Product Description: How secular is contemporary society? Are pockets of sectarianism embedded in societies of developed countries? This timely book examines the interweaving of politics and religion, and of tradition and innovation in a variety of cultural settings...read more

Product Description: This innovative book, newly available in paper, examines the global significance of religion, and the different and complex ways in which the role of religion has changed - and is changing - in different societies. Has a process of separating religion from politics been reversed by recent developments? To what extent do the central values and concepts of traditional religion remain embedded in a society in which substantial numbers no longer formally follow the faith? How has the balance of religious influence between mainline denominations and `cults′ changed, and what is the significance of such change...read more

The twentieth century has seen a considerable and unexpected proliferation of new religious movements in many parts of the world, often associated with periods of rapid social change. This volume - now available in paper - explains the development and characteristics of these movements comparatively and analyzes their outstanding features. The contributors shows how rapid social change gives rise to novel religious interpretations and how new religious movements, in turn, try to influence the process of change.

Product Description: This book aims to demonstrate that sociologists have much to gain from a strengthening of the connections between general theories about the changing character of modern Western societies and specific studies of religion. The weakness of such connections is indeed one of the most curious features of contemporary sociology...read more

Product Description: A comprehensive interpretation of controversies in terms of a sociological theory about the location of various types of new religious movements in supposedly secular societies.