Abstract
Reviewed by James V Spickard , University of Redlands, USA
This book grew out of the 2011 conference of the Sociology of Religion Study Group, part of the British Sociological Association. Though conference volumes have a deservedly mixed reputation among scholars, this one is good. The editors took the best papers from that conference, solicited revisions, and then added a few other papers that fill in the holes they perceived in the collection. The result is a set of thought-provoking essays that explore several sides of contemporary sociology of religion in depth.
The volume opens with the editors’ introduction, which argues for a deeper integration between sociological theory and the study of religion in the wider discipline. This is more than mere wishing that sociological theorists would theorize more about religion: the wish runs both ways. Religion, they say, can help deepen sociological theory. Among other things, this volume is designed to suggest how this might be done.
The first two chapters present divergent views of the state of the sociology of religion, mainly focused on Britain. Grace Davie points out that sociology has undergone a sea-change in the last couple of decades. It has moved from expecting religion’s demise to seeing religion as a problem—especially in its ‘fundamentalist’ formations. Davie wonders what it would take for sociology to see the world’s varied religious expressions as normal, not as problems, even disappearing ones. Steve Bruce notes the absence of social theory in most empirical studies and suggests we focus on explanatory theory as opposed to ‘normative theory,’ ‘zeitgeist metaphors,’ and ‘agenda setters’; he finds the latter three to be closer to philosophy than to social science. He wants theory that will improve research and thereby increase the sum of knowledge.
The next three chapters all concern themselves with history. Bryan Turner argues for the importance of historical-comparative sociology through a discussion of Robert Bellah’s efforts to understand religious evolution since the Axial Age. He connects Bellah’s work to the (now) neglected work of Karl Jaspers, while pointing out the former’s debt to the tragic moral vision that gave Weber and Durkheim such greater heft than we find in most sociological thinking. David Lehmann charts the shifting relationship between popular and official religion, drawing examples from both Judaism and Latin American Pentecostalism and emphasizing the dialectic between hope and despair that he says shapes much of religious life. Andrew McKinnon examines the work of Norbert Elias, noting the near absence of religion in his account of ‘the civilizing process.’ He analyzes the Peace of God movement in the 10th and 11th centuries to show that religious institutions countered Europe’s warrior elite’s use of violence by this-worldly means. Anathemas and excommunications did a better job than promises of hell or heaven. Elias’s neglect of religion left this important dynamic out of account.
Part III consists of two chapters of pure theory: Dominka Motak reintroduces the relevance of Georg Simmel, while Andrew Dawson criticizes multiple-modernity models for making historical comparisons impossible. The first of these connects Simmel’s brief work on religion with his better-known work on money; the second attempts to create a softer way of comparing modernities without privileging any particular one.
Part IV also contains two chapters, each of which theorizes from concrete empirical work. Based on their research in Norwegian congregations, Anne Margit Løvland and Pål Repstad argue for an increased aestheticization of religion, toward narrative, visual, and above all aural aspects of religious life and away from dogma, theology, and cognitive teachings. Anna Strhan explores the phenomenon of listening in a British evangelical non-charismatic congregation, putting her data in conversation with Michel de Certeau’s claim that modernity is a visual, not an aural era. In what is perhaps the most theoretically exciting of this book’s chapters, Strhan looks at what the centrality of evangelical discourse about listening means for religion’s modernity. In brief, ‘the Word,’ ‘listening to Jesus’ and other aural markers are central ways by which the church encourages members to ‘shape their bodies as vessels’ for engaging the divine. Contra de Certeau, they are also central for the practice of rationality. Listeners are not passive vessels; they are active discerners, who both listen and judge. They thus simultaneously assert autonomy and seek authority, while shaping themselves to be perfect disciples.
The two final chapters present two more theoretical strands, each of which is well known in other sociological subdisciplines but not well developed in the sociology of religion. Titus Hjelm presents an overview of critical discourse analysis, seen as a tool for building a critical sociology of religion—something that he argues barely exists in the present field. Marta Trzebiatowska explores Bourdieu’s potential contributions for an understanding of religion and gender. Both helpfully focus on power relations: Hjelm on how to reveal power hidden in everyday discourse, Trzebiatowska by moving beyond habitus to examine collectively created practices that enhance women’s agency. In effect, she reads Bourdieu against himself, finding the result more useful than we would expect for understanding both the constraints of social structure and the opportunities to change it.
Each of these contributions is serious and worth study. Like our current field, they move in several directions simultaneously. These multiple directions make for good reading, though I find some of them more fruitful than others.
In the middle range, I resonate with Davie’s wish that the sociology of religion would treat religion as normal, not as either passing away or problematically failing to do so. This move risks, though, a premature acceptance of normality, which might fail to trace the ways that religions oppressively shape people’s lives. Hjelm and Trzebiatowska offer useful correctives. On the micro level, I appreciate especially Strhan’s sensitivity to how people construct selves in religious settings, not just cognitively but bodily and sensorily as well. On the macro level, I appreciate Turner’s effort to chart religious change through history—not just out of antiquarian interest but because the seams of the past continue to shape the present day.
In short, this is a good book to think with. Well done.