Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe. More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God, specifically in a creator who does not intervene in the universe after creating it, solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology.
Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods and of qualitative approaches.
Charles Margrave Taylor is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize.
In sociology, secularization is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." Most versions of secularization do not lead to atheism, irreligion, nor are they automatically anti-thetical to religion. Secularization has different connotations such as implying differentiation of secular from religious domains, the marginalization of religion in those domains, or it may also entail the transformation of religion as a result of its recharacterization.
Mark Allan Noll is an American historian specializing in the history of Christianity in the United States. He holds the position of Research Professor of History at Regent College, having previously been Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Noll is a Reformed evangelical Christian and in 2005 was named by Time magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America.
Ronald M. Enroth was a professor of sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and an evangelical Christian author of books concerning what he defined as "cults" and "new religious movements" and important figure in the Christian countercult movement.
George Mish Marsden is an American historian who has written extensively on the interaction between Christianity and American culture, particularly on Christianity in American higher education and on American evangelicalism. He is best known for his award-winning biography of the New England clergyman Jonathan Edwards, a prominent theologian of Colonial America.
American civil religion is a sociological theory that a nonsectarian quasi-religious faith exists within the United States with sacred symbols drawn from national history. Scholars have portrayed it as a cohesive force, a common set of values that foster social and cultural integration. The ritualistic elements of ceremonial deism found in American ceremonies and presidential invocations of God can be seen as expressions of the American civil religion. The very heavy emphasis on pan-Christian religious themes is quite distinctively American and the theory is designed to explain this.
Diana Butler Bass is an American historian of Christianity and an advocate for progressive Christianity. She is the author of eleven books.
Eliot Sandler Deutsch was a philosopher, teacher, and writer. He made important contributions to the understanding and appreciation of Eastern philosophies in the West through his many works on comparative philosophy and aesthetics. He was a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii.
Moralistic therapeutic deism (MTD) is a term that was first introduced in the 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by the sociologist Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton. The term is used to describe what they consider to be the common beliefs among U.S. youths. The book is the result of the research project the National Study of Youth and Religion.
Atheism, as defined by the entry in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, is "the opinion of those who deny the existence of a God in the world. The simple ignorance of God doesn't constitute atheism. To be charged with the odious title of atheism one must have the notion of God and reject it." In the period of the Enlightenment, avowed and open atheism was made possible by the advance of religious toleration, but was also far from encouraged.
Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology in the Rice University Department of Sociology, director of the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice, and a Rice scholar at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. She is also a faculty affiliate in the Rice Department of Religion. Ecklund received a B.S. in human development and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University. Her research focuses on institutional change in the areas of religion, immigration, science, medicine, and gender. She has authored numerous research articles, as well as five books with Oxford University Press, a book with New York University Press, and a book with Brazos Press. Her latest book is Varieties of Atheism in Science with author David R. Johnson.
David Oscar Moberg is an American Christian scholar, who is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Marquette University. His areas of specialization included methodology in qualitative research, sociology of religion, sociology of American evangelicals, ageing and religion (gerontology).
John A. Saliba is a Maltese-born Jesuit priest, a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy and a noted writer and researcher in the field of new religious movements.
James Davison Hunter is an American sociologist and originator of the term "Culture Wars" in his 1991 book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. Hunter is the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and the founder and executive director of the university's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He is also a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum.
The definition of religion is a controversial and complicated subject in religious studies with scholars failing to agree on any one definition. Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as the belief in and/or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Others, such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, have tried to correct a perceived Western bias in the definition and study of religion. Thinkers such as Daniel Dubuisson have doubted that the term religion has any meaning outside of western cultures, while others, such as Ernst Feil even doubt that it has any specific, universal meaning even there.
Michael Plekon is an American priest, professor, author, sociologist and theologian. He has published more than a dozen books, as well as hundreds of journal papers, book chapters and reviews on faith and holiness. His works include religious social history, social theory and its connections with theology, the works of Søren Kierkegaard, contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology and theologians of the Russian emigration and saints. More recently, his research and publications explore persons of faith, seeking identity and God in spiritual journeys. He is also writing about persons of faith struggling for social justice and for ways of rediscovering holiness in ordinary life. He is especially interested in the encounter with God in the everyday.
Donna Freitas is a scholar, teacher, writer, and author of fiction and non-fiction for both adults and teenagers. Born in Rhode Island, the most Catholic state in the United States, Freitas's Catholic religion and spirituality inform much of her writing. Her writing also addresses sexuality, consent, and college campus culture.
