Sociology of Religion (BA-II) 2018

Instructor: Dr. Markus Altena Davidsen

Office: Matthias de Vrieshof 1, 004B
Email: m.davidsen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Class meetings: Mondays 5-7 p.m. | LIPSIUS 011

Course Description
This course gives an overview of the most important themes in the sociology of religion. The course falls in
three parts:

The first part of the course is concerned with theorising religion sociologically. We raise sociological questions
at the level of the individual (e.g., why are people religious in the first place?; why are women more religious
than men?), at the level of the nation-state (e.g., why are some countries more religious than others?; how and
why do state-religion relations differ cross-culturally?), and at the level of religious communities (e.g., how
are religious communities maintained socially?)

The second part of the course is concerned with the profound changes that have taken place in the religious
field across the world during the 20th and 21st centuries. We explore the secularisation thesis, i.e. the idea that
religion (necessarily) loses power, prestige, and plausibility as a result of modernisation, and evaluate
alternatives to this master narrative (e.g., the subjectivisation thesis and the return-of-religion thesis). We
compare the religious field in Europe (ongoing secularisation) with the United States (continued high levels
of religion) and China (religious revival despite Communist oppression) and try to explain the differences
between these cases. We also explore the rise of new, late modern ‘religiosity styles’, such as fundamentalism
and new age spirituality.

The third part of the course looks at the relation between religion and other aspects of civil society. In
particular, we will discuss religion education and religion in popular culture.

Course Objectives
Knowledge, insight, and content-bound skills
After successfully completing the course, students can
• reflect on the aims and perspectives of the sociology of religion as an academic discipline;
• draw on classic and contemporary sociological theories to answer fundamental questions concerning
religious individuals, religious communities, and religious fields;
• adopt a well-argued position in the debate about processes of religious change in the (late) modern
world – defending, for instance, the secularisation thesis or the subjectivisation thesis;
• illustrate how the late modern religious field is structured by giving examples of where we can find
religion today and of the religiosity styles that characterise late modern religion; and
• critically test various sociological theories against empirical reality.

Transferable skills
After successfully completing this course, students have
• developed their skills in interpreting simple quantitative tables containing sociological information;
• developed their skills at evaluating the analytical value of theoretical concepts by confronting them
with empirical material (qualitative and quantitative);
• developed their skills at writing a well-argued, academic paper.
Course Readings
* Reader. “Sociology of Religion (BA-II/MI) 2018”, available from http://www.readeronline.leidenuniv.nl/.
* Text book. Aldridge, Alan (2013), Religion in the Contemporary World: A Sociological Introduction, third edition,
Cambridge & Malden, MA: Polity Press.
* Online articles. To be downloaded through the university library and printed out individually by students.

Assessment method
This course includes two test units:

• Midterm. Written take-home exam (max 1200 words). Counts 40 %. Deadline 29 October 2018.
• End-term. Written take-home exam (max 1800 words). Counts 60 %. Deadline 14 January 2019.

Weighing
Please take note of the following: The final mark is determined as the weighted average of the midterm (40 %)
and the end-term (60 %). To pass the course, students must obtain at least a sufficient mark (5.5) as the
weighted average of these two marks.

Resit
Students who receive an overall insufficient grade for the course are given a new take-home exam (max 3000
words). The mark for this take-home exam substitutes the previous marks for both the midterm and the end-
term, i.e. it determines the course mark for 100 %. Deadline 28 January 2019.

Exam review
Students receive written feedback (as a group) on both the midterm and end-term take-home exams. In
addition, students are invited to make an appointment to discuss the midterm and end-term take-home exams
individually.
Course Overview
SESSION THEME
Part I: Theorising Religion Sociologically: How Religion Works
Session 1 The Course
10 Sep * Introduction to the course: literature,
learning objectives, work forms, and
exam.
Sociology of Religion as an Academic
Discipline
* The sociological approach to religion.
* Core questions and themes in the
sociology of religion.
Session 2 Defining Religion
17 Sep * What can we gain by defining
religion?
* What can we gain by defining religion
either inclusively or exclusively?
Origin and Function of Religion
* Why are (some) people religious in the
first place?
* Functionalistic theories of religion as a
means for oppression, compensation,
and meaning-making (Marx,
Luckmann, Ter Borg).
* Substantive theories of religion as a
cognitively natural element of culture.
Session 3 Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
24 Sep * The Marxian legacy: deprivation
theories of religion I.
* Why do religions suppress sexuality
and oppress women (Aldridge)?
* Why are women more religious than
men (Walter and Davie; Stark)?
Theorising Religion Sociologically
* Different modes of theorising in the
sociology of religion: social
constructionism vs. consilience.
Session 4 Religion, Nation, and Society
1 Oct * The Marxian legacy: deprivation
theories of religion II.
* Why are some nations more religious
than others (Norris & Inglehart)?
REQUIRED READINGS
* Zuckerman, Phil (2003), Ch. 1 “Sociology and
Religion”, in Invitation to the Sociology of Religion, New
York & London: Routledge, 17-34 [18; reader].
[total 18 pp.]
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), excerpts from Ch. 1 on “Max
Weber: On Not Defining Religion”, “Émile Durkheim:
Defining Religion Sociologically”, “Contemporary
Sociological Definitions of Religion”, 22-30 [8; text
book].
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), excerpt from Ch. 2 on “Karl
Marx and the Projection Theory of Religion”, 35-38 [4;
text book].
* Hamilton, Malcolm (2001), Ch. 6 “Religion and
Ideology: Karl Marx”, in The Sociology of Religion:
Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, 2nd ed.,
London: Routledge, 91-97 [7; reader].
* Borg, Meerten ter (2008), “Transcendence and
Religion”, Implicit Religion 11(3), 229-238 [12; LUB
online].
* Whitehouse, Harvey (2004), Ch. 2 “Cognitively Optimal
Religion”, in Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of
Religious Transmission, Walnut Creek: Altamira, 29-47
[18; reader].
[total 49 pp.]
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), Ch. 7 “Gender and Sexuality”,
[16; text book].
* Stark, Rodney (2002), “Physiology and Faith:
Addressing the “Universal” Gender Difference in
Religious Commitment”, Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion 41(3), 495–507 [13; LUB online].
* Walter, Tony and Grace Davie (1998), “The Religiosity
of Women in the Modern West”, British Journal of
Sociology 49(4), 640–660 [21; LUB online].
[total 50 pp.]
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), excerpt from Ch. 2 on “Émile
Durkheim and the Social Functions of Religion”, 38-41
[3; text book].
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), Ch. 6 “Civil Religion and
Political Ritual”, [17; text book].
* Norris, Pippa & Ronald Inglehart (2004), excerpt from
Ch. 3 “Comparing Secularization Worldwide”, in
 * The Durkheimian legacy: cohesion
theories of religion I: the societal level.
* Civil religion in America (Bellah).
* Is there a civil religion in the Nether-
lands and in your own countries?
* In which different ways do modern
states relate to religion – and why
these differences?
Session 5 Religious Communities
8 Oct * The Durkheimian legacy: Cohesion
theories of religion II: the community
level.
* How is religion used as a resource to
maintain social communities and their
world(view)s (Berger, Martin)?
* How do religious communities
maintain themselves: plausibility
structures and plausibility strategies
(Berger, Martin)?
The Midterm Exam
Part 2: Explaining the Religious Change of the 20th and 21st Centuries
Session 6 The Secularisation Paradigm
15 Oct * The Weberian legacy I:
disenchantment and rationalisation.
* Conceptualising secularisation
(Dobbelaere).
The Dutch Religious Field
* Which religious groups are found
within the Dutch religious field? –
Facts and figures.
* Is secularisation (still) taking place in
the Netherlands?
22 October No Class
29 October Deadline Midterm
29 October No Class
Session 7 Feedback on midterm exam
5 Nov
Is the United States an exception to
secularisation?
* Bruce and Smith on secularisation in
the United States.
* Further statistical material from
Europe.
Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 55-71 [17; reader].
[total 37 pp.]
* Berger, Peter L. (1967), excerpt from Ch. 2 “Religion
and World-Maintenance”, The Sacred Canopy: Elements
of a Sociological Theory of Religion, 45-47 [3; reader].
* Furseth, Inger & Pål Repstad (2006), section 4.4 “Peter
L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann: Religion as social
construction”, in An Introduction to the Sociology of
Religion, Aldershot: Ashgate, 57-60 [4; reader].
* Martin, Craig (2012), excerpts from Ch. 5
“Legitimation” and Ch. 6 “Authority”, A Critical
Introduction to the Study of Religion, London: Equinox,
93-109 and 117-128 [26; reader].
[total 33 pp.]
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), excerpts from Ch. 2 on “Max
Weber and the Disenchantment of the World” and
“Secularization The Social Insignificance of Religion?”,
41-65 [24; text book].
* Dobbelaere, Karel (2009), “The Meaning and Scope of
Secularization”, in Peter Clarke (ed.), The Oxford
Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Oxford: Oxford
UP, 599-615 [16; reader].
* Sengers, Erik (2010), “Religion in the Netherlands”, in
Giuseppe Girodan (ed.), Annual Review of the Sociology
of Religion, Volume 1: Youth and Religion, Leiden &
Boston: Brill, 439-459 [21; reader].
* Hart, Joep de (2014), “Summary: Keeping the Faith?
Trends in Religion in the Netherlands”, in Geloven
binnen en buiten verband: Godsdienstige ontwikkelingen in
Nederland, Den Haag: SCP, 130-134 [5; reader].
[total 66 pp.]
* Bruce, Steve (2011), Ch. 8 “Unexceptional America”, in
Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 157-176 [20; reader].
* Smith, Christian (2010), “On ‘Moralistic Therapeutic
Deism’ as US Teenagers’ Actual, Tacit, De Facto
Religious Belief”, in Sylvia Collins-Mayo & Pink
Dandelion (eds.), Religion and Youth, Farnham:
Ashgate, 41-46 [6; reader].
[total 26 pp.]
Session 8 The Religious Field in the West
12 Nov * The Weberian legacy II: Analysing the
religious field (in terms of competing
specialist roles, organisational forms,
or religiosity styles).
* Which religiosity styles compete in the
religious field in the West today (e.g.,
Day on nominal religion; Aupers on
New Age)?
Alternative Conceptualisations of
Religious Change I: Subjectivisation
* Does ‘subjectivisation’ better describe
the change in the religious field in the
West than ‘secularisation’ (Heelas &
Woodhead)?
19 November No Class
Session 9 Alternative Conceptualisations of
26 Nov Religious Change II: The Rise of
Fundamentalism
* What is fundamentalism and why is it
attractive (and to whom)?
* Is fundamentalism on the rise, and can
we expect it go away again?
* Are some religious traditions more
prone to be violent (or to legitimise
violence) than others?
* Are young Muslims in the West
becoming more fundamentalist?
Session 10 What about China?
3 Dec * How is the religious field in China
regulated (Yang)?
* Which religiosity styles (or ‘modalities
of doing religion’) can be found in the
religious field in China (Chau)?
* Comparison with the West.
Part 3: Religion and Civil Society
Session 11 Religion and Education
10 Dec * How do religion and education
interact in the Netherlands and the
rest of Europe (e.g., how much power
do religious institutions have over the
education system; what is taught
about religion in schools)?
* Plenary debate on the aim and content
of religion education in a secular state
(Vermeer, Ganzevoort).
* Aupers, Stef (2005), “‘We are all gods’: New Age in the
Netherlands 1960-2000”, in Erik Sengers (ed.), The
Dutch and their Gods: Secularization and Transformation
of Religion in the Netherlands since 1950, Hilversum:
Uitgeverij Verloren, 181-201 [21; reader].
* Heelas, Paul & Linda Woodhead (2005), “Introduction”,
in The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way
to Spirituality, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1-11 [11;
reader].
[total 32 pp.]
* Spickard, James (2006), “What is Happening to
Religion: Six Sociological Narratives”, Nordic Journal of
Religion and Society 19(1), 13-29 [17; reader].
* Aldridge, Alan (2013), Ch. 6 “Dangerous Religion?
Fundamentalism”, [17; text book].
* Craig, Martin (2012), “Selective Privileging”, excerpt
from Ch. 6 “Authority”, A Critical Introduction to the
Study of Religion, London: Equinox, 128-134 [6; reader].
* Roy, Olivier (2006), “Islam in the West or Western
Islam? The Disconnects of Religion and Culture”, The
Hedgehog Review: Critical Reflections on Contemporary
Culture 8(1-2), 127-132 [6; reader].
[total 46 pp.]
* Yang, Fenggang (2006), “The Red, Black, and Gray
Markets of Religion in China”, The Sociological
Quarterly 47(1), 93-112 [20; LUB online].
* Chau, Adam Yuet (2005), Ch. 4 “Beliefs and Practices:
Shaanbei People’s Religiosity and Religious Habitus”,
in Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in
Contemporary China, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 59-76 [18; reader].
[total 38 pp.]
* Vermeer, Paul (2013), “Religious Indifference and
Religious Education in the Netherlands: A Tension
Unfolds”, Theo-Web: Zeitschrift für Religionspädagogik 12,
79-94. http://www.theo-web.de/zeitschrift/ausgabe-
2013-01/07.pdf [16; online].
* Ganzevoort, Ruard (2008), “Teaching Religion in a
Plural World”, in N. Lantinga (ed.), Christian Higher
Education in the Global Context, Proceedings of the
International conference of IAPCHE (Granada, Nicaragua
2006), Sioux Center Iowa: Dordt College Press, 117-124
[8; reader].
[total 24 pp.]
Session 12 Religion and Popular Culture No readings.
17 * Popular culture as a religious
December resource.
* Religion in popular culture.

Rounding off the Course

* Evaluation.
* Exam.

14 January DL End-term

28 January DL Resit

Total 419 pp.

Suggestions for Further Reading

General Resources
Journals
* Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
* Sociology of Religion.
* Social Compass.
* Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Handbooks
* Beckford, James & N.J. Demerath III (eds.; 2007), The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Los
Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore: SAGE Publications. [The best of the three on method].
* Clark, Peter (ed.; 2009), The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Oxford: Oxford UP. [Generally the
best].
* Turner, Bryan S. (ed.; 2010), The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Malden, MA: Wiley-
Blackwell. [The only one to go into sociological work on the individual world religions; the most global in
scope].

Text books
* Davie, Grace (2013), The Sociology of Religion, 2nd ed., Los Angeles, London, New Delhi & Singapore: SAGE.
[With a UK-focus]
* Furseth, Inger & Pål Repstad (2006), An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion: Classical and Contemporary
Perspectives, Aldershot: Ashgate. [Handbook-like, but good short-cut to the core articles and classical
works].
* McGuire, Meredith (2002), Religion: The Social Context, 5th edition, Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press.
[With a US-focus].
* Roberts, Keith A. & David Yamane (2016), Religion in Sociological Perspective, 6th edition, Los Angeles: SAGE.
[With a US-focus].
* Possamai, Adam (2009), Sociology of Religion for Generation X and Y, London & Oakville: Equinox. [A bit thin,
but reads very well; with an Australian focus].

Session 1: Sociology of Religion as an Academic Discipline

Introductions to Sociology
* Bruce, Steve (1999), Sociology: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Giddens, Anthony & Philip W. Sutton (2014), Essential Concepts in Sociology, Cambridge: Polity Press.
* Weyns, Walter (2014), Klassieke Sociologen en hun Erfenis, Leuven: LannooCampus.

History of the Sociology of Religion

* Blasi, Anthony J. & Giuseppe Giordan (eds.; 2015), Sociologies of Religion: National Traditions, Leiden & Boston:
Brill. [Includes an article by Kees de Groot and Erik Sengers on “Sociology of Religion in the Netherlands”].

Sociological Theory
* Turner, Jonathan H. (2002), “Sociological Theory Today”, in Jonathan H. Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological
Theory, New York: Kluwer Academic, 1-17.
* McLennan, Gregor (2011), “Ch. 5. Three Classics”, in The Story of Sociology: A First Companion to Social Theory,
London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 55-80. [Marx, Durkheim, Weber].
* Smilde, David & Matthey May (2015), “Causality, Normativity, and Diversity in 40 Years of U.S. Sociology
of Religion: Contributions to Paradigmatic Reflection”, Sociology of Religion 76(4), 369-388.
Session 2: Defining Religion | Origin and Function of Religion
Defining Religion
* Bruce, Steve (2011), “Defining Religion: A Practical Response”, International Review of Sociology: Revue
Internationale de Sociologie 21(1), 107-120.
* Schilbrack, Kevin (2013), “What Isn’t Religion?”, The Journal of Religion 93(3), 291-318.
* Schilbrack, Kevin (2017), “A Realist Social Ontology of Religion”, Religion 47(2), 161-178. [One of the most
refined and persuasive cases for the value of defining religion].

Sociological and Cognitive Theories of the Origin and Function of Religion

* Glock, Charles Y. (1964), “The Role of Deprivation in the Origin and Evolution of Religious Groups," in R.
Lee and M. E. Marty (eds.), Religion and Social Conflict, New York: Oxford University Press, 24-36. [Stands
in the Marxian tradition. Argues that deprivation, either of a material or existential kind, is what propels
people to become religious].
* Luckmann, Thomas (1963), The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society, New York &
London: MacMillan. [Every act of transcendence is religion; man is religious by definition].
* Borg, Meerten ter (1991), Een uitgewaaierde eeuwigheid: Het menselijk tekort in de moderne cultuur, Ten
Have/Baan. [Religion is a response to existential insecurity; its function is to provide meaning].
* Stark, Rodney & Roger Finke (2000), Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University
of California Press. [Humans demand both health and success in this life and eternal life in the next.
Religions offer such this- and other-worldly supernatural rewards, and are hence attractive to believe in.
Strong and strict religions can plausibly promise the greatest rewards. Stark and Finke’s theory is based on
the assumption that human action is governed by rational choices. Their theory is one of the most famous
and influential in the sociology of religion].
* Boyer, Pascal (1994), The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion, Berkeley: University of
California Press. [Like Whitehouse, Boyer views religion in cognitive and non-functionalistic terms: The
various building-blocks of religion, such as belief in spirits and gods and in magic, arises naturally, but as
a by-product, given the human cognitive make-up].
* Willard, Aiyana K. & Ara Norenzayan (2013), “Cognitive Biases Explain Religious Belief, Paranormal Belief,
and Belief in Life’s Purpose”, Cognition 129(2), 379-391.

Session 3: The Marxist Legacy and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality

Critical/Marxist Theory and Religion (General)
* Martin, Craig (2012), A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion, London: Equinox.
* Borg, Meerten B. ter & Berend ter Borg (2009): Zingeving als machtsmiddel: Van zinverlangen tot charismatisch
leiderschap, Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Meinema.

Religion, Gender, and Sexuality – Esp. on “Why Women Are More Religious”
* Neitz, Mary Jo (2014), “Becoming Visible: Religion and Gender in Sociology”, Sociology of Religion 75(4) 511-
523.
* Trzebiatowska, Marta & Steve Bruce (2012), Why are Women more Religious than Men? Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
* Trzebiatowska, Marta & Steve Bruce (2013). ““It’s All for Girls”: Re-visiting the Gender Gap in New Age
Spiritualities”, Studia Religiologica 46(1), 17-33.
* Miller, Alan S. & John P. Hoffman (1995), “Risk and Religion: An Explanation of Gender Differences in
Religiosity, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34(1), 63-75.
* Woodhead, Linda (2007), “Why so Many Women in Holistic Spirituality? A Puzzle Revisited”, in Kieran
Flanagan and Peter Jupp (eds.), A Sociology of Spirituality, Aldershot: Ashgate, 115-125.

Religion and Class

* McCloud, Sean (2007), Divine Hierarchies: Class in American Religion and Religious Studies, Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press.
Theorising Religion Sociologically: Social Constructionism vs. Consilience
* Bruce, Steve (1999), “Ch. 2. Social Constructions”; “Ch. 3. Causes and Consequences”, in Sociology: A Very
Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Defend the social constructionist position].
* Berger, Peter & Thomas Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of
Knowledge. [Defend the social constructionist position].
* Lopreato, Joseph & Timothy Crippen (2002), Crisis in Sociology: The Need for Darwin, New Brunswick &
London: Transaction Publishers. [Challenges the social constructionist position and offers consilience as a
new alternative].
* Bloch, Maurice (2012), Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge, in the series New Departures in Anthropology,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More readable than Lopreato and Crippen. Challenges the social
constructionist position in anthropology and offers consilience as a new alternative].

Session 4: Religion, Nation, and Society | Civil Religion | Durkheim

Durkheimian Sociology of Religion
* Durkheim, Émile (1995[1912]), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, translated from French by Karen E.
Fields, New York: The Free Press.
* Shilling, Chris & Philip A. Mellor (2011), “Retheorising Emile Durkheim on Society and Religion:
Embodiment, Intoxication and Collective Life: Emile Durkheim”, The Sociological Review 59(1), 17-42.

Global Religious Demography

* Norris, Pippa & Ronald Inglehart (2004), Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, Cambridge:
Cambridge UP.
* Johnson, Todd M. & Brian J. Grim (2013), The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International
Religious Demography, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley and Blackwell.

Civil Religion / Politics and Religion

* Bellah, Robert N. (1969), “Civil Religion in America”, Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences 96(1), 1-21.
* Williams, Rhys H. (2013), “Civil Religion and the Cultural Politics of National Identity in Obama’s America”,
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 52(2), 239-257.
* Cristi, Marcela & Lorne L. Dawson (2007), “Civil Religion in America and in Global Context”, in James
Beckford & N.J. Demerath III (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Los
Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore: SAGE Publications, 267-292.
* Borg, Meerten B. ter (1990), “Publieke religie in Nederland”, in O. Schreuder & L.B. van Snippenburg (eds.),
Religie in de Nederlandse samenleving: De vergeten factor, in the series Annalen van het Thijmgenootschap 78(2),
Baarn: Amboboeken, 165-184.
* Laustsen, Carsten Bagge (2013), “Studying Politics and Religion: How to Distinguish Religious Politics, Civil
Religion, Political Religion, and Political Theology”, Journal of Religion in Europe 6, 428-463.
* Strenski, Ivan (2010), Why Politics Can’t Be Freed From Religion, Malden, MA: Blackwell.
* Fox, Jonathan (2008), A World Survey of Religion and the State, in the series Cambridge Studies in Social Theory,
Religion, and Politics, David C. Leege & Kenneth D. Wald, editors, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Zubrzycki, Genevieve (2010), “Religion and Nationalism: A Critical Re-examination”, in Bryan S. Turner
(ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 606-625.

Session 5: Religious Communities

Religion Maintaining Social Order
* Lincoln, Bruce (1989), Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and
Classification, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plausibility Structures of Religious Communities
* Berger, Peter L. (1969), The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor
Books. [A classic that introduced the notion of ‘plausibility structure’].
* Stark, Rodney, and William Sims Bainbridge (1979), “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts
for a Theory of Religious Movements”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18(2), 117-131. [Theorises
typical Western forms of religious organisation as institutional strategies.]
* Whitehouse, Harvey (2004), Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission, Walnut Creek:
Altamira. [Theorises doctrinal religion (=with church-type institution) and imagistic religion (=religious
communities based on strong, collective experiences, as found in illiterate societies) as two basic
organisation principles of religious communities world-wide].
* Sharot, Stephen (2001), A Comparative Sociology of World Religions: Virtuosos, Priests, and Popular Religion.
[Difficult, but interesting book. It is sociological in character, but focuses on historical religion. A key
aspect of the book it the discussion of how different world religions developed different institutional
strategies, including different roles for religious specialists].
* Jong, Albert de (2018), “Spiritual Elite Communities in the Contemporary Middle East”, Sociology of Islam
6(2), 116-140. [Looks a particular strategy of community maintenance: endogamy combined with the
relegating of religious knowledge to an elite].
* Rue, Loyal (2006), Ch. 4 “The Nature of Religion”, in Religion is Not About God: How Spiritual Traditions Nurture
our Biological Nature and What to Expect When They Fail, New Brunswick, NJ & London: Rutgers University
Press. [Rue assumed that all religious traditions share a certain ‘core narrative’ and discusses the various
‘ancillary strategies’ that religious traditions can develop around this core narrative]

Plausibility Strategies of Religious Communities

* Pyysiäinen, Ilkka (2011), “Believing and Doing: How Ritual Action Enhances Religious Belief”, in Armin W.
Geertz & Jeppe Sinding Jensen (eds.), Religious Narrative, Cognition and Culture: Image and Word in the Mind
of Narrative, London: Equinox, 147-162. [On the role of ritual in reinforcing belief].
* Luhrmann, Tanya M. (2012), When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with
God, New York: Vintage Books. [On the role of ritual in inducing religious experiences].
* Hammer, Olav (2001), Claiming Knowledge. Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age, in the
Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions, Leiden & Boston: Brill. [On religious legitimisation
strategies].
* Lewis, James R. (2007), Legitimating New Religions, New Brunswick, New Jersey & London: Rutgers
University Press. [On religious legitimisation strategies].

Session 6: The Secularisation Paradigm and The Dutch Religious Field

The Secularisation Paradigm
* Bruce, Steve (2011), Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[Important book from the most important secularization theorist today].
* Dobbelaere, Karel (2002), Secularization: An Analysis at Three Levels, Bruxelles: Peter Lang. [Book-long version
of our article. A bit dated, but still sound].
* Norris, Pippa & Ronald Inglehart (2004), Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, New York:
Cambridge University Press.
* Hirschle, Jochen (2013), ““Secularization of Consciousness” or Alternative Opportunities? The Impact of
Economic Growth on Religious Belief and Practice in 13 European Countries”, Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion 52(2), 410-424.
* Gorski, Philip S. (2000), “Historicizing the Secularization Debate: Church, State and Society in Late Medieval
and Early Modern Europe, ca. 1300-1700”, American Sociological Review 65(1), 138-167.
* Lambert, Yves (1999), “Religion in Modernity as a New Axial Age: Secularization or New Religious Forms?”,
Sociology of Religion, 60(3), 303-333.
* Goldstein, Warren S. (2009), “Patterns of Secularization and Religious Rationalization in Emile Durkheim
and Max Weber”, Implicit Religion 12(2), 135-163.
Dutch Religious History
* Rooden, Peter van (2002), “Long-term Religious Developments in the Netherlands, 1750-2000”, in Hugh
McLeod & Werner Ustorf (eds.), The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 113-129.
* Rooden, Peter von (1996), Religieuze regimes: Over godsdienst en maatschappij in Nederland, 1570-1990,
Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker.

The Dutch Religious Field Today

* Borg, Meerten ter, Erik Borgman, Marjo Buitelaar, Yme Kuiper & Rob Plum (eds.; 2008), Handboek Religie in
Nederland: Perspectief – overzicht – debat, Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Meinema.
* Sengers, Erik (ed.; 2005), The Dutch and their Gods: Secularization and Transformation of Religion in the Netherlands
since 1950, Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren.
* Klomp, Mirella & Marten van der Meulen (2017), “The Passion as Ludic Practice – Understanding Public
Ritual Performances in Late Modern Society: A Case Study From the Netherlands”, Journal of Contemporary
Religion 32(3), 387-401.

Secularisation in the Netherlands

* Harskamp, Anton van (2005), “Simply Astounding: Ongoing Secularization in the Netherlands?”, in Erik
Sengers (ed.), The Dutch and their Gods: Secularization and Transformation of Religion in the Netherlands since
1950, in the series ReLic: Studies in Dutch Religious History 3, Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 43-58.
* Lechner, Frank J. (1996), “Secularization in the Netherlands?”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35,
252-264.
* Groot, Kees de (2018), The Liquidation of the Church, London: Routledge.

Session 7: Religion in the United States: Exception to Secularisation?

Religion in the United States
* Finke, Roger & Rodney Stark (1992), The Churching of America, 1776-1990, Rutgers University Press.
* Wuthnow, Robert (1988), The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
* Wuthnow, Robert (1998), After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s, Berkeley, CA, University of
California Press.
* Roof, Wade Clark (1999), The Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion,
Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
* Wuthnow, Robert (2007), After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of
American Religion, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
* Smith, Christian (2009), Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, New York:
Oxford University Press.
* Warner, R. Stephen (2008), “Parameters of Paradigms: Toward a Specification of the U.S. Religion Market
System”, Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 21 (2), 129-146.
* Jenkins, Philip (2004), “The Center and the Fringe: America’s Religious Futures”, in Hans Krabbendam &
Derek Rubin (eds.), Religion in America: European and American Perspectives, Amsterdam: VU University
Press, 51-66.

Comparison of Religion in Europe and America

* Berger, Peter, Grace Davie & Effie Fokas (2008), Religious America, Secular Europe? A Theme and Variations,
Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate.
* Nelson, Samuel & Philip S. Gorski (2014), “Conditions of Religious Belonging: Confessionalization, De-
parochialization, and the Euro-American divergence”, International Sociology 29(1), 3-21.
Session 8: The Religious Field in the West
Weber’s Sociology of Religion
* Weber, Max (1993), The Sociology of Religion, Boston: Beacon Press. First published in German in 1922.
* Weber, Max (1991), “Zwischenbetrachtung: Theorie der Stufen und Richtungen religiöser Weltablehnung”;
1920], translated into English as “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions” and most easily
available in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 2nd ed., edited by H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills, London:
Routledge. First published in this collection in 1948, 323-359.

Sociological Field Theory

* Hutt, Curtis (2007), ”Pierre Bourdieu on the Verstehende Soziologie of Max Weber´”, Method and Theory in the
Study of Religion 19, 232-254.
* Bourdieu, Pierre (1991), “Genesis and Structure of the Religious field”, Comparative Social Research 13, 1-44.
[Those who command French can try Bourdieu, Pierre (1971), “Genèse et structure du champ religieux”,
Revue français de sociologie 12(2), 295-334].
* Scheitle, Christopher P. & Kevin D. Dougherty (2008), “The Sociology of Religious Organizations”, Sociology
Compass 2, 981-999.

Religiosity Styles: Lived/Popular Religion, Nominal Religion, Sub-dogmatic Religion

* McGuire, Meredith (2008), Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Parker Gumucio, Cristián (1996), Popular Religion and Modernization in Latin America: A Different Logic,
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Originally published in 1993 in Spanish as Otra lógica en América Latina:
Religión popular y modernización capitalista.
* Day, Abby (2012), “Nominal Christian Adherence: Ethnic, Natal, Aspirational”, Implicit Religion 15(4), 439-
456.
* Day, Abby (2011), Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World, Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press.
* Davie, Grace (2007), “Vicarious Religion: A Methodological Challenge”, in Nancy T. Ammerman, (ed.),
Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 21-35.
* Borg, Meerten Ter (2004), ”Some Ideas on Wild Religion”, Implicit Religion, 7(2), 108-119.
* McCloud, Sean (2007), “Liminal Subjectivities and Religious Change: Circumscribing Giddens for the Study
of Contemporary American Religion”, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 22(3), 295-309.
* Smith, Christian & Melissa Lundquist Denton (2005), Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of
American Teenagers, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. [States that American teens, and
probably many American adults as well, adhere to the religiosity style ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’].

The Subjectivisation Thesis, New Age, and the Spiritual Revolution

* Heelas, Paul & Linda Woodhead (2005), The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality,
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
* Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (1999), “New Age Spiritualities as Secular Religion: A Historian’s Perspective”, Social
Compass 46(2), 145-160.
* Heelas, Paul (2009), ”Spiritualities of Life”, in Peter B. Clarke (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of
Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 758-782.
* Aupers, Stef (2005), “‘We are all gods’: New Age in the Netherlands 1960-2000”, in Erik Sengers (ed.), The
Dutch and their Gods: Secularization and Transformation of Religion in the Netherlands since 1950, in the series
ReLic: Studies in Dutch Religious History 3, Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 181-201.
* Possamai, Adam (2005), Ch. 2. “Consumer Religions”, in Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament,
Brussel: P. I. E. Peter Lang, 41-56.

The Social Significance of Spirituality

* Berghuijs, Joantine, Jos Pieper & Cok Bakker (2013), “New Spirituality and Social Engagement”, Journal for
the Scientific Study of Religion 52(4), 775-792.
* Aupers, Stef & Dick Houtman (2006), ”Beyond the Spiritual Supermarket: The Social and Public Significance
of New Age Spirituality”, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 21(2), 201-222.
* Woodhead, Linda (2013), “New Forms of Public Religion: Spirituality in Global Civil Society”, in Wim
Hofstee & Arie van der Kooij (eds.) Religion Beyond Its Private Role in Modern Society, Leiden & Boston: Brill,
29-52.

Session 9: Fundamentalism
The Rise of Fundamentalism Across the World
* Almond, Gabriel A., R. Scott Appleby & Ammanuel Sivan (2003), Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms
around the World, The University of Chicago Press: Chicago & London.
* Berger, Peter L. (1999; ed.), The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Grand
Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
* Marranci, Gabriele (2009), Understanding Muslim Identity: Rethinking Fundamentalism, Basingstoke : Palgrave
Macmillan.
* Martin, David (2002), Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish, in the series Religion in the Modern World, Paul
Heelas, Linda Woodhead, series editors, Malden, MA, Oxford & Carlton, Australia: Blackwell Publishing.
* Cook, Michael (2014), Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.

Religion and Violence

* Lincoln, Bruce (2006), Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11, second edition, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. First edition 2003.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003), Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, third edition,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark, Margo Kitts & Michael Jerryson (eds.; 2013), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and
Violence, New York: Oxford University Press.

Globalisation and Religion

* Beyer, Peter (2007), “Globalization and Glocalization”, in James Beckford & N.J. Demerath III (eds.), The
SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore: SAGE Publications,
98-117.
* Obadia, Lionel (2010), “Globalization and the Sociology of Religion”, in Bryan S. Turner (ed.), The New
Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 477-497.
* Campbell, Colin (2010), “The Easternisation of the West: Or, How the West was Lost”, Asian Journal of Social
Science 38, 738-757.

Islam in the West

* Cesari, Jocelyne (ed.; 2015), The Oxford Handbook of European Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Dessing, Nathal M., Nadia Jeldtoft, Jørgen S. Nielsen, and Linda Woodhead (eds.; 2013), Everyday Lived Islam
in Europe, Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
* Jeldtoft, Nadia (2011), “Lived Islam: Religious Identity with ‘Nonorganized’ Muslim Minorities”, Ethnic and
Racial Studies 34(7), 1134-1151.

Islam in the Netherlands

* Berger, Maurits S. (2015), “The Netherlands”, in Jocelyne Cesari (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of European Islam,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 158-221.
* Koning, Martijn de (2009), “Netherlands”, in Jørgen Nielsen, Samim Akgönül, Brigitte Maréchal & Christian
Moe (eds.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe 1, Leiden: Brill, 243-257.
* Van Liere, Lucien (2014), “Teasing ‘Islam’: ‘Islam’ as the Other Side of ‘Tolerance’ in Contemporary Dutch
Politics”, Journal of Contemporary Religion 29(2), 187-202.
* Sunier, Thijl (2010), “Assimilation by conviction or by coercion? Integration policies in the Netherlands”, in
Alessandro Silj (ed.), European Multiculturalism Revisited, London & New York: Zed Books, 214-234.

Sociology of Islam
* Keskin, Tugrul (ed.; 2011), The Sociology of Islam: Secularism, Economy and Politics, Reading: Ithaca.
Session 10: What about China?
Historical Background
* Turner, Bryan S. (2013), “Confucianism as state ideology: China”, in The Religious and the Political: A
Comparative Sociology of Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 170-185.
* Goossaert, Vincent & David A. Palmer (2010), The Religious Question in Modern China, Chicago University
Press.
* Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui (2008), “Introduction”, in Mayfair Mei-hui Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions
of Modernity and State Formation, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1-40. Accessible at
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3jn4j8cf. [It only loads properly in Crome].
* Johnson, Ian (2017), The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, New York: Pantheon Books.

Sociological Analyses of the Religious Field

* Yang, Fenggang (2014), “What about China? Religious Vitality in the Most Secular and Rapidly Modernizing
Society”, Sociology of Religion 75(4), 564-578.
* Yang, Fenggang (2011), Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Modalities of Doing Religion

* Chau, Adam Yuet (2005), Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China, Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press.
* Chau, Adam Yuet (2011), “Modalities of Doing Religion and Ritual Polytropy: Evaluating the Religious Market Model
from the Perspective of Chinese Religious History”, Religion 41(4), 547-568. [This article goes more in depth than our
chapter on the five modalities of doing religion in China, but does so based on a discussion of religion in the pre-
Communist era].

Session 11: Religion and Education

Historical Background
* Reeh, Niels (2009), “Towards a New Approach to Secularization: Religion, Education and the State in
Denmark, 1721-1900”, Social Compass 56(2), 179-188.

Religion Education in the Netherlands

* Geurts, Thom, Ina ter Avest-de Jonge & Cok Bakker (2014), “Religious Education in the Netherlands”, in
Martin Rothgangel, Robert Jackson & Martin Jäggle (eds.), Religious Education at Schools in Europe – Part 2:
Western Europe, Vienna: V&R unipress, 171-204.

The European Debate

* Alberts, Wanda (2010), “The Academic Study of Religions and Integrative Religious Education in Europe”,
British Journal of Religious Education 32(3), 275-290.
* Jensen, Tim (2008), “RS based RE in Public Schools: A Must for a Secular State”, Numen 55, 123-150.
* Jensen, Tim (2005), “European and Danish Religious Education: Human Rights, the Secular State”, Religion
and Education 32(1), 60-78
* Jödicke, Angar (2013; ed.), Religious Education Politics, the State, and Society, Ergon: Würzburg.
* Owen, Suzanne (2011), “The World Religions Paradigm: Time For a Change”, Arts and Humanities in Higher
Education 10(3), 253-268.
* Moore, J.R. (2006), “Islam in Social Studies Education: What We Should Teach Secondary Students and Why
It Matters”, The Social Studies 97(4), 139-144.
Session 12: Religion and Popular Culture
* Davidsen, Markus Altena (2014), The Spiritual Tolkien Milieu: A Study of Fiction-based Religion, doctoral
dissertation, Leiden University. A monograph version is forthcoming on De Gruyter under the title Tolkien
Spirituality: Constructing Belief and Tradition in Fiction-based Religion.
* Possamai, Adam (2005), Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament, in the series Gods, Humans and
Religions 7, Brussel: P. I. E. Peter Lang.
* Partridge, Christopher H. (2004), The Re-enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular
Culture and Occulture, Vol. 1, London & New York: T&T Clark International.
* Laycock, Joseph (2013), “Where Do they Get These Ideas? Changing Ideas of Cults in the Mirror of Popular
Culture”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81(1), 80-106.