A New Paradigm for the Study of Religion
A Re-examination
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v13i1.3Keywords:
secularization, theory, PluralismAbstract
The assumptions of traditional secularization theory continue to be applied to contemporary religious experience. In an increasingly individualized society, and especially since the advent of the internet, it may be quite pointless to use such theory to explain religious life by comparing current religious experience with a more traditional religious past. This paper argues that the old secularization paradigm fails to consider ways that religious groups reflexively react to changing social circumstances, and that it does not explain ways that religion itself has changed in a globalized world. The idea of a new paradigm is re-examined with regard to its potential to understand contemporary religious life.References
Ammerman, Nancy. 1997. Religious Choice and Religious Vitality. In Rational Choice and Religion, ed. Lawrence A. Young, 119–132. New York: Routledge.
Bartkowski, John. 2004. The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, and Godly Men. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Beckford, James A. 2003. Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511520754
Bell, Daniel. 1977. The Return of the Sacred? The Argument for the Future of Religion. British Journal of Sociology 28 4: 419–449. doi:10.2307/589420
Berger, Peter L. 2005. Religion in the West. The National Interest 80: 112–119.
Bibby, Reginald. 2006. The Boomer Factor. Toronto: Bastien Books.
Bruce, Steve. 1993. Religion and Rational Choice: A Critique of Economic Explanations of Religious Behaviour. Sociology of Religion 54: 193–205. doi:10.2307/3712139
Carroll, James. 2008. A Double-Scoped Vision of Religion and Liberalism. Boston Globe accessed online on July 21, 2008 at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/21/a_double_scoped_vision_of_religion_and_liberalism/
Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
———. 2006. Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective. Hedgehog Review 8(1–2): 7–22.
Chaves, Mark. 1994. Secularization as Declining Religious Authority. Social Forces 72(3): 749–774. doi:10.2307/2579779
Davidman, Lynn. 1991. Tradition in a Rootless World. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dawson, Lorne. 1998. Comprehending Cults. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Demerath, N.J. III. 1995. Rational Paradigms, A-Rational Religion, and the Debate Over Secularization. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34 1: 105–112. doi:10.2307/1386527
Diotallevi, Luca. 2002. Internal Competition in a National Religious Monopoly: The Catholic Effect and the Italian Case. Sociology of Religion 63 2: 137–155. doi:10.2307/3712562
Finke, Roger. 1997. The Consequences of Religious Competition. Rational Choice Theory and Religion, ed. Lawrence Young, 46–65. New York: Routledge.
Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark. 1988. Religious Economies and Sacred Canopies: Religious Mobilization in American Cities, 1906. American Sociological Review 53: 41–49. doi:10.2307/2095731
Froese, Paul and Steven Pfaff. 2005. Explaining a Religious Anomaly: A Historical Analysis of Secularization in Eastern Germany. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44(4): 397–422. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2005.00294.x
Froese, Paul and Steven Pfaff. 2001. Replete and Desolate Markets: Poland, East Germany, and the New Religious Paradigm. Social Forces 80(2): 481–507. doi:10.1353/sof.2001.0093
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. 2001. If It Wasn’t For the Women. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Hadden, Jeffrey K. 1987. Toward Desacralizing Secularization Theory. Social Forces 65(3): 587–611. doi:10.2307/2578520
Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2000. Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Iannaccone, Lawrence R. 1997. Rational Choice. In Rational Choice Theory and Religion, ed. Lawrence A. Young, 25–45. New York: Routledge.
Jacobs, Janet. 2002. Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Lechner, Frank J. 1997. A ‘New Paradigm’ in the Sociology of Religion: Comment on Warner. American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 182–192. doi:10.1086/231175
Lemert, Charles. 1999. The Might Have Been and Could Be of Religion in Social Theory. Sociological Theory 17(3): 240–263. doi:10.1111/0735-2751.00079
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Nason-Clark, Nancy and Mary Jo Neitz. 2001. Feminist Narratives and the Sociology of Religion. In Feminist Narratives and the Sociology of Religion, ed.Nancy Nason-Clark and Mary Jo Neitz, 1–6. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press.
Orsi, Robert A. 2006. Between Heaven and Earth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pollack, Detlef. 2002. The Change in Religion and Church in Eastern Germany After 1989: A Research Note. Sociology of Religion 63(3): 373–387. doi:10.2307/3712475
Phillips, Rick. 2004. Can rising rates of church participation be a consequence of secularization? Sociology of Religion 65(2): 139–153. doi:10.2307/3712403
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Stark, Rodney and William Simms Bainbridge. 1996. A Theory of Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Stark, Rodney and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of Faith. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Swatos, William H. Jr. and Kevin J. Christiano. 1999. Secularization Theory: The Course of a Concept. Sociology of Religion 60(3): 209–228. doi:10.2307/3711934
Thomas, Scott. 2005. The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Warner, R. Stephen. 1993. Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States. American Journal of Sociology 98(5): 1044–1092. doi:10.1086/230139
———. 1997. A Paradigm Is Not a Theory: Reply to Lechner. American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 192–198. doi:10.1086/231176
———. 2008. 2007 Presidential Address: Singing and Solidarity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47(2): 175–190. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2008.00401.x
Warner, R. Stephen and Judith Wittner. 1998. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Willaime, Jean-Paul. 2006. Religion in Ultramodernity. In Theorizing Religion, ed. James Beckford and John Walliss, 77–88. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. Understanding Religion and Politics. Daedalus 120(3): 1–20
———. 2007. After the Baby Boomers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
