| Abbreviation | SSSR |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1949 |
| Type | Learned society |
President | Laura Olson |
| Website | sssreligion |
Formerly called |
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The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (founded in 1949) [1] was formed to advance research in the social scientific perspective on religious institutions and experiences. [2] The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion is published by the society to provide a forum for empirical papers in the topic area.
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Civil religion, also referred to as a civic religion, is the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols, and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places. It is distinct from churches, although church officials and ceremonies are sometimes incorporated into the practice of civil religion. Countries described as having a civil religion include France and the United States. As a concept, it originated in French political thought and became a major topic for U.S. sociologists since its use by Robert Bellah in 1960.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines religiosity as: "Religiousness; religious feeling or belief. [...] Affected or excessive religiousness". Different scholars have seen this concept as broadly about religious orientations and degrees of involvement or commitment. Religiosity is measured at the levels of individuals or groups and there is a lack of agreement on what criteria would constitute religiosity among scholars. Sociologists of religion have observed that an individual's experience, beliefs, sense of belonging, and behavior often are not congruent with their actual religious behavior, since there is much diversity in how one can be religious or not. Multiple problems exist in measuring religiosity. For instance, measures of variables such as church attendance produce different results when different methods are used - such as traditional surveys vs time-use surveys.
Cult is a term, in most contexts pejorative, for a group which is typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader, who tightly controls its members, requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant. This term is also used for a new religious movement or other social group which is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular person, object, or goal. This sense of the term is weakly defined – having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia – and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
A religious symbol is an iconic representation intended to represent a specific religion, or a specific concept within a given religion.
David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, specialized in sociology of religion and the academic study of new religious movements. He has written extensively about cults, new religious movements, apostasy, and the anti-cult movement.
Anson D. Shupe, Jr. was an American sociologist noted for his studies of religious groups and their countermovements, family violence and clergy misconduct.
Robert Neelly Bellah was an American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was internationally known for his work related to the sociology of religion.
In social science, disenchantment is the cultural rationalization and devaluation of religion apparent in modern society. The term was borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Max Weber to describe the character of a modernized, bureaucratic, secularized Western society. In Western society, according to Weber, scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief, and processes are oriented toward rational goals, as opposed to traditional society, in which "the world remains a great enchanted garden".
Community archaeology is archaeology by the people for the people. The field is also known as public archaeology. There is debate about whether the terms are interchangeable; some believe that community archaeology is but one form of public archaeology, which can include many other modes of practice, in addition to what is described here. The design, goals, involved communities, and methods in community archaeology projects vary greatly, but there are two general aspects found in all community archaeology projects. First, community archaeology involves communities "in the planning and carrying out of research projects that are of direct interest to them". Second, community archaeologists generally believe they are making an altruistic difference. Many scholars on the subject have argued that community collaboration does not have a pre-set method to follow. Although not found in every project, there are a number of recurring purposes and goals in community archaeology. Similarities are also found in different countries and regions—due to commonalities in archaeological communities, laws, institutions, and types of communities. It has also been suggested that public archaeology can be defined in a broad sense as the production and consumption of archaeological "commodities".
Thomas Robbins was an author and an independent scholar of sociology of religion.
The Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) is an academic association with more than 700 members worldwide. It publishes a journal, Sociology of Religion, and holds meetings at the same venues and times as the American Sociological Association.
Guy Benton Johnson Jr. was an American sociologist and professor emeritus of the University of Oregon's Department of Sociology.
Ralph Wilbur Hood Jr. is an American psychologist. He serves as Leroy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he specializes in the psychology of religion.
Karel Dobbelaere is a Belgian educator and noted sociologist of religion. Dobbelaere is an Emeritus Professor of both the University of Antwerp and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain) in Belgium. He is past-President and General Secretary of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion.
Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America is a historical study of Wicca and Contemporary Paganism in the United States. It was written by the American academic Chas S. Clifton of Colorado State University-Pueblo, and published by AltaMira Press in 2005.
Roberto Cipriani is an Italian social scientist. He is professor emeritus of sociology at Roma Tre University. "He has written extensively on popular religion, the sacred and secularization", and is known for his unconventional applications of the "concept of 'diffused religion' and then that of 'religion of values' ". He has made analytical contributions to the concept of diffused religion by using grounded theory. "He also underlines what he calls the 'meta-institutional' character of this religion, even if, he says, these characteristics have a religious institutional origin".
The Canadian Society for the Study of Religion is a Canadian academic society oriented to the scholarly study of religion. It was established in 1965.
The theory of divergent modes of religiosity (DMR) is intended to explain how religions are created, transmitted, and changed. DMR theory was first developed by anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse following his ethnographic fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. The theory proposes that religions tend to coalesce around two divergent modes, termed imagistic and doctrinal, which are distinguished primarily by their ritual practices. The imagistic mode is characterized by infrequently performed, high arousal rituals (e.g. initiation rites) and is associated with small scale, exclusive religious groups. In contrast the doctrinal mode is characterized by frequently performed, low arousal rituals (e.g. daily recitations of sacred texts) and is associated with larger inclusive communities, as found in the major world religions.
Norman Kent Denzin was an American professor of sociology. He was an emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was research professor of communications, College of Communications scholar, professor of sociology, professor of cinema studies, professor in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. Denzin's academic interests included interpretive theory, performance studies, qualitative research methodology, and the study of media, culture and society.
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