Excerpt from A Social Theory of Religious Education What consequences for religious education follow from the now widely accepted social interpretation of the Christian mes sage? The present work is an attempt to answer this question. The answer is not simple. For the social message does not require us merely to insert this or that new duty into our present scheme of living, but also to judge every detail of conduct from a higher point of view. We are required to organize the whole of life upon a different level. It would be strange indeed if the new meaning that this gives to every-day affairs did not change our outlook upon child life. If we are to be logical and practical in our social Christianity, we must revise our policies with respect to children at least as much as our policies with respect to adults. The chapters that follow undertake to show the directions that this revision will need to take. As we proceed, it will appear that the whole perspective of religious education undergoes a change. The central purpose, to begin with, grows more specific because the nature of good ness is seen to be as concrete as the neighbor who lives next door. Christian experience comes out of the clouds, because in our dealings with our brother whom we have seen we are deal ing with the Father whom we have not seen - yes, we here come into relation with what is deepest in his character and purposes. To Christian ears these statements do not sound strange, per haps, yet when they are applied to the religious life of the young they do sing a new melody. A profounder significance attaches to the will of a child, and especially to his relations with persons, whether children or adults. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Many aspects of religion are puzzling these days. This 2003 book looks at ways of improving our understanding of religious change by strengthening the links between social theory and the social scientific study of religion. It clarifies the social processes involved in constructing religion and non-religion in public and private life. Taking illustrations of the importance of these boundaries from studies of secularisation, religious diversity, globalisation, religious movements and self-identity, Beckford reviews social scientific knowledge about religion and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of a wide range of theoretical attempts to account for religious change and continuity. The discussion goes in two directions. The first is towards identifying ways in which studies of religion would benefit from taking better account of themes in recent social theory. The second is towards identifying reasons for social theorists to pay more attention to the findings of empirical investigations of religion.

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