section to develop material for one or more
European countries. People with linguistic ability have a big advantage here but it is
possible for everyone to do.
Stepping Westward: The United States and beyond
R.Williams ‘American Religion’, in W. Swatos (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Society 1998.
** T. Caplow 'Contrasting trends in European and American Religion'. Sociological
Analysis, 2, 1985
K. Hadaway., P. Marler and M. Chaves ‘What the polls don’t show: a closer look at
church attendance’. ASR (58) 1993. See also the follow up discussion in ASR
(63) 1998.
N. Ammerman Congregation and Community, Doubleday 1997
N. Ammerman Pillars of Faith : American Congregations and their Partners. Berkeley
CA: University of California Press 2005
T. Dowdy and P. McNamara (eds) Religion, North American Style, Rutgers University
Press 1997
R. Finke and R. Stark The Churching of America, 1776-1990. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press 1992 (a new edition appeared in 2005)
W.C. Roof and W. McKinney American Mainline Religion: its changing shape and
future, Rutgers University Press 1987
W.C. Roof A Generation of Seekers, Harper Collins 1993
W.C.Roof The Spiritual Marketplace, Princeton University Press 1999
R. Wuthnow The Restructuring of American Religion, Princeton University Press 1989
R. Wuthnow After Heaven. Spirituality in America since the 1950s. Princeton
University Press 1999.
M. Noll American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell 2000
C. Smith American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press 1998
C. Smith Christian America? What Evangelicals Really Want. Berkeley CA: University
of California Press 2000
C. Smith Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.
Oxford: OUP 2005.
The last four of these titles merge into the material on the New Christian Right and its
place in American society (see below). For more general material, you can also access
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the Association of Religion Data Archives (www.thearda.com), where you will find a
mass of empirical data on religion in the United States and indeed beyond. (This used to
be the American Religion Data Archive).
The United States continues to display a degree of religious activity long since absent
from Europe. Why should this be so? What are the consequences of this for other
aspects of American life? What is the place of Canada (and indeed Australia and New
Zealand) in these comparisons?
Understanding fundamentalisms
The Fundamentalism Project. The following five volumes are referenced under their
joint editors M Marty and R Scott Appleby – all of them are published by the University
of Chicago Press
Fundamentalism Observed, 1991
Fundamentalism and Society, 1993
Fundamentalism and the State, 1993
Accounting for Fundamentalisms, 1994
Fundamentalisms Comprehended, 1995
S. Eisenstadt Fundamentalism, Sectarianism and Revolutions. The Jacobin Dimension
of Modernity. Cambridge: CUP 1999
H. Harris Fundamentalism and Evangelicals. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998
M. Percy Words, Wonder and Power: Understanding Contemporary Christian
Fundamentalism and Revivalism. London: SPCK: 1996
J. S. Hawley (ed.) Fundamentalism and Gender. Oxford: OUP 1994
L. Kaplan Fundamentalism in a comparative perspective. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press 1992
L. Caplan Studies in Religious Fundamentalism. Basingstoke: MacMillan 1987
Is there such a thing as 'fundamentalism', or should we use this word in the plural? The
need for care with the concept. How can a sociologist contribute to a better
understanding of this complex phenomenon? Is it part of or antithetical to modernity?
The New Christian Right
N. Ammerman Bible Believers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutbers University Press 1987
J. Wallis God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. New
York: Harper Collins 2005
K. Phillips American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and
Borrowed Money in the 21st Century . Penguin Books (CA): 2007
13
S. Bates God's Own Country: Tales from the Bible Belt: Power and the Religious Right
in the USA. London: Hodder and Stoughton 2007
M. Lindsay Faith in the Hall of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite.
New York: OUP 2007
S. Bruce One Nation under God: Observations on the New Christian Right in America.
Belfast: The Queen's University 1983
S. Bruce The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988
S Bruce Pray TV. Televangelism in America. OUP 1990
In light of the continued and frequently controversial influence of the New Christian
Right in American politics, look again at Bruce’s predictions about the rise and fall of the
New Christian Right. Were his predictions correct?
I will prepare separate bibliographies for those students who want to explore case studies
in different parts of the world. For those of you interested in the Muslim world, there is
an enormous amount of material available in the Old Library.
Understanding multiple modernities
G. Davie Europe: the Exceptional Case. Parameters of Faith in the Modern World,
London: DLT 2002
S. Eisenstadt ‘Multiple Modernities’, Daedalus 129/1,2000, and ‘Early Modernities’
Daedalus, 127/3 1998
D. Sachsenmeier Reflections on Multiple Modernities : European, Chinese, and other
interpretations. Leiden: Brill, 2002
M. Kamali Multiple Modernities, Civil Society and Islam : the case of Iran and Turkey.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006
P. Beyer Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge 2006
S. Taylor The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International
Relations. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan 2005
S. Huntington: ‘The clash of civilizations’. Foreign Affairs, 72: 22-50
S. Huntington The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. New
York: Simon and Schuster 2000
R. Inglehart Modernization and Postmodernization. Cultural, Economic and Political
Change in 43 Societies. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press 2000
R. Inglehart and W. Baker ‘Modernization, cultural change and the persistence of
traditional values’, ASR (65) 2000
P. Norris and R. Inglehart Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around
the World. Cambridge: CUP, 2003
P. Norris and R. Inglehart Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.
Cambridge: CUP 2004
P. Jenkins The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford: OUP
2002 (a revised and expanded edition appeared in 2007)
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P. Jenkins The New Faces of Christianity. Believing the Bible in the Global South.
Oxford: OUP 2006
What does the term ‘multiple modernities’ mean? What is its relevance to the study of
religion in the modern world? Are you persuaded by this approach and what is its
significance for the paradigms outlined in the early sections of this module? For those
who are interested, a large secondary literature on multiple modernities is now appearing.
Pentecostalism in Latin America (and beyond)
D. Martin Tongues of Fire: the Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford:
Blackwell 1990
D. Martin Forbidden Revolutions. London: SPCK 1996
D. Martin Pentecostalism: the World their Parish. London:
Blackwell 2001
D. Lehmann Democracy and Development in Latin America: Economics, Politics and
Religion in the Postwar Period. Cambridge: Polity 1990
D. Lehmann Struggle for the Spirit. Cambridge: Polity 1996
D. Stoll Is Latin America Turning Protestant? Berkeley: University of California Press
1990
P. Freston Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge:
CUP 2001
R. Ireland Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil. Pittsburgh PA: University
of Pittsburgh Press 1991
C. Smith and J. Prokopy (eds) Latin American Religion in Motion. New York/London:
Routledge.
This lecture will concentrate on the explosion of Pentecostalism in Latin America (and in
other part of the developing world). How can we account for this growth? And why has
Pentecostalism not penetrated Europe? Is Europe an exceptional case? On the final point
see P. Jenkins ‘Colliding Diasporas: How global Christianity and global Islam encounter
each other in Europe’ (see http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/). Do you agree
with this analysis?
I will prepare separate bibliographies for those students who want to explore case studies
in different parts of the world. The Chinese case, for example, is complex but very
fascinating.
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Week 10: Religion and the everyday
Religion, welfare and well-being: the WREP and WaVE projects
This section of the module is rather different. It draws on two large-scale and continuing
comparative projects on religion and welfare in Europe. Full details of each can be found
on their respective websites: http://www.student.teol.uu.se/wrep/ for the ‘Welfare and
Religion in a European Perspective’ (WREP) project and http://www.waveproject.org/
for the ‘Welfare and Values in Europe’ (WaVE) project.
The second of these grew out of the former and starts from the assumption that concepts
such as ‘cultural identities’ and ‘values’ can best be understood by looking at the ways in
which they are expressed and developed in practice. The project, therefore, studies the
interactions between diverse value systems as seen from the perspective of welfare. Who
offers what to whom and for what reasons are understood in the project as critical
markers of values in a given context.
Both projects will be used to illustrate the genesis and development of a large-scale
research project on religion at a critical moment in the evolution of Europe. An
interesting subtext emerges: in what ways might this work be different if it were carried
out in the United States?
The significance of age and gender
G. Davie Religion in Britain since 1945, chapters 7 and 9
A. Walter and G. Davie ‘The religiosity of women in the modern West’. BJS 1998/4
L.J. Francis and C. Wilson ‘Religiosity and femininity. Do women really hold more
positive attitudes towards Christianity?’ JSSR 1998/3
C. Brown The Death of Christian Britain. London: Routledge 2001
L. Woodhead ‘Feminism and the sociology of religion: from gender blindness to
gendered difference’, in R. Fenn, The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of
Religion’. Oxford: Blackwell 2000
L. Woodhead ‘Religion and gender’, in L. Woodhead et al, Religions in the Modern
World: Traditions and Transformations. London: Routledge 2001
B. Martin ‘The Pentecostal gender paradox: a cautionary tale for the sociology of
religion’, in R. Fenn, The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion’.
Oxford: Blackwell 2000
U. King (ed.) Religion and Gender. Oxford: Blackwell 1994
S. Sered 'Childbirth as a religious experience? Voices from an Israeli Hospital'. Journal
of Feminist Studies, 1991
G. Davie and J. Vincent ‘Progress report: Religion and old age’. Ageing and Society, 18,
1998
** K. Howse Religion, spirituality and older people, Centre for Policy on Ageing, 1999
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Gender is critical to both the WREP and WaVe projects . Indeed it is a critical variable
in the work of religion more generally. Are women differently religious from men? If
so, is there a satisfactory explanation for such findings? What are the consequences of
this situation for the future of religion?
Work on welfare is necessarily connected to the care of elderly people in modern
European societies. The elderly, moreover, are differently religious from the young.
That said, new trends are emerging in the beliefs of young people in different parts of
Europe. What are these and how can they be explained?
Religion, death and dying
Start by looking carefully at the website of the ‘Centre for Death and Society’ at the
University of Bath: http://www.bath.ac.uk/cdas/index.html. Ask yourself why such a
Centre has been established in the first decade of the twenty-first century? What is its
purpose and what kind of work is carried out under its auspices? What is the place of
religion in its work?
P Aries The Hour of our Death, Penguin 1983
R Bardis The History of Thanatology, University Press of America 1981
Z Baumann Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies, Polity Press 1992
G Howarth Death and Dying: A Sociological Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press
2006
A. Kellehear A Social History of Dying. Cambridge: CUP 2007
D Clark (ed.) The Sociology of Death. Oxford: Blackwell 1993
R Williams A Protestant Legacy. Attitudes to death and illness among older
Aberdonians. Oxford: Clarendon 1990
T. Walter The Revival of Death. London: Routledge 1994
T. Walter The Eclipse of Eternity. Basingstoke: Macmillan 1996
T. Walter 'Modern Death, taboo or not taboo?' Sociology 25 1992
T. Walter 'The mourning after Hillsborough' Sociological Review 39 1991
Death brings both individuals and communities face to face with the finite nature of
human life. Traditionally religion has provided explanations for this. How, then, do
secular societies cope with the ‘problem’? How should we interpret the reactions to – say
– the death of Princess Diana in 1997? More recent material from 11 September 2001
and the continuing fear of terrorism will also be relevant.
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Week 11 Retrospect
Filling the gaps; clarifications; cross-overs with other modules
Conclusion and Questions
Preparing for the exam
Tutorial assignments
Each group will have ten tutorials:
The first tutorial will be based on Chapter 1 of G. Davie The Sociology of Religion,
which will be circulated beforehand.
Some time in this tutorial will be spent planning the subsequent tutorials and assigning
tasks/ reading to each student for the whole semester.
The tutorial(s) in weeks 4 and (if necessary) 5 should be set aside in order to plan local
visits. Time should be allocated for feedback from these visits.
You will need to consider the following:
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how to identify and find places and people to observe
how to conduct your fieldwork
how to record what you have observed
how to write about your findings.
For the remaining tutorials, each group will select a range of topics to study in detail.
The selection may vary from group to group, but should include at least two theoretical
approaches and two case studies, bearing in mind that the material overlaps to some
extent.
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Written assignments
Formative work:
One book review (500 words) and one non-assessed essay (2000 words)
Due date: Tuesday 20 November 2007.
Book review (500 words) – due date: Tuesday 20 November 2007
A good book review informs as well critiques. The reader should have a clear idea of
what the book is about (its contents and principal ideas). It should also contain one or
two comments of your own – either commending or critiquing the book (or both).
Thirdly, wherever possible, you should relate the book to others in the field. What,
particularly, does it add to the literature?
Non-assessed essay (2000 words) – due date: Tuesday 20 November 2007
This essay will be an account of your fieldwork visit and will include the following
items:
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
date, time and place of your visit
description of your research site – including information about how and why your
chose this
an account of your visit – what happened on the day
your major observations
your comments on your findings in light of the sociological literature covered in the
module so far.
Assessed essay (4000 words) – due date: Thursday 17 January 2008
This is a summative essay – i.e. the mark that you receive will form part of your final
mark. Please remember that you cannot repeat the material from this essay in the exam.
Please think about this carefully before choosing your title from the list below.
1. Is the search for a definition of religion a waste of time?
1. To what extent does the work of the founding fathers inform the sociological
debate about religion at the start of the twenty-first century?
2. Are you persuaded by the secularization thesis? If not, why not? Your answer
should include empirical examples to support your point of view.
3. Rational choice theory illuminates the sociological understanding of religion.
Discuss.
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4. Large parts of the modern world are ‘as furiously religious as ever’ (Berger 1992).
Do you support this point of view concerning the nature of religion in the modern
world? Your answer should include both theoretical and empirical material.
5. Compare and contrast the approaches of Steve Bruce and Grace Davie to the
religious life of modern Britain.
6. Is church-going deviant behaviour in either modern Britain, or modern Europe?
7. Can you explain the differences in religious activity between Europe and the
United States?
8. Given the patterns of religion in the modern world, are you more persuaded by the
concept of ‘European exceptionalism’ or that of ‘American exceptionalism’, or
neither?
9. Should fundamentalism be referred to in the plural?
10. Describe and explain the rapid growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America and
other parts of the developing world.
11. Compare and contrast the place of religion in any two of the national case-studies
covered in the module.
12. What is the place of religion in both the welfare and well-being of modern
individuals and modern societies? Your essay should start by defining each of
these terms carefully (i.e. welfare, well-being, and modern).
13. Are women differently religious from men? If so, how can this be explained?
14. ‘Death and the existential questions that it raises have, more than anything else,
resisted the secular.’ (Davie 2007) Discuss.
I am happy for students to select alternative titles for their essay, provided that the title
has my prior approval.
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