Description
Book SynopsisThis 2003 book looks at ways of improving our understanding of religious change by strengthening the links between social theory and the social scientific study of religion. It clarifies the social processes involved in constructing religion and non-religion in public and private life.
Trade Review'Some books transform our understanding of their topics. Fewer books transform their disciplines. And a very few transform those who read them, such that they can never again approach their own subject matters in their accustomed ways. Jim Beckford's long-awaited 'summa' may do all three.' Sociology of Religion
'… a long-pondered distillation of major themes in the sociology of religion, expressed with clarity and logical consistency … should be mandatory reading for all sociologists seeking, in Max Weber's well-known phrase, 'to understand religion at the level of meaning'. Journal of Contemporary Religion
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Religion: a social constructionist approach; 2. Secularisation; 3. The vagaries of religious pluralism; 4. Globalisation and religion; 5. Social theory and religious movements; 6. Constructing religion, self and society.
