Product Description: Sociologies of Religion: National Traditions presents fourteen histories of the sociological study of religion in a diverse set of nations. Each of the histories is newly written by author who are uniquely situated to tell narrate the story of the field in their countries...read more

Product Description: The current generation of young adults, at least in the Western world, has shown a marked tendency toward a preference for describing themselves as “spiritual” as contrasted to “religious.” This book seeks to examine the possible meanings and consequences associated with this contrast in terms of the similarities and differences that affect those who use these terms with respect to the everyday practices that they themselves employ or believe should follow from being self-defined as “religious” or “spiritual” – or not...read more

Product Description: Prayer is a phenomenon which seems to be characteristic not only of participants in every religion, but also men and women who do not identify with traditional religions. It can be practised even by those who do not believe either in a God or transcendent force...read more

Product Description: The purpose of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion (ARSR) is to investigate the new role of religion in the contemporary world, which is characterized by cultural pluralism and religious individualism. It is the aim of the ARSR to combine different methods within the social scientific study of religion...read more

Product Description: This book's chapters assess the nature of conversion and present data on specific convertion types, experiences, and theories including such topics as heroes, semiotics, new towns, pilgrimages, the New Age, relations among Catholics, Afro-Brazilians, and Protestants in Brazil, re-conversionist movements, Soka Gakkai, and the LDS church...read more

Product Description: Illustrating the different ways in which Weber's category of Beruf can be interpreted, and how it can be studied from various perspectives and with different methods, this book demonstrates how ""vocation"" continues to be a fertile concept for contemporary sociology.