Sociology Religion

Conquerors, Brides, and Concubines investigates the political and cultural significance of marriages and other sexual encounters between Christians and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula, from the Islamic conquest in the early eighth century to the end of Muslim rule in 1492. Interfaith liaisons carried powerful resonances, as such unions could function as a tool of diplomacy, the catalyst for conversion, or potent psychological propaganda.

Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life.

The Baby Boomers studied here, living in the UK and Canada, were the last generation to have been routinely baptized and taken regularly to mainstream, Anglican churches. So, what went wrong—or, perhaps, right? This study, based on in-depth interviews, is the first to offer a sociological account of the sudden transition from religious parents to non-religious children and grandchildren, focusing exclusively on this generation of ex-Anglican Boomers.

Like no book before it, Preachers of Hate uncovers an ancient hatred that threatens the life and livelihood of every American. The "new" anti-Semitism targets not only Jews, but Americans specifically and the West in general. It targets our values, our lifestyle, and our freedoms. It is the single most important issue we face when trying to make sense of the Arab world.

Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, Martha C. Nussbaum takes us to task for our religious intolerance, identifies the fear behind it, and offers a way past fear toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society, through the consistent application of universal principles of respect for conscience.

Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. Unlike his previous books, however, Ordinary Resurrections is almost entirely narrative and takes us into the fascinating details of daily life as he has lived it with young children who befriended him over the course of several years. Like Amazing Grace, this book describes the children of New York's South Bronx, but it is a markedly different book in mood and vantage point.

Connecting our speed-obsession with today's global capitalism, Taylor composes a grand narrative showing how commitments to economic growth and extreme competition, combined with accelerating technological innovation, have brought us close to disaster. Psychologically, environmentally, economically, and culturally, speed is taking a profound toll on our lives.

On the street, every ballplayer has a story. Onaje X. O. Woodbine, a former streetball player who became an all-star Ivy Leaguer, brings the sights and sounds, hopes and dreams of street basketball to life. He shows that big games have a trickster figure and a master of Black talk whose commentary interprets the game for audiences. The beats of hip-hop and reggae make up the soundtrack, and the ballplayers are half men, half heroes, defying the ghetto's limitations with their flights to the basket.

It has become the prevalent view among sociologists, historians, and some theistic scientists that religion and science have never been in serious conflict. Some even claim that Christianity was responsible for the development of science. In a sweeping historical survey that begins with ancient Greek science and proceeds through the Renaissance and Enlightenment to contemporary advances in physics and cosmology, Stenger makes a convincing case that not only is this conclusion false, but Christianity actually held back the progress of science for 1,000 years.

Dr. William Lucius Hunter, MD (1850-1915) was a physician and a clergyman of the African Methodist-Episcopal Church. For his 1901 book Jesus Christ Had Negro Blood in His Veins, he researched Scripture in order to combat racial discrimination and abuse. He identifies the biblical Canaanites as having been Black and argues that several important Jewish figures and ancestors of Jesus had children by this group of people. Showing that David and Solomon married Black women, he contends that Jesus had Black ancestry dating back to Ham, the son of Noah.

Uncover the ways the Christian church has changed in recent years—from the decline of the mainline denominations to the mega-churchification of American culture—and a hopeful reimagining of what the church might look like going forward. The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented...

In this provocative book, Mugambi Jouet describes why Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, gender roles, abortion, gay rights, sex, gun control, mass incarceration, the death penalty, torture, human rights, and war.

A strange phenomenon has gripped Protestantism in recent decades: many of its best and brightest thinkers have converted to Roman Catholicism. Likewise, many earnest, normal believers have found Protestantism shallow in doctrine, history, ethics, and worship, and made the leap to Rome. How can Protestants make sense of this? In this short and penetrating book, originally published as a series of essays, Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo insightfully diagnose the psychological, theological, and sociological factors behind Protestant conversions to Rome.

Shishyashram, a community of Christians stewarding their skills and minds to glorify God, has the unique opportunity of reaching out to the red-light district of GB Road in New Delhi to share the love of Christ with the women who reside there. The Holy Spirit led us to go there and revealed to us how our Lord Jesus walked on this earth, choosing to meet people no one else wanted to see. If we were to follow in the steps of Jesus, then our path was destined to cross GB Road.

Post-religiosi, atei, materialisti: nell’infinita gamma degli atteggiamenti dell’Occidente secolarizzato verso la religione sembra manchi solo quello più semplice: credere. È ormai una scelta marginale, in via d’estinzione? Niente affatto, tanto è vero che il bisogno di Dio sembra tornare alla ribalta ovunque nel mondo, in modi anche drammatici. Perché? È opinione comune che la religione sia stata inventata dagli uomini per autoconsolarsi della propria condizione mortale.

Like many places, West Michigan has a long history of religious diversity. People of many faiths have lived in the community for years on end. Yet unlike many places in the US, their interfaith journey has been cultivated with purpose and intention, filled with thoughtful dialogue, and nourished by a curiosity to learn about one another.

God at War explores the dark attraction between religion and warfare. Virtually every religious tradition leaves behind it a bloody trail of stories, legends, and images of war, and most wars call upon the divine for blessings in battle. This book finds the connection between religion and warfare in the alternative realities created in the human imagination in response to crises both personal and social.

Randall Balmer was a late convert to sports talk radio, but he quickly became addicted, just like millions of other devoted American sports fans. As a historian of religion, the more he listened, Balmer couldn't help but wonder how the fervor he heard related to religious practice. From baseball to basketball and football to ice hockey, Balmer explores the origins and histories of big-time sports from the late nineteenth century to the present, with entertaining anecdotes and fresh insights into their ties to religious life.

Do you want the greatest political and societal challenges of the day to be addressed with thoughtful, reality-based solutions rather than with cherry-picked quotations from scripture? Do you want to shrink religion - especially fundamentalist religion - to the point that it plays no noticeable role in public life? Do you want right-wing religious leaders to be so unpopular that politicians avoid them rather than pander to them for endorsements? This book illustrates specific, actionable steps for facilitating fundamentalist religion's decline.

How do you know what you know - or what you think you know? Have you ever wondered why you believe in God, why some people don’t believe in God, or what it means to be religious? How do you answer the question, “Who are you?” Norman Orr provides new ways to think about these questions and many more in this book that promotes the idea of embracing biological humanism.