Religion and Modernization by Steve Bruce

Religion and Modernization by Steve Bruce

The claim that modern societies are less religious than their predecessors because modernity undermines the plausibility of religion has been almost an orthodoxy, but increasingly this 'secularization thesis' is being challenged on a number of fronts. This collection brings together leading sociologists and historians who share a common interest in advancing our understanding of religious change by clarifying the key elements of the thesis and testing them against appropriate bodies of data. The book begins with an exposition of the thesis by two sociologists and goes on to present and interpret new data on church adherence in the nineteenth century in the USA and Europe, British church membership rates for the last two hundred years, the British 1851 census of church attendance, changes in English Roman Catholicism, and comparisons of American and European religiosity. The collection is completed with a response by Bryan Wilson, for many the chief advocate of the secularization account of religious change. Even where historians and sociologists cannot agree, Religion and Modernization has the great value of clarifying the arguments and pointing the way toward their resolution.

`The attitudes are scholarly, and the long bibliography points to other sources of information or opinionWhat emerges? An answer more nuanced than the early assertions or denials which stimulated the debate, but still clear enough to be a verdict on which I think most juries would be likely to agree.' Church Times
`Several of its papers offer a refreshingly empirical approach.' Political Quarterly
'This symposium of essays is to be welcomed ... Bruce has assembled an interesting and creative mix of sociologists and social historians.' Keith W. Clements, Theology
`This symposium of essays is to be welcomed ... Bruce has assembled an interesting and creative mix of sociologists and social historians ... These central essays are stimulating and informative.' Theology
`this book is recommended reading for religious scholars and social scientists interested in the relationship between religion and modernization. It engages a number of important theoretical questions and presents a wealth of empirical data ... Unlike most edited volumes, this one is a coherent whole ... I must confess that I have in the past been sympathetic to the "secularization is dead" thesis. This book did not force me to capitulate but did cause me to reconsider. In the world of scholarship, that is high praise' The Journal of Religion
`This volume cogently sets out the current state of the debate ... I can only renews unqualified commendation of this volume.' British Journal of Sociology

Steve Bruce, Professor of Sociology, University of Aberdeen

Steve Bruce is an internationally renowned sociologist of religion. He taught at The Queen's University, Belfast, from 1978 to 1991 and since 2001 he has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2005 he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Steve Bruce is the author of a number of books, including Secular Beats Spiritual (OUP, 2017), Bryan Wilson's Religion in Secular Society: Fifty Years On (OUP 2016), and Scottish Gods: Religion in Modern Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780198273691
ISBN 10	019827369X
Title	Religion and Modernization
Author	Steve Bruce
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1992-11-12
Number of pages	236
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.