Sociology of Religion

A David Martin Reader

by David Martin

Edited by Dedong Wei and Zhifeng Zhong

Foreword by Grace Davie

Published by: Baylor University Press

Imprint: Baylor University Press

Sales Date: 2015-07-31

Paperback
ISBN 9781602589742
525 Pages

$74.99

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

Sociologist David Martin has framed the secularization debate, guided Pentecostal studies, and shaped the scholarly study of religion. Martin’s work possesses both theoretical depth and global perspective. This reader celebrates his best and most important work. It is essential reading for scholars and students who want to learn more about modernization and cultural change, Pentecostalism and the Global South, peace and violence, religion and sociology, and theology and politics.

Section I: RELIGION AND PACIFISM, PEACE AND VIOLENCE
1. The Denomination
2. Basic Categories: Troeltsch and Weber
3. The Break with Nature
4. Catholic Compromise and Sectarian Rejection
5. Can We Blame Religion or Human Nature?
6. Recapitulations and Mutations

Section II: RELIGION AND POLITICS
7. The Religious and the Political
8. Christianity, Violence and Democracy
9. Protestantism and Democracy
10. Why and How the Two Revolutions Were Forbidden

Section III: SECULARISATION
11. Toward Eliminating the Concept of Secularisation
12. Secularisation and the Future of Christianity
13. What I Really Said about Secularisation
14. Does the Advance of Science Mean Secularisation?
15. Has Secularisation Gone into Reverse?

Section IV: PENTECOSTALISM
16. Anglo and Latin: Rival Civilizations, Alternative Patterns
17. The Methodist Model
18. The Argument Summarized and Extended
19. Pentecostalism

Section V: BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
20. Historical Background: Dissenters and Abstainers
21. Believing without Belonging
22. The United States in Central European Perspective
23. Another Strange Death

Section VI: THEOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
24. The Sociological Mode and the Theological Vocabulary
25. The Paradigm and the Double Structure
26. Modes of Change
27. What Is Christian Language?
28. Does the Sociological Viewpoint Bear on the Theistic Vision?
29. Changing Your Holy Ground

Section VII: FAITH, CULTURE AND EDUCATION
30. Order and Rule
31. Parts and Wholes, Objectives and Objectivity
32. The Christian, the Political and the Academic

David Martin is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, London University, and Adjunct Professor at Liverpool Hope University.

Dedong Wei is Professor of Religious Studies, Deputy Dean of the School of Philosophy, and Director of International Center for Buddhist Studies at Renmin University of China.

Zhifeng Zhong is Research Fellow at the National Survey and Research Center and Advanced Institute for the Studies of Religion at Renmin University of China.

Given the enormous importance of Martin’s approach for the understanding of religious change, an initiative to collect selections from his works and some of his classic articles can only be welcomed. I find the selections completely convincing; the range of topics and the historical erudition of the author are breathtaking. The book will be a major contribution to the global scholarly and the wider public debates on religion.
~Hans Joas, Humboldt University, Berlin, and University of Chicago

This comprehensive expression of the work of David Martin, one of the world's leading sociologists of religion and practitioners of comparative sociology, is extremely welcome. It will prove particularly important to the Chinese reader seeking to understand the varied societies of Europe and the Americas, for the diverse histories of these countries including their politics, wars, and economic development have been shaped by religion.
~Christie Davies, Emeritus Professor, University of Reading

This is a thorough representation of David Martin’s body of work as a whole. The book brings the reader back time and time again to Martin’s main interests: secularization, politics and religion, and religious language alongside sociological methods, to name the most important.
~Tom Riser, Nova Religio