Presidential Address 2001: Return of the Sacred: Reintegrating Religion in the Social Sciences.

The article discusses the historical absence of the study of religion from mainstream social science and public policy. One indication that sociology of religion has stood on the sidelines of mainstream sociology is the fact that in the 96 years of its existence, only one of 97 American Sociological Association presidents could be characterized as having a central interest in the study of religion, namely, J. Milton Yinger in 1977. The positivistic stance of social science in the 20th century also introduced an anti-religious bias into both research and the organization of sociology departments in the U.S. The 1980s and 1990s brought a number of changes, both substantive and institutional, that prompted more attention to the topic of religion and brought social scientists studying religion into closer contact with social scientists in other subdisciplines. Furthermore, developments in four theoretical areas in the social sciences catapulted religious issues into mainstream dialogues: globalization, social movements, civic culture and rational choice theory. The worldwide rise of fundamentalism and its impact on political regimes, family structures, demographic patterns and education systems around the world was reflected in international policy forums. It is evident that publishing in one of the mainstream journals is both cause and effect of the greater acceptance by the sociological community of research concerning religion.