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We live in an Apocalyptic Era, in frustrated disappointed and enraged societies that have lost the future. Eternity has become an outcast and salvation in the afterlife is no longer a leading quest. In short, we live the end of the centrality of the concept of theodicy. The conjunction of the crisis in religious socialization mechanisms and those of secular socialization is what largely generates this widespread disappointment. The idea of Apocalypse, historically related to condemnations and Manichean visions, has returned with force to our contemporary societies through new forms of exclusion and discrimination in populist regimes relating to popular religiosity. The role of sociology of religions is to assess the current social disappointment and demystification of the future and at the same time distinguish and warn about the political processes of reproduction and representation of contemporary apocalypses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the main work of two women in classical sociology, Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) and Ida B. Wells (1862–1931). While some sociologists have pointed to the significance of their work and that of other early women classical sociologists, most sociologists, and in particular, most sociologists of religion, have ignored their work. This article asks which themes in sociology and the sociology of religion these women addressed that many male classical sociologists failed to address. How does the study of these two women point to important issues in current sociology of religion? The analysis shows that central themes in the work of Martineau and Wells were the intersections of religion, gender, race, and social class. Their work also points to another highly important issue seldom addressed in current sociology of religion, namely the link between various forms of religion and the realization of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyse sociologically the adaptations Islamic religiosity has been undergoing in Minas Gerais state, one of the most conservative states of Brazil and a bastion of Catholicism. In order to understand the consequences of the cultural negotiation in the practise of a religion that is considered to be 'foreign', and to what extent this process is guided and intermediated by Muslim leaders or defined by 'individual' decisions of believers, we analyse four important points addressed by Islamic normativity: Islamic clothing, prayers, halal food, and marriage. This research draws on 18 months of participant observation and interviews. We contend that community members, especially women, have a revived and rigorous religious practise, sometimes exceeding the demands of the Sheikh, not only due to the influence of global conservative religious movements, but also because of an elective affinity between the conservatism of Minas Gerais and traditional Islamic values concerning family and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks how secular societies cope with suffering and fortune perceived as unjust and undeserved. It investigates secular forms of dealing with the originally religious problem of theodicy. According to Weber's work, Western societies have solved this problem with the meritocratic ideal based on the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, which gave rise to the capitalistic work ethics. Current sociological diagnoses observe a crisis of these ethics, which begs the question of whether this also indicates a crisis of meritocratism. The article addresses this question from the perspective of sociology of religion and translates Weber's typology of religious theodicies into a typology of secular cosmodicies. The typology serves as an analytical tool, allowing for systematic comparisons of justifications in different empirical cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vision and divine voice, however defined, are at the heart of religious experience. The meeting with the Other sustains new ways of life and grants deep transformations in subjectivity. After chronicling the difficulty, indeed outright impossibility, of circumscribing and defining these complex experiences, as well as the opacity of the dominant categories that have been adopted by sociology, anthropology, phenomenology, and psychiatry, this article explores three case histories from southern Italy. Each one reveals a particular knot where private (and traumatic) experience has incorporated historical horizons and collective anxieties. By adopting a historical and comparative perspective, the author investigates how visions, voices – and more generally the encounter with transcendence – enable subalterns to deal with suffering and marginality and, more importantly, to build a view of how the world is and works. Finally, the article suggests that these experiences allow a transformation of the nostalgia for agency into new 'horizons of expectation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of religion has not systematically explored the emerging roles of religion in the whole process of the transition to adulthood, especially in the changing contexts of delayed and complicated transitions to adulthood. Seeking to bridge the two different fields of sociology, we identify four directions of research: (1) a multidimensional approach that identifies the different dimensions of religion with varying degrees of relationship to young adults' lives; (2) a close attention to racial/ethnic variation in the roles of religion for the transition to adulthood; (3) an open inquiry into the changing importance of religion for young adults in a rapidly shifting neoliberal global economy; and (4) the detrimental effects of religion in the transition to adulthood. We call for more research on the increasingly complex relationship between religion and the transition to adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As recently as 2008, a major reference work in the sociology of religion could (correctly) describe the study of atheism, secularity, and nonreligion as 'meager, fragmentary, and unappreciated'. Only a decade later, this situation has been radically transformed. Not only is there a substantial, ever-growing, and constantly diversifying (methodologically, theoretically, geographically) research literature, but 'nonreligion studies' now possesses a full 'academic architecture' of conferences, journals, monograph series, professional communities, and grant successes. Over this period, the study of nonreligion has become increasingly institutionalized as an established subfield of the sociology of religion. This has not simply come about by magic. On the contrary, there are very good sociological reasons i) why, for over a century, nonreligion failed to take off (outside of certain, telling milieux) as an area of sustained sociological interest; and ii) why and how this has – seemingly so rapidly – changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relations between humans and nonhumans.

The next-generation of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) sets a new horizon of inquiry into the obvious and hidden significances of the secular techno-society. By incorporating the perspectives of STS (Science, Technology and Society) into the sociology of religion, this article attempts to explore the social-religious significance found in the emerging relationships between the human and Robotics and AI. By referring to several cases of Robotics from Japan and the US, this article examines three versions of the relationship, namely, the physical, the social and the psychological. Several concrete cases are referred to for each aspect: the robot suit, the robotic arm, and BMI (Brain Machine Interface) for the physical relationship; PARO, a seal-like healing robot, OriHime, and Pepper for the social relationship; and a conversation with artificial 'personality' such as Bima48 for the psychological relationship. For each of this kind of relation, the involvement on Sociology of Religion is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the sociology of religion. In particular, the author discusses the study of this field of research in universities and institutions in the United States. The author cites two special issues by the journals "Sociology of Religion" and the "Journal of Scientific Studies of Religion" that recount the history of the sociology of religion from the 1980s to 2009. According to the article, the sociology of religion is integrated into sociological research in universities in the United States in contrast to other countries.

In the line of Foucault, L. Segato analyses contemporary religious activity as a form of body politics in which religions and states compete within the context of globalization. M. Koenig underlines the juridical legitimation of religion by the European parliament which guarantees religious institutions a new place in the public sphere. In his critique of these two approaches, the author considers that the contemporary religious vitality is rather related to the capacity of religion to create new subjects, in other words new members who are joining religious movements without regard or respect for national political and religious regulations, both in Europe and in the rest of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of identity politics in patterning religious experience and affiliation today, described here as an aspect of a new territoriality, are vast in many fields. The functional relation existing between a new territoriality defined by network, biopolitics as a form of control and the spectacularization (i.e., the visible nature) of identities greatly affects the field of religion today. In this new territorial environment, networks suffocate internal dissidence on doctrinal and theological matters, and in facing the outside world they stress their unity by means of the management of bodies, placing a premium on exterior signs of belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author introduces the topics of this issue focusing on religious mediation, belonging and identity. The article explores how different actors interact in the formation of religious identity and belief. The author describes how regional and national characteristics influence religious organizations. The work of German sociologist Max Weber, who examined the relationship between the economy and religion and rationalization in Western thought, is discussed. The article also mentions how Christianity relates to secular society and contrasts this to more fundamentalist strands of Islam.

The author introduces the topics of this issue focusing on religious mediation, belonging and identity. The article explores how different actors interact in the formation of religious identity and belief. The author describes how regional and national characteristics influence religious organizations. The work of German sociologist Max Weber, who examined the relationship between the economy and religion and rationalization in Western thought, is discussed. The article also mentions how Christianity relates to secular society and contrasts this to more fundamentalist strands of Islam.

Feminist research into the position and participation of women in contemporary fundamentalist and traditionalist identity movements shows how essentialist ideologies of sexual difference are often deployed in critique of western secular liberal feminism. In this article the author draws a comparison between discourses of belonging according to studies of ba'alot teshuvah in the USA (female "returnees" to an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle), and her own interviews with "frum from birth" women (raised as haredi) in the strictly Orthodox Jewish community of Antwerp, Belgium. Whereas for the former, a rhetoric of choice, essentialism, and religious ideologies of female superiority appeared important, for the frum-born women, gender is more a question of orthopraxis and religious role equivalence. Nevertheless, the author argues that for the strictly Orthodox Jewish diasporic community in question, an increase in gender conservatism, with particular notions of female sexuality and modesty, goes hand in hand with isolationism vis-à-vis the surrounding secular society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between the official teachings of religious bodies and the beliefs of individual adherents in the United States today? At first glance, this question appears rather straightforward. One simply needs to identify religious bodies, specify their teachings and empirically establish the connection between those teachings and adherents' beliefs. But establishing any of these elements is anything but simple. To begin to untangle this knotty subject, the author first uses a restrictive definition of religious bodies, teachings, and beliefs, focusing on the core doctrinal teachings of clearly identifiable religious denominations. He then steps back and takes a broader view of the situation using a less restrictive definition, exploring the influence of affiliation with religions "families" on individuals' moral beliefs. The author concludes with some thoughts about how both religion and the sociology of religion in America are moving beyond beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an open debate forum, which discusses whether or not animals suffer caste prejudice in Hinduism, the social history of the word “Pariah,” and if caste discriminating names can be used in biological and social contexts. The article suggests that caste discriminating names be avoided since it refers to a social prejudice in India, which is beginning to disappear from their culture.

A national Church is characterized by a concentric synthesis of religion, culture and definitions of socio-political reality. As a result there is a strong social coherence which, objectively speaking, pushes dissidence away from public expression. In cases of compromise between agents of regulation, the separation of powers does not imply a separation between the spiritual and temporal spheres in individual and collective life. Care of the body and soul are intertwined at the same time as they are distinct. From this stems the tension between the system and movements, between the production and the reproduction of relations between religion and society of a Church-type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of compromise refers to a symbolic exchange organizing the mutual relationships of parties while recognizing their otherness. It facilitates bringing individual perspectives together, without fusing viewpoints. Thus compromise permits the emergence of an intersubjective organization of the real, while defining the context of that emergence. In this sense, it is at once the creator and the regulator of social reality. The example of a Catholic chaplaincy illustrates the common good that can emerge from a situation of pluralism regulated by compromise. Reflection on the process of the Lebanese civil war shows us that a weak founding compromise leads to a transformation of the common good, headed towards social deconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses Georg Simmel's writings on religiosity and religion, which only cover a rather tiny part of his total oeuvre, in view of a possible illumination of the material object of the sociology of religion. The distinction between religiosity and religion, which is fundamental according to Simmel, is presented against the more general background of Simmers so-called formal sociology and his overall "Lebensphilosophie" [philosophy of life]. Particular attention is given to the two basic social forms of religiosity, i.e. belief or trust and the experience of social unity. According to Simmel, religion is at once an externalization and purification of religiosity, resulting in the creation of an autonomous sphere of transcendence. It is argued that, in contradistinction to, for instance, Emile Durkheim, Simmel clearly wanted to avoid religion being reduced to a mere reflection of religiosity in general and to the discussed social manifestations of religiosity in particular. The author ends with a brief discussion of Simmel's pessimistic diagnosis of the fate of religion within modernity. In his view, modernity is in need of a religion that no longer situates transcendence in an autonomous sphere, cut off from mundane life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the beginning of the 1990s, unforeseen actors emerged from the periods of political crisis that took place in Africa. Among those actors was the Catholic Church. Approaching the mobilization for democratization from the angle of the resources activated by the various actors, this article analyses "compromise" as a resource which made it possible for the national catholic authorities to play a role in these sociopolitical transformations. If, to this day, the theoretical range of "compromise" has been adequately brought to light, the empirical value of the concept is not well known. This is why this contribution mainly aims at exposing the conceptual operationalization of "compromise" obtained from an analysis of contents. As a conclusion, we propose a three-point discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses empirical themes regarding the Catholic Church, which include the theories of sociologists Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Ernst Troeltsch, and Max Weber. The themes in the article include the relationship between church and state, African national conferences, a French Catholic chaplaincy, the Lebanese social breakdown, and national churches that reference the Greek Orthodox Church.

This is an investigation of the generation effect in Christian-Muslim relations. Inter-faith activities have been developing rapidly for the past 15 years in France. They raise questions related to religious identities, recognition of minorities and geopolitical effects. Christian participants are often pensioners, whereas Muslims are much younger. The issue of religious identity arises both among young Muslims and young Christians, but often has opposite effects. Muslims find a place for diversity and recognition in inter-faith, whereas the Christians find it difficult to affirm themselves as believers in a secular society and are less attracted to dialogue. The generation gap between younger and older Muslims, in addition to the effect on religiosity, influences relations with non-Muslims. Activities aimed at getting along together, rather than holding discussions, are generally more attractive to younger participants. Moreover, these inter-faith relations are strongly characterized by a failure to appreciate the other, which can turn into a kind of paternalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to various articles and issues published in the December 2004 issue of the journal "Social Compass."

This article presents international bibliography of sociology of religions 2003. This bibliography is a systematic indexing only of specialized reviews and not of books. Some of the articles mentioned here in this article are: "Pragmatic Consumers and Practical Products: The Success of Pneumacentric Religion Among Women in Latin America's New Religious Economy," by R. Andrew Chestnut; "Religious Protest and Economic Conflict: Possibilities and Constraints on Religious Resource Mobilization and Coalitions in Detroit's Newspaper Strike," by William A. Mirola; "Catholic, Priests and the Political Order: The Political Behavior Catholic Pastors," by Ted G. Jelen; "Constitutional Privilege and Constituting Pluralism: Religious Freedom in National, Global, and Legal Context," by Peter Beyer; "The Re-Emergence of the Church in the Finnish Public Life? Christian Social Work As an Indicator of the Public Status of the Church," by Anne Birgitta Yeung; "The September 11 Tragedy and the Muslim World: Living With Memory and Myth," by Mahmood Monshipouri.

What appears at the outset is that religion, wherever it comes from and whatever its proper consistency, is not a mirage. The word God may cover one over, but religion surely exists. The sociological tradition has often said that religion does nothing more than fulfil a socio-political function in a disguised way. It has intervened as a guarantor at various levels of power: that of rulers over the ruled, of men over women, of parents over children, etc. Yet this substitutional disguise is what the cultural context of modernity has felt less and less in need of, hence the irremediable disuse religion has gradually fallen into and which the progress of secularization attests to. One must affirm that social reality is fundamentally relational and that, for the human actor, to really be is not to be self-sufficient but to be in relationships. And, if at that threshold demanding that everyone be regarded as a person, there is not as much sociological possibility for thinking the origin and consistency of religion as there was in the highest of the high, there is nothing to be understood there.

Presents an introduction to the June 2004 issue of the journal "Social Compass."

This article focuses on the criteria of the religious. The criteria of being religious might be considered declaring oneself a believer or declaring membership of a Church or religious groups as these are recognized within a given socio-historical context. With regard to intellectual efficiency, if one assumes that this is identifying religion as such, one comes to the conclusion that religion is disappearing, just because one has already reduced religion to that fact. On other occasions, some people who declare themselves non-believers offer metaphysical conceptions which are as good as those of believers more or less aligned with the fait of their respective organizations. One might choose to reduce the sociology of religion to sociology of what refers to classical religious organizations or to their approximate substitutes. But things become intellectually embarrassing when the criteria for discerning religious phenomena turn out to be classical, inculcated the public and scholars with the sentiment that with the disappearance of such machineries or membership of them, religious phenomena themselves would disappear.

The article presents a bibliography of sociology of religions for 2002, including Acta Sociologica, American Journal of Sociology, The British Journal of Sociology and Iglesia Viva.

This critique raises the problem of terrorism as the weapon of the powerful: the problem that those defining terrorism are those who have set the rules to the game of violence, and those dominant definitions of terrorism have been constructed in the interest of the war against terrorism. The author relates that terrorism has traditionally been defined as illegitimate violence, as violence that breaks the rules of the game of violence. According to him, this definition presupposes, first, that there exists such a thing as legitimate violence, and second, that the one doing the defining has the normative leverage to determine what constitutes legitimate and illegitimate violence. The dominant definition of terrorism, in other words, posits the universality of just war and repudiates the postmodernist idea that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. But the problem with this definition is precisely that in reality one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The author argues that to think of terrorism from the point of view of the sociology of religion as a radical religious act is to shatter the distinction that traditionally has been drawn between religious and non-religious terrorism.

Relatively recent efforts in the past decade by a variety of scholars to situate the conceptualization and study of religion more solidly in social and historical contexts have once again raised the question of whether the notion of religion is not fundamentally misleading as a scientific concept and should therefore be abandoned or at least severely circumscribed. The foundation of these critiques in, roughly speaking, sociology of knowledge approaches to religion suggests that they might well have significant implications for the basic orientations of the sociology of religion to its primary object of study. The aim of this article is to examine these more recent critiques of the concept of religion and then to outline a reorientation of the conceptualization of religion to take them into account. To this end, it suggests that the familiar distinctions between functional/substantive definitions and restrictive/expansive approaches be supplemented with a three-part typology of theological, scientific, and official conceptualizations of religion. These are derived from an analysis of the basic social-systemic structures of modern and global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section introduces a series of articles on the sociology of religion.

Despite differences between countries, Eastern Europe is experiencing religious growth and the Churches are enjoying higher prestige. Religiosity appears to be increasing in some respects, unlike in West European societies. However, this development is not without contradictions. The present turn to religion is characterized by very different motives and constituents, among others the search for cultural identity, social regeneration and the fulfillment of spiritual needs. The increased prestige of the Churches is similarly ambiguous. Available data allow different interpretations depending on whether Communism is accepted as a social system that functions reasonably well, or as an artificial straitjacket that leaves a legacy of social anomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from the European Values Study (EVS) 1999, the author gives a brief overview of religions in post-communist societies and Croatia's place among them. He shows that for some societies religion is still crucial for their overall functioning. In order to understand this role, which is only partially visible on the level of empirical data, and to point out some difficulties in the sociological approach to it, the author discusses two themes: religion and war, and religion and transition. Although the recent war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia was not a religious one, the Churches played a key role both at the symbolic level of maintenance of separate national identities, and on the level of complex social processes. The contradictory and uncertain nature of transition processes additionally complicated the role of religion in society and partly prevented its accommodation to new social circumstances. These elements can all be seen in the different roles that religion has to play, contradictory expectations of the public towards the Church and sharp social conflicts that divide society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the theoretical politics of defining religion. Pierre Bourdieu suggested the supposedly sociological definitions of and distinction between religion, magic, and superstition, are little more than scholarly concurrence with and re-legitimizations of political and theological attempts by the ruling elites to discard any claims or attempts to manipulate power arrangements, religious or otherwise. To sum up, postcolonial conditions demand religion should be thought of as in closer connection to asymmetric power relations and dynamics, and that attention should be paid to the struggles of the subordinated to have their own lives defined and treated as respectable or sacred.

The author argues that the flowering of religion informer Zaïre is basically a product of the collapse of the legitimacy of the post-colonial political system, of the persistence of the economic crisis and the dissolution of the national social fabric. At the same time, the author attempts to show that all religious movements and their inherent practices tend to become, in the absence of unifying national symbols, common denominators capable of capturing the national imagination at the moment of its appearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to the Volume 49, December 2002 issue of the journal "Social Compass."

Religious institutions created by the extraordinary efforts of a single founder - like the one examined in this essay - try hard to assure the preservation of charisma, and to guarantee its Weberian 'routinization'. But this attempt does not always succeed, and quite often what originally looks like the 'power of mysticism', allowing resolute individual and social transformations, in the gradual collective evolution of a religious field turns to crystallization, stratification, bureaucratization, quickly becoming a 'mysticism of power' and losing its former elasticity, dynamism and persuasive capacity. Les institutions religieuses nées des efforts extraordinaires déployés par un 'fondateur unique - comme celle évoquée dans cet article - ne ménagent pas leurs efforts afin de préserver leur charisme original et d'assurer sa 'routinisation' au sens wébérien. Mais ces efforts n'aboutissent pas toujours, et très souvent, le 'pouvoir du mysticisme', qui permettait de profondes transformations individuelles et sociales, a tendance, sous l'effet de l'évolution collective, à se cristalliser, à se stratifier et à se bureaucratiser progressivement, cédant ainsi rapidement le pas à un 'mysticisme du pouvoir' qui consacre la perte de l'élasticité, du dynamisme et de la capacité persuasive des débuts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, the author discusses the need to view rationality and mysticism in terms of their fundamental elective affinities. He then analyses this type of configuration from a theoretical point of view through one of the key episodes in the history of western thought, highlighting the affinities of design and structure between mysticism and illuminism. This is followed, in conclusion, by some considerations on their intrinsic dialectic within the postmodern sphere. After a conception that tended to freeze the infinite variety of life and its forms of expression into the abstract uniqueness of a universal grammar, this critical-mystical reasoning opens the way for new and different languages that can aid us in rethinking the destiny of humans and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Troeltsch, who identified in the Western mystical adventure the fundamental aspects of the autonomy of individual conscience, of tolerance, of the relativity of beliefs and of ethical individualism, the author traces in the post'modern religious landscape, well beyond secularization, the kernel of a widespread mystical trend that appeared at the start of the third millennium. Its characteristics are a nomadic dimension, a hypertrophy of silence, an emotional atmosphere, sensitivity to the environment, and a sense of uncertainty. This trend presents both light and dark sides. According to the author the following elements should be considered: the heretical imperative, the sense of outward responsibility, the practice of paradox, and the plurality of the religious world. Dans le prolongement des travaux d'E. Troeltsch, qui avait identifié dans l'aventure mystique de l'Occident les aspects fondamentaux de l'autonomie de la 'conscience individuelle, de la tolérance, de la relativité des croyances et de l'individualisme éthique, l'auteur croit discerner dans le paysage religieux post'moderne, bien au-delà d'une sécularisation, le noyau d'une option mystique largement répandue dont les débuts coïncident avec le troisième millénaire, et dont les principaux traits sont la dimension nomade, l'hypertrophie du silence, le climat émotionnel, la sensibilité environnementale, et le sentiment d'incertitude. Cette option présente des aspects clairs et obscurs. Selon l'auteur, il faut prêter attention à la valeur des éléments suivants: l'impératif hérétique, le sens de la responsabilité au-delà du repli sur soi, la pratique du paradoxe, et la pluralité de l'univers religieux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author shows that 'religious individualism', in combination with highly subjective experiences and with a tendency to renounce any religious community, is the core of Troeltsch's third type. He also shows that Troeltsch regards mysticism as a phenomenon of modernity which is rooted in Christianity, particularly in Protestant mysticism and Protestant spiritualism. For the author, the significance of the present discussion rests in the discovery of the importance of a religion which has relatively little external organization. The unstable social forms of this religion, however, are only briefly mentioned by Troeltsch. L'auteur montre que l'individualisme religieux', associé à des expériences hautement subjectives et à une tendance à renoncer à toute communauté religieuse, est au cour du troisième type troeltschien. Il montre en outre que Troeltsch considère le mysticisme comme un phénomène de l'époque moderne enraciné dans le christianisme, surtout dans la mystique et le spiritualisme protestants. Pour l'auteur, l'intérêt de cette discussion réside dans la découverte de l'importance d'une religion relativement peu organisée au plan externe. Toutefois, les formes sociales instables de cette religion ne sont que brièvement 'évoquées par Troeltsch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basque cooperatives, as examples of utopian voluntary groups, are at the crossroads between three normative systems: social economy, territorial identity and Christian belonging. Since the 1970s, the founding experience of Mondragón (Guipuzcoa) has spread and developed in the French Basque country in a way that reveals the power of the convergence between a religious reference (first as institutional support, later as a source of values, beliefs and capacities) and an identity-based motivation (helping to cement a nationalist political view and a selective re-reading of customs). More widely, the case of these cooperatives helps to criticize the extreme postulate that Western contemporary societies have undergone an overwhelming process of secularization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French. La réflexion en philosophie des religions a connu dans le dernier quart de siècle un tournant radical: le paradigme rationaliste classique hérité de la 'théologie naturelle' a été sévèrement critiqué dans sa prétention universaliste et d'autres paradigmes ont été proposés pour rendre compte du phénomène religieux, en particulier ceux de l'empirisme philosophique, du fidéisme post-moderne et de l'épistémologie réformée. L'enjeu central dans ce conflit de paradigmes porte, postulons-nous, sur le statut rationnel du phénomène. Nous examinons dans ce texte les conséquences qu'entraîne, en sociologie des religions, l'adoption des présupposés paradigmatiques sur le statut rationnel des croyances religieuses. Cet examen aboutit à une évaluation de l'apport des critiques du paradigme rationaliste classique à la lumière de la question de la rationalité. English. The philosophy of religions has experienced a radical turn in the last 25 years: the universalist rationalist claim of the classical rationalist paradigm inherited from 'natural theology' was strongly criticized and new paradigms were proposed to account for the religious phenomenon, particularly the following: the 'philosophical empiricist', the 'post-modern fideist' and the 'reformed epistemology'. We postulate that the rational status of religious phenomenon is the central issue of the paradigmatic conflict. We examine the consequences of paradigmatic presuppositions concerning the rational status of religious beliefs on the sociology of religions. We also examine the contributions of these new paradigms to the problematic of rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the sociology of religion in the search of transactions between experience and institution. This approach attempted to understand a Catholic universe in which the institution, taken together with its organizational aspects, is put forward as a guarantee of quality which must be adhered to. It notes that the search for an authentic spiritual dimension of things requires personal and autonomous action. This spiritual dimension is based on the hope of a beyond relative to the materialism of the historical world, which is falling apart. This beyond may take many forms and find many expressions. The answer is often cobbled up on individual construction of personal experiences, often involving a relationship with different groups or movements.

English. The author looks at Latina women in the United States and their contributions to the mosaic of religious social patterns. The underlying assumption here is that Latinas/os, like other ethnic groups, have made their mark shaping religious practices. The article builds on notions that gender, ethnic, and race foci in our research expand our knowledge of the nuances in the mosaic of religious practice. The sociology of religion would be left behind if it did not challenge the restrictive ways the field has looked at religious practice and expression. What methodological approaches and what questions we ask are important to enriching research on religion in the United States and elsewhere. Here the author suggests that both questionnaire and focus group interviewing are particularly useful in studying a multiethnic and multilingual community, because the'two-pronged approach brings out the complexity of religious beliefs and practice. French. L'auteure analyse la manière dont les femmes sud-américaines vivant aux Etats-Unis ont contribué à la mosaïque socio-religieuse de ce pays. L'hypothèse sous-jacente est que les 'Latinos' ont, comme d'autres groupes ethniques, marqué de leur empreinte le 'paysage' religieux actuel. L'article est fondé sur la notion selon laquelle le 'genre', l'origine ethnique et la race sont des angles d'analyse susceptibles d'améliorer notre connaissance des pratiques religieuses et de leurs nuances. La sociologie des religions ne ferait pas son travail si elle ne tentait pas de remettre en question le cadre parfois étriqué dans lequel elle a tenté d'analyser les pratiques et les expressions religieuses. Les approches méthodologiques suggéreés et les questions poseés sont importantes pour l'étude des religions, que ce soit aux Etats-Unis ou ailleurs. L'auteure soutient que le questionnaire et les entretiens avec le groupe cible sont des techniques... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to the Volume 49, 2002 issue of the journal "Social Compass."

English. The recent appearance of the indigenous evangelical movement on the Ecuadorian political scene (2000) is a historic fact that highlights two important aspirations of the Indian people. One is to recover the people's right to freedom and justice, and to reject all forms of exploitation and violence imposed by the current governing culture, modelled on neo-liberal economic principles. The other tendency that emerges from this movement is new forms of political organization based on a religious and ethnic identity, from which has resulted a rupture from the ideological control of the North American missionaries, who maintain that participation in political activities is contrary to God's teachings and should... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English. After Elmer Miller's classic work on Toba Pentecostalism appeared in the early 1960s, studies of the emergence of indigenous churches in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina began to multiply. This interest led researchers to identify a number of socio-religious phenomena in connection with anthropology in the Chaco region, suggesting new themes and new conceptual approaches. The author synthesizes some of the main theoretical trends developed for the purpose of analyzing these phenomena and the conceptual challenges and problems to which they have given rise. He also describes the main questions addressed since 1954, including the relations between Christianity and shamanism, indigenous... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'awakening' of the indigenous people of Latin America raises the following question: is it accompanied by a religious revitalization and a return to ancestral beliefs and rituals? Religion is, indeed, present in protests and visible movements such as those in Mexico or Ecuador, but religion does not appear to be the principal factor or the deepest source of these movements. Thus, alongside the rapid expansion of evangelicals (especially Pentecostals) among the indigenous communities, we also observe the higher profile and the increased respect achieved by ancestral indigenous religious traditions. Elsewhere, intense missionary activity by various churches has contributed to the emergence of new indigenous leaders, and shamanic rituals function as a means of reaffirmation of ethnic identity and in support of the struggle to recover ancestral lands, a struggle which is acquiring a sacred character. The battle is political and ethnic; it is fought for recognition of indigenous rights, for the specificity of people and their communities, for their ancestral lands, and for their cultural expression. Belief is by no means uniform among indigenous peoples. But there is no doubt that religion is a part of the process of recovery of ethnic identity, even though it is under threat from globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]