Religion in Secular Society (Pelican)

Wilson, Bryan

Religion & Spirituality

Penguin

Ranging through sectarianism, monotheism, religious exclusivity, and the moral dimensions of religious commitment, the author traces new and exciting lines of sociological inquiry in the field of religion.

Religion in Sociological Perspective

Business & Money

Finance

Oxford University Press

Soka Gakkai--a movement of Japanese Buddhism--is one of the world's most rapidly expanding religious movements, especially in the West. The movement sponsors a variety of cultural and educational causes, and is active in promoting world peace and preservation of the environment; as such it has established a high profile in world affairs. Soka Gakkai is also a significant social phenomenon in its own right. This study documents this in its thorough survey of the United Kingdom membership that traces the sources of the movement's appeal to its socially diverse constituency. The combination of a questionnaire survey and personal interviews bring illuminating detail to this sociological analysis. The authors suggest that Soka Gakkai is consistent with modern thought that places a growing emphasis on the essentially private nature of belief and on personal autonomy, and less emphasis on traditional religious institutions. It is for these reasons that Soka Gakkai is a faith in tune with the times and has widening appeal to young people.

A Time to Chant: The Soka Gakkai Buddhists in Britain

Politics & Social Sciences

Dobbelaere, Karel

Social Sciences

Clarendon Press

Soka Gakkai--a movement of Japanese Buddhism--is one of the world's most rapidly expanding religious movements, especially in the West. The movement sponsors a variety of cultural and educational causes, and is active in promoting world peace and preservation of the environment; as such it has established a high profile in world affairs. Soka Gakkai is also a significant social phenomenon in its own right. This study documents this in its thorough survey of the United Kingdom membership that traces the sources of the movement's appeal to its socially diverse constituency. The combination of a questionnaire survey and personal interviews bring illuminating detail to this sociological analysis. The authors suggest that Soka Gakkai is consistent with modern thought that places a growing emphasis on the essentially private nature of belief and on personal autonomy, and less emphasis on traditional religious institutions. It is for these reasons that Soka Gakkai is a faith in tune with the times and has widening appeal to young people.

A Time to Chant: The Soka Gakkai Buddhists in Britain (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Sociology

Contemporary Transformations of Religion: Riddell Memorial Lecture

History

Asia

Fifty years after its publication, Bryan Wilson's Religion in Secular Society (1966) remains a seminal work. It is one of the clearest articulations of the secularization thesis: the claim that modernizations brings with it fundamental changes in the nature and status of religion. For Wilson, secularization refers to the fact that religion has lost influence at the societal, the institutional, and the individual level. Individual secularization is about the loss of authority of the Churches to define what people should believe, practise and accept as moral principles guiding their lives. In other words, individual piety may still persist, however, if it develops independently of religious authorities, then it is an indication of individual secularization. Wilson stresses that the consequences of the process of societalization in modern societies and on this basis he formulated his thesis that secularization is linked to the decline of community and is a concomitant of societalization. Revised and updated, Steve Bruce builds on Wilson's work by noting the changes in religious culture of the UK and US, in an appendix on major changes since the 1960s. Bruce also provides a critical response to the core ideas of Religion in Secular Society.

Religion in Secular Society: Fifty Years On

In a spontaneously wide-ranging conversation one winter evening in Japan, sociologist of religion Bryan Wilson and Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda recognized the importance of explaining and learning about their respective worldviews. Human Values in a Changing World is the record of their further exchanges on how they see the religious response to the human condition. Their contrasting approaches - one, as an academic, and the other, as a lay Buddhist - allow for a constructive critique of preconceptions otherwise unexamined in their own cultural contexts. ""There is an intimate connection between faith and the fruits of commitment,"" Wilson says at one point. To which Ikeda responds that while the benefits of faith to momentary happiness are perhaps not the core value of a religion, they can inspire and lead people to become aware of that core value or fundamental truth. The two men's observations on the origins of religious sensibilities move from the spiritual and the moral to the politics of private and public life. Although published some years ago, Human Values in a Changing World addresses topics and issues which are of perennial importance to human flourishing, including: sexual morality, the limits of tolerance and religious freedom, the future of the family, the belief in an afterlife, and the idea of sin.

Human Values in a Changing World: A Dialogue on the Social Role of Religion

Ikéda, Daisaku

Philosophy

Harpercollins

New Religious Movements: Challenge &amp; Response is the most comprehensive, wide-ranging study on the phenomena and impact of new religions.

New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response

Cresswell, Jamie

Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts

Routledge

Rationality contains a selection of the best contemporary writing on one of the central issues in the philosophy of social science. The contributors address themselves to questions which have increasingly become the subject of a many-sided debate between philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists: How are we to understand the beliefs and actions of other men in other cultures? Can we translate the meanings and the reason of one culture into the language of another. This volume is essential reading for courses on the methodology and philosophy of social science and is so arranged that the student is introduced step by step to the cut and thrust of scholarly debate.

Rationality; (Key concepts in the social sciences)

Harper&Row

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