The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion is presented in three comprehensive parts. Written by a range of outstanding academics, the volume explores the current status of the sociology of religion, and how it might look in future. Explores the current status of the sociology of religion, and how it might look at the beginning of the next millennium. Traces the boundaries between sociology and other closely related disciplines, such as theology and social anthropology. Edited by one of the best known and most widely respected sociologists of religion Accessibly presented in three comprehensive parts.

The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion is presented in three comprehensive parts. Written by a range of outstanding academics, the volume explores the current status of the sociology of religion, and how it might look in future.* Explores the current status of the sociology of religion, and how it might look at the beginning of the next millennium.* Traces the boundaries between sociology and other closely related disciplines, such as theology and social anthropology.* Edited by one of the best known and most widely respected sociologists of religion* Accessibly presented in three comprehensive parts.

List of contributors viiiAcknowledgments xiiPreface xivPart I Classical and Contemporary Theory: Recycling, Continuity, Progress, or New Departures?Editorial Commentary: Religion and the Secular; the Sacred and the Profane: The Scope of the Argument 31 Personal Reflections in the Mirror of Halévy and Weber 23David Martin2 Salvation, Secularization, and De-moralization 39Bryan Wilson3 The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: A Cautionary Tale for the Sociology of Religion 52Bernice Martin4 Feminism and the Sociology of Religion: From Gender-blindness to Gendered Difference 67Linda Woodhead5 Melancholia, Utopia, and the Psychoanalysis of Dreams 85Donald Capps6 Georg Simmel: American Sociology Chooses the Stone the Builders Refused 105Victoria Lee Erickson7 Transformations of Society and the Sacred in Durkheim's Religious Sociology 120Donald A. Nielsen8 Classics in the Sociology of Religion: An Ambiguous Legacy 133Roger O'Toole9 Individualism, the Validation of Faith, and the Social Nature of Religion in Modernity 161Danièle Hervieu-Léger10 The Origins of Religion 176Richard K. FennPart II Contemporary Trends in the Relation of Religion to Society Editorial Commentary: Whose Problem is it? The Question of Prediction versus Projection 19711 Secularization Extended: From Religious "Myth" to Cultural Commonplace 211Nicholas J. Demerath III12 Social Movements as Free-floating Religious Phenomena 229James A. Beckford13 The Social Process of Secularization 249Steve Bruce14 Patterns of Religion in Western Europe: An Exceptional Case 264Grace Davie15 The Future of Religious Participation and Belief in Britain and Beyond 279Robin Gill16 Religion as Diffusion of Values. "Diffused Religion" in the Context of a Dominant Religious Institution: The Italian Case 292Roberto Cipriani17 Spirituality and Spiritual Practice 306Robert Wuthnow18 The Renaissance of Community Economic Development among African-American Churches in the 1990s 321Katherine Day19 Hell as a Residual Category: Possibilities Excluded from the Social System 336Richard K. Fenn and Marianne DelaportePart III The Sociology of Religion and Related Areas of Inquiry Editorial Commentary: Looking for the Boundaries of the Field: Social Anthropology, Theology, and Ethnography 36320 Acting Ritually: Evidence from the Social Life of Chinese Rites 371Catherine Bell21 Moralizing Sermons, Then and Now 388Thomas Luckmann22 Health, Morality and Sacrifice: The Sociology of Disasters 404Douglas J. Davies23 Contemporary Social Theory as it Applies to the Understanding of Religion in Cross-cultural Perspective 418Peter Beyer24 The Return of Theology: Sociology's Distant Relative 432Kieran Flanagan25 Epilogue: Toward a Secular View of the Individual 445Richard K. FennIndex 469