In this insightful examination of religions in their local and global context, the author shows how analyzing religions social context helps us understand individuals lives, social movements, national and ethnic politics, and widespread social changes. Well-researched and theory-based, the text is filled with intriguing anecdotes, empirical data, thought-provoking discussions of both mainstream and nonofficial religions, and historical and contemporary examples that illustrate the interplay between religion and society across cultures. This volume takes an integrated approach to examining religion and includes cross-cultural, historical, and methodological viewpoints. Readers will learn to identify the complex interactions between religion and societal contexts, as well as the ways in which these interactions shape individuals, communities, national politics, and the world.

McGuire provides students with an integrated overview of the subject and a useful basis for critical evaluation.

Over the last thirty years a number of theologians have been using aspects of sociology alongside the more traditional resources of philosophy. In turn, sociologists with an interest in theology have also contributed to an interaction between theology and sociology. John Milbank dismissed the sociology of religion as a radically secularising discipline and championed an approach to theology now known as radical orthodoxy, yet a decade later radical orthodoxy has lost a good deal of its support, with critics arguing that it is too circular and enclosed within its own premises. The time is now right to revisit the dialogue between theologians and sociologists prior to Milbank's intervention. In this new triology on Sociological Theology, Robin Gill makes a renewed contribution to mapping of three abiding ways of appropriately relating theology and interactionist sociology, namely: the social context of theology; the social determinants of theology; and the social significance of theology.

The second edition of this major book on the social analysis of religion incorporates a substantial new introduction by Bryan S Turner. Religion and Social Theory assesses the different theoretical approaches to the social function of religion. Turner discusses at length the ideas of key contributors to these approaches (including Engels, Durkheim, Weber, Nietzsche, Freud, Parsons, Marcuse, Habermas and Foucault). In so doing, he develops a distinctive perspective on the role of religion as an institutional link between economic and human reproduction. Social theories of religion are explored through a resolutely comparative and historical analysis of the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Relating c