"Choice and Religion provides a detailed critique of 'rational choice' to demonstrate that industrialisation has secularised the western world and that diversity, far from making religion more popular by allowing individuals to maximize their returns, undermines it. The claim that competition promotes religion is refuted with evidence from a wide variety of western societies. Bruce also examines the Nordic countries and the ex-communist states of eastern Europe to explore the consequences of different sorts of state regulation, and to show that ethnicity is a more powerful determinate of religious change than market structures. Where religion matters, it is not because individuals are maximising their returns but because it defines group identity and is deeply implicated in social conflict."--BOOK JACKET.

Collectivistic Religions draws upon empirical studies of Christianity in Europe to address questions of religion and collective identity, religion and nationalism, religion and public life, and religion and conflict. It moves beyond the attempts to tackle such questions in terms of 'choice' and 'religious nationalism' by introducing the notion of 'collectivistic religions' to contemporary debates surrounding public religions. Using a comparison of several case studies, this book challenges the modernist bias in understanding of collectivistic religions as reducible to national identities. A significant contribution to both the study of religious change in contemporary Europe and the theoretical debates that surround religion and secularization, it will be of key interest to scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, religious studies, and geography.

Rational Choice Theory and Religion considers one of the major developments in the social scientific paradigms that promises to foster a greater theoretical unity among the disciplines of sociology, political science, economics and psychology. Applying the theory of rational choice--the theory that each individual will make her choice to maximize gain and minimize cost--to the study of religion, Lawrence Young has brought together a group of internationally renowned scholars to examine this important development within the field of religion for the first time.

Educating Believers: Religion and School Choice offers theoretical essays and empirical studies from leading researchers on religion and schooling. Religious authority and emphasis on fairness and caring provide consistent rules governing the stable family and community relationships needed for individual growth and collective action. Religion is among the most important aspects of human life, likely hard-wired into human beings, and intimately intertwined with schooling. The book addresses key matters regarding religious pluralism in education, including the history of state-faith relationships in schooling, how religious faith can motivate teachers, whether religious education teaches tolerance, and whether practices in Europe and Asia hold lessons for American schools. The works in this volume can guide future scholarship on religious pluralism in education, particularly work related to civic values, character formation and public policy. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of School Choice.

this book focuses on religion and politics and the dynamic interactions between them. It helps to understand the politics of religion in the United States and to appreciate the strategic choices that politicians and religious participants make when they participate in politics.

With this consumer guide, readers can review 99 world religions and utilize proven shopping comparison techniques to base their decision about which to adopt on the things that really matter - what you have to wear, whether you can have sex, what you can and can't wear, and where you'll go when you die.

Do they take the pope's statements seriously? Do they attend Mass? Have significant numbers left for other churches? Do they want Catholic education for their children?".