by Bryan S. Turner (Author)
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 comparative religion to the social context of individualism, civil religions and political legitimacy, the book makes a major contribution to the analysis of conflict and consensus in social systems.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 264
Edition: Second
Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
Published: 19 Jul 1991
ISBN 10: 080398569X
ISBN 13: 9780803985698
`Turner writes... with much more analytical penetration and sensitivity to historical variation and conjuncture than is to be found in the vast majority of sociological writings of our time on the theme of religion' - Theory, Culture & Society
`The most important theoretical contribution to the sociology of religion in the last two decades. It presents a challenge to many of the prevailing assumptions in that field and suggests ways in which it could regain the position of centrality that it occupied in the work of classical sociologists such as Weber and Durkheim' - Professor Kenneth Thompson