Chapter 11

Sociology of Religion

http://hirr.hartsem.edu/sociology/sociology.html

Created and maintained by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, this site provides a wealth of information about the sociology of religion. You can find links to some of the key researchers in the field, professional associations (a useful list of contacts) and several online articles about the subject. This would be a good starting point if you wanted to 'network' with other people who are interested in the sociology of religion.

Religion and Spirituality

http://www.sociosite.net/topics/religion.php

Part of the SocioSite from the University of Amsterdam, this page provides a set of links to other sites about all the main world religions as well as New Age/alternative practices and new religious movements. This is a great starting point if you want to research one particular belief system in detail, as it refers you on to sacred texts, general information and online resources.

The Religious Movements Homepage

http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/

A fascinating and comprehensive guide to new religious movements, written by Jeffrey Hadden from the University of Virginia. This site offers a user-friendly introduction to the nature of a long list of cults and sects, explaining their origins and key beliefs. It also provides thought-provoking discussions of the key controversies surrounding NRMs, such as the accusation of 'brainwashing' and the work of anti-cult movements.

Online texts about cults and new religions

http://www.skepsis.nl/onlinetexts.html

This is a page of links compiled by Rob Nanninga from Skepsis, The Netherlands. It refers you to a wide range of articles about the sociology of new religious movements, including the work of Eileen Barker. You can read the abstracts and full articles online, so this is a great resource for anyone researching into this area.

Max Weber's Sociology of Religion

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/

For anyone who agrees with Moriyuki Abukuma that Weber was the founder of the sociology of religion, this is the place to visit. This Japanese web-author has compiled a site that provides an introduction to Weber's basic ideas about religion, his studies of the 'Protestant Ethic', Christianity and Japanese religions, and links to the original texts online. It is also a helpful resource if you want to revise some of Weber's work on theory and methods.

Civil religion in America

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/american_civil_religion.html

This is an interesting discussion of the rise of ‘civil religion’ – based on celebrating national identity and cultural belonging rather than theological faith – in the USA. It has been compiled by a number of scholars at the University of California, Los Angeles, drawing heavily on the work of Robert Wuthnow (1988). They begin with Bellah’s definition of civil religion and then discuss various examples of it, such as political speeches, cultural myths and civic ceremonies such as Thanksgiving.

Print this page

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 11.

Chapter 11