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Shamans, Priests, and
Prophets
Religion from Earliest Times
to the Present
Stephen K. Sanderson
University of California, Riverside
Outline, Notes, and Bibliography
10-1-2008
Introduction: What is Religion?
Defining religion, inclusive vs. exclusive definitions, religion and magic, etc.; What
is religion? It’s not that difficult: “Beliefs and practices organized around
supernatural beings, powers, and forces.”
1
General and Miscellaneous Works in the Sociology and Anthropology of
Religion
Rodney Stark, Exploring the Religious Life (232 pp., Johns Hopkins UP, 2004 – looks
very important)
Wallace, Religion: An anthropological view
J.R. Bowen, Religions in Practice: An Approach to the Anthropology of Religion.
Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion (reread some parts)
R. Robertson, The Sociological Interpretation of Religion
See all the ideas in the chapter on religion in Macrosociology, and references pertaining
thereto. Check all editions.
Michele Dillon, ed., Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral
Lynn, et al., “Average intelligence predicts atheism across 137 nations”
O’Brien and Palmer, The Atlas of Religion
Bellah, “Religious evolution.”
Chapter 1. Explaining Religion


Early Anthropological Theories (Tylor, Spencer, Frazer, etc.)
The Durkheimian Tradition (Durkheim, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown). This
tradition doesn’t work too well, and Malinowski is really more of a RCT theorist
than a functionalist. Durkheim has insights, but his overall view doesn’t cut it.
He presumes to generalize to all religion from a single case, and calls this case
the most elementary religion. In fact, the Arunta are not, since they don’t have
shamans.

Marxian Theories. Marx had great insights. Religion is a means to relieve
suffering, etc. It tends to produce conservative politics (review the lit on that:
social-psychological studies, millenarian movements, Glock and Stark on
religion and political parties in the Netherlands, the New Christian Right, and
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


so on. But Marx grossly oversimplifies; religion is much more than a response
to class exploitation and oppression. It exists in non-class societies, and,
indeed, is a human universal, and people have a strong longing for it. There is
much more to it than Marx imagined.
Weber.
Rational Choice Theories (Stark et al.)
Neo-Darwinian Theories: Is the Brain Wired for Religion?
General
Zeitlin, The religious experience: Classical philosophical and social theories.
See the summary of theories in Boyer, Religion explained.
check out Tylor, Spencer, Frazer, etc.
Durkheim
Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life and secondary commentaries,
esp. Lukes, Emile Durkheim, 2 chs. on Durkheim’s work on religion.
Marx
Marx’s brief writings on religion.
R. Firth, “Spiritual aroma: Religion and politics,” AA 83:582-601, 1981.
The evidence pro and con the opium of the people thesis should figure prominently in
the paper (my review of soc. psych. lit., Gary Marx on blacks and religion, Glock and
Stark on relig and pol parties in the Netherlands, millenarian movements, etc.)
Weber
Weber, section of E & S on the sociology of religion (pp. 399-635).
Rational choice theories
Stark, early ST article & “Micro foundations of religion: A revised theory.” Soc. Theory
Nov. 1999.
Stark and Bainbridge, A theory of religion
3
Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion
Young, ed., Rational Choice Theory and Religion
Stark, The Rise of Christianity (substantive application)
Stark, One True God (substantive application)
Neo-Darwinian Theories
Lopreato, Human nature and biocultural evolution (chapter 8 on religion).
Bulbulia et al., The evolution of religion.
E. d’Acquili and A. Newberg, “Religious and mystical states: A neuropsychological
model”
Zygon 28:177-200, 1993.
d’Acquili and Newburg, “The near-death experience as archetype: A model for
‘prepared’ neurocognitive processes.” Anthropology of Consciousness 5:1-15, 1994.
d’Acquili and Newburg, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious
Experience. Fortress Press, 1999.
d’Acquili and Newburg, “The neurophysiology of aesthetic, spiritual, and mystical
states.” Zygon 35:39-52, 2000.
Pascal Boyer, The Naturalness of Religion, 1994.
Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.
Kirkpatrick, Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion
D.S. Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
(Amazon used 14.28, U Chicago Pr., 2002, 268 pp.) (unfortunately, more group
selection from Wilson)
Douglas Marshall, “Behavior, belonging, and belief: a theory of ritual practice,” ST Nov.
02 (tries to show the cognitive and neuropsychological foundations of Durkheim’s
theory of ritual).
Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (OUP 2002,
400 pp., 31.83)
R.N. McCauley, “The naturalness of religion and the unnaturalness of science.” In F.K.
Wilson and R. Wilson, eds., Explanation and Cognition (CUP, 2000, pp. 61-85)
4
S. Mithen, “Anthropomorphism and the evolution of cognition.” Man 2, 717-21, 1996.
C. Knight, C. Power, and S. Mithen, “The origins of anthropomorphic thinking.” Man 4,
129-32, 1998.
P. Boyer, “What makes anthropomorphism natural: Intuitive ontology and cultural
representations.” Man 2, 83-97, 1996 (on religion in particular).
S. Atran and A. Norenzayan, “Religion’s evolutionary landscape,” BBS 27:713-70, 2004.
Whitehouse’s stuff
P. Lienard and P. Boyer, “Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection model of
ritualized behavior,” AA 108:814-27, 2006.
P. Boyer and P. Lienard, “Why ritualized behavior? Precaution systems and action
parsing in developmental, pathological, and cultural rituals,” BBS 2006, forthcoming.
P. Boyer, “Religious thought and behavior as by-products of brain function,” Trends in
Cognitive Sciences 7:119-24, 2003.
P. Boyer, “Why is religion natural?” Skeptical Inquirer, March 2004.
P. Boyer, “Functional origins of religious concepts: Ontological and strategic selection in
evolved minds,” JRAI, ns, 6:195-214, 2000.
Sosis, “Why aren’t we all Hutterites.”
Alcorta and Sosis, “Ritual, emotion, and sacred symbols: The evolution of religion as an
adaptive complex,” HN 16:323-59, 2005.
J. Bering, “The folk psychology of souls,” BBS 29:453-98, 2006.
J. Bulbulia, “The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion,” Biol & Phil 19:65586, 2004.
Important Works on More General Cognition
A. Norenzayan and S. Atran, “Cognitive and emotional processes in the cultural
transmission of natural and nonnatural beliefs,” in M. Schaller and C. Crandall, eds.,
The Psychological Foundations of Culture, Erlbaum 2003.
S. Atran, “Adaptationism for human cognition: Strong, spurious, or weak?” Mind &
Lang 20:39-67, 2005.
5
P. Boyer, Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of
Traditional Discourse, CUP 2006.
P. Boyer, “Specialised inference engines as precursors of creative imagination?” (check
his website for citation).
P. Boyer and C. Barrett, “Evolved intuitive ontology: Integrating neural, behavioral, and
developmental aspects of domain-specificity,” in D. Buss, Handbook of Evolutionary
Psychology.
P. Boyer, “Natural epistemology or evolved metaphysics? Developmental evidence for
early-developed, intuitive, category-specific, incomplete, and stubborn metaphysical
assumptions,” Philosophical Psychology 13:277-97, 2000.
B. Bergstrom, B. Moehlmann, and P. Boyer, “Extending the testimony problem:
Evaluating the truth, scope, and source of cultural information.
Chapter 2. The Way of the Shaman
Winkelman, 2000 book Shamanism
Winkelman, 1990 article, plus other articles
Erika Bourgignon’s work
J. McClenon, Wondrous Healing, and any important articles of his
Shamanism, the 2 vol. handbook – loads of great material here
Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1964
M. and S. Aldhouse-Green, The quest for the shaman: Shape-shifters, sorcerers, and
spirit-healers of ancient Europe, Thames and Hudson, 2005, 240 pp. BL2370.S5 A43
Pick 3 or 4 shamanic societies for case studies. Probably can use Eliade and the
Handbook.
Chapter 3. Communal Religions
J. Cauvin, The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture
Brian Hayden, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion, Smithsonian
Books 2003, 468pp., $54-60 Amazon BL48 .H368
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Societies with communal religions for case studies:
 Trobriand Islanders, Malinowski, Magic, science, and religion; Coral gardens
and their magic GN671.N5 M33 (deals with agricultural rites); Argonauts of the
Western Pacific (mostly on magic; see underlined sections of table of contents)
 Nuer, Evans-Pritchard, Nuer religion.
 And the following from Wes Roberts’s notes for his thesis: Thonga, Lozi, Azande,
Masai, Konso, Gond, Lakher, Ingalik, Pomo, Pawnee, Zuni, Mapuche; the notes
are in the article stack in the religion bookcase.
Chapter 4. The Polytheistic Religions of the Ancient
World
Jonathan Kirsch, God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and
Polytheism (Viking 2004, 336pp.).
J.R. Hinnells, ed., A handbook of ancient religions, CUP 2007, 610 pp., Ugarit, Mesopotamia,
Israel Greece, Rome, ancient Europe, Indus civ., ancient China, Aztecs, Incas (BL41
.H325)
Sarah Johnston, ed., Religions of the ancient world: A guide, Harvard UP 2004, 697 pp.,
polytheism, Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan, Anatolia, Hittites, Iran, Minoan and
Mycenaean civs., Greece, Etruria, Rome (BL6987 .R47)
Simple Polytheisms
Maya, Aztecs and Incas
J.E.S. Thompson, Maya history and religion, U Oklahoma Press, 1970, 1990 reprint, 415 pp.
(F1435 .T496)
M.E. Kampen, The religion of the Maya, 1981, (F1435.3 .R3 K35)
N. Bancroft, Gods and myths of the Aztecs, 1996, 112 pp. (F1219.76 .R45 B36)
7
D. R. van Tuerenhout, The Aztecs, 2006, ch. 8 on religion and ideology
T. D’Altroy, The Incas, ch. 7 on ideology and religion
Some African Polytheistic Religions
R. S. Rattray, Religion and art in Ashanti, 1927, DT507 .R37
P. Olarimwa Epega, The basis of Yoruba religion, 1971, BL2480.Y6 E6
Polynesian Religions
Lowie, Primitive religion, chapter on Polynesia.
Advanced Polytheisms
Thorkild Jacobsen, “The cosmos as a state,” pp. 137-199 in H. Frankfort, Mrs. H.A. Frankfort,
John A. Wilson, and Thorkild Jacobsen, eds., Before Philosophy, Baltimore, Pelican Books,
1949. BL96 F73
Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans
C. L. Wooley, The Sumerians, 1965 (and Wes’s notes)
P. Vernus, The gods of ancient Egypt. George Braziller 1998.
B. Watterson, Gods of ancient Egypt. Bramley Books 1996.
E.T. Lawson and R. McCauley, Rethinking Religion (1996) (on Greek and Middle Eastern ritual
and belief).
S. Price, Religions of the ancient Greeks. CUP, 1999.
W. Burkett, Greek religion
K. Dowden, Religion and the Romans. Bristol Classic Press 1992.
M. Lyttelton, The Romans, their gods and their beliefs. Orbis 1984.
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Pre-Hindu Aryans (India)
J. Hinnells, A handbook of ancient religions, chapter on the Indus civilization by
Gregory Possehl.
S. Arvidsson, Aryan idols: Indo-European mythology as ideology, Chicago, 2006,
BL660 .A7813
Chapter 5. The Axial Age and the Rise of the Major
World Religions
Axial Age
Special issue of Daedalus, Spring 1975, on Axial Age and “transcendence”/”breakthrough”
S.N. Eisenstadt, The Origin and Diversity of Axial Age Civlizations, SUNY Press, 1986.
Lewis Mumford, The Transformations of Man (selected parts)
L.L. Whyte, The Next Development in Man. (Lerro says this and the source immediately above
[Mumford] are good sources for the transition from Archaic to Axial Age.)
Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History, Yale UP, 1953, excerpts.
Jaspers, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus (this could be a good source on the content of the
ideas of the Axial Age).
Gore Vidal, Creation (Mann says this novel is a “magnificent imaginative reconstruction of the
religious and philosophical currents flowing between Asia, the Middle East, and the
eastern Mediterranean in the late 6th and early 5th centuries”). Vidal emphasizes the
connections between the different regions rather than their independence. If true, this
suggests world-systemic connections.
(Was the Axial Age part of a process of religious rationalization a la Weber? see what Randy
thinks about the Axial Age.)
Bruce Lerro, From Earth Spirits to Sky Gods, Lexington 2000.
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Stark, One True God
M. Harris, Cannibals and Kings (ch. on “The Lamb of Mercy”)
M. Harris, Our Kind (chs. on why we became religious, the evolution of the spirit world, basic
animistic rituals, and the nonkilling religions)
Harris, CPWW, 2 chs. on messiahs and primitive Christianity
G. Fowden, Empire to commonwealth: Consequences of monotheism in late antiquity (argues
that powerful beliefs in one god were used to justify and strengthen world empires.)
Princeton UP, 1994 (looks very good).
P. Athennassadi and M. Frede, Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (OUP 2002, 224pp.).
Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith
Parsons, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives.
M. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1, chs. 10-11 on Christian ecumene and major world
religions. (This contains a discussion of various explanations of the rise of the world
religions.)
Weber, section of E & S on the sociology of religion.
M. Hamilton, Sociology and the world’s religions
Marcel Gaucet, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Princeton
UP, 1998.
Stephen Sharot, A Comparative Sociology of World Religions
W. Doniger, ed., Merriam-Webster’s encyclopedia of world religions, 1999, 1181 pp. (BL31 .M47
REF)
Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
(Knopf 2006, 496pp.)
Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. The thesis itself
is nonsense, but he is onto something. There was a cognitive transformation in the first
millennium BC, but it did not introduce consciousness; it was a transformation of
consciousness.
Robert Bellah, “What is Axial about the Axial Age?” European J. Soc. 46:69-87, 2005.
Eric Voegelin, Order and History, vol. IV: The Ecumenic Age, vol. V: In Search of Order, U of
Missouri Press, 2000. B3354 V88
S.N. Eisenstadt, Comparative Civilizations and Multiple Modernities. E.J. Brill, 2003. CB427
E37
Vol. 1, Part II on the Axial Age, pp. 195-488, but especially:
10
Ch. 9, The Axial Age
Ch. 11, This-worldly transcendentalism and the structuring of the world: Weber’s Religion of
China and the format of Chinese history and civilization.
Ch. 12 on Confucianism and Buddhism in Japan
Ch. 13 on Theravada Buddhist civilizational format
Ch. 16 on Jewish historical experience in the framework of comparative universal history
Ch. 19 on comparative indications about the dynamics of historical Axial and non-Axial
civilizations.
Schluchter, The Rise of Western Rationalism (on Weber and rationalization in world
history).
Roth and Schluchter, Max Weber’s Vision of History.
Bentley, Old World Encounters
Goody, The domestication of the savage mind
Goody, The logic of writing and the organization of society
Voegelin, Order and history: Vol. 4. The Ecumenic Age
Some works on Bronze Age-Iron Age Transition Related to Axial Age Transition
See Eckhardt, Civilizations, Empires, and Wars; he makes the point that about 600 BC the
Medes and the Persians advanced empires to a new stage and form.
R. Drews, The end of the Bronze Age: Changes in warfare and the catastrophe ca. 1200 BC.
(Princeton UP 1995, 264pp).
R. Collins, The Medes and the Persians: Conquerors and diplomats. McGraw-Hill 1972.
K. Kristiansen and R. Larsson, The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions, and
Transformations (CUP 2005, 464pp. – looks very important!).
W. Green, “Periodizing world history.” History and Theory, vol. 34, theme issue 34, pp. 99-111,
1995.
Zoroastrianism
Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (280pp., Routledge 2001).
R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (Phoenix Press 2003, 372pp.)
11
A.S. Shahbazi, “The traditional date of Zoroaster explained,” Bull School Orien & Afr
Stud 40:25-35, 1977.
P. Kingsley, “The Greek origin of the sixth-century dating of Zoroaster,” Bull School
Orien & Afr Stud 53:245-65, 1990.
Judaism
G. Robinson, Basic Judaism (2001, 672 pp. Amazon 12.60).
Weber, Ancient Judaism
Weber, E & S religion section on Judaism.
Yehezkel Kaufman, The religion of Israel, abrid. & trans. Moshe Greenberg (claims that a crucial
difference between polytheism and Israelite monotheism is that in polytheism the gods
are derived from a preexisting order (e.g., the union of heaven and earth), whereas in
monotheism the deity is underived).
T. Fahey, “Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism,” AJS 88, 1982.
N. DeLange, An Introduction to Judaism (CUP 2000).
C. Goldscheider and J. Neusner, Social Foundations of Judaism, Prentice Hall 1990
(Amazon used 6.05)
Christianity
Stark, The Rise of Christianity.
Stark, Cities of Gods
3 critiques of Stark on Christianity in J. Early Christian Studies
1. Klutz
2. Castelli
3. Hopkins
4. Reply by Stark
John Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (158pp.
Prentice Hall 1975)
Gillian Clark, Christianity and Roman Society (CUP 2004, 150pp.)
M. Walsh, Roots of Christianity, Grafton 1986.
K. Aland, A History of Christianity, Fortress Press 1985.
12
W. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, Darton, Longman, and Todd 1984.
R. Bultmann, Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting, World 1966.
P. Johnson, A History of Christianity, Atheneum 1976.
J. Tyson, A Study of Early Christianity, Macmillan 1973.
J. Shiel, Greek Thought and the Rise of Christianity, Longmans 1968.
Islam
R. Payne, The History of Islam, Dorset 1990.
J. Berkey, The Formation of Islam, 600-1800 (CUP 2002, 312pp.)
Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 3 vols., but esp. vol. 1
B. Turner, Weber and Islam
Kevin MacDonald on the evolution of a particular personality in the Arabic world
Confucianism
Max Weber, The Religion of China
Xinzhong Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (CUP 2000, 344 pp., 5.50 used).
B. Elman et al., eds. Rethinking Confucianism: Past and Present in China, Japan,
Korea, and Vietnam (UCLA Pacific Monograph Series 2002, 642 pp., 24.95).
Buddhism
N. R. Reat, Buddhism: A history, 1994.
D. Lopez, Jr., The Story of Buddhism (HarperCollins 2001).
H. Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, Macmillan 1988.
U. Chakravarti, The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism, OUP 1987.
13
M. Southwold, “Buddhism and the definition of religion,” Man NS 13:362-79, 1978.
Hinduism
Basham, The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism (OUP 1991, 159 pp., used 9.50).
Max Weber, The Religion of India
S. Bhaskaranada, The Essentials of Hinduism (2002, 247 pp., 10.00 used).
G. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (CUP 1996, used 11.76).
(Include “Religion West and East” as a subsection of this chapter)
“Mean-spiritedness” of Western religions, especially Islam; why is Islam so
political, etc.; more pacific, contemplative, meditative, etc., nature of Eastern
religions. In the Near Eastern religions, there is a personal god; in the Far Eastern
religions, god is an abstract essence (Stark).
R.C. Zaehner, ed., Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions (latest ed. Barnes and Noble 1988;
divides everything into West and East, labelled “prophecy” and “wisdom”; interesting!)
looks good!!
Chapter 6. Religious Ritual
Durkheim on ritual.
Laughlin, McManus, and d’Acquili, The Spectrum of Ritual, 1979
D. Marshall, “Behavior, Belonging, and Belief: A Theory of Ritual Practice,” ST Nov.
2002.
S. Dulaney and A. Fiske, “Cultural rituals and OCD: Is there a common psychological
mechanism?” Ethos 22:243-83, 1994.
A. Fiske and N. Haslam, “Is OCD a pathology of the human disposition to perform
socially meaningful rituals? Evidence of similar content,” J Nerv Ment Disord 185:21122, 1997.
J. Rapoport and A. Fiske, “The new biology of OCD: Implications for evolutionary
psychology,” Persp Biol & Med 42:159-75, 1998.
14
P. Lienard and P. Boyer, “Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection model of
ritualized behavior,” AA 208:814-27, 2006.
Boyer and Lienard, “Why ritualized behavior? Precaution systems and action parsing in
developmental, pathological, and cultural rituals,” BBS 29:595-650, 2006.
Sosis and Ruffle, “Religious ritual and cooperation: testing for a relationship on Israeli
religious and secular kibbutzim,” CA 44:713-22, 2003.
D. Rozen, “On ritual and cooperation,” CA 45:529-31, 2004.
Rappaport, Ritual and religion in the making of humanity.
Chapter 7. How Religious Were the Middle Ages?
K. Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic.
Chapter 8. The Protestant Reformation
Work of Wuthnow and Stark on the acceptance/rejection of the Reformation
depends on power of the landed nobility (Wuthnow) or power of the Catholic
Church due to how long ago it was established in a given country (Stark). But also
need to focus on the Reformationist ideas themselves, and why they arose at this
point in history (16th century).
L. Spitz, The Protestant Reformation, 1517-1559
E. Cameron, The European Reformation (OUP 1995, 564 pp. – looks good; discusses
causes; Amazon used 17.97).
O.P. Grell, The Scandinavian Reformation (CUP 1995).
B. Gordon, The Swiss Reformation (Manchester UP 2002, 416 pp.).
C. Lindberg, The European Reformations (Blackwell 1996, 444 pp.).
H.R. Trevor-Roper, Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change (Macmillan, 486
pp.).
J.D. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations 1450-1650 (Rowman & Littlefield 1999, 416 pp.).
15
Swanson on the Reformation.
R. Wuthnow, Communities of discourse (on the Reformation)
Stark, discussion of the Reformation in For the Glory of God.
R. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350
Prentice Hall, 1971 (in order to deal with the causes of the Renaissance and
Reformation).
D. MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History, Viking, 800pp. 2004 (looks excellent!!)
Chapter 9. Protestantism and its Consequences
Weber, Protestant Ethic
Stark, For the Glory of God (how monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts,
and the abolition of slavery)
Stark, The Victory of Reason (how Christianity led to freedom, capitalism, and Western success)
Nielsen and Delacroix, “The beloved myth.”
My paper summarizing the literature on the Protestant ethic thesis.
My new findings on the effects of Protestantism on economic growth, 1500-1700.
Chapter 10. Is Religion in Decline? The Debate Over
Secularization
On secularization: those who call it a myth may be right in the sense that “religion
won’t go away,” and most people in modern societies are still religious (although
we need to check that by looking at surveys of European societies), but certainly
the extent to which religion pervades society has declined markedly. So in a sense
the secularization thesis is both correct and incorrect; it depends on which
16
dimension we are talking about. We might say that at the level of society,
secularization is quite real, but at the level of the individual believer or
practitioner secularization is less real or less dramatic.
See the printout in the article stack “Addendum on Secularization.” This discusses
Stark and Finke’s (2000) critique of the secularization thesis, and gives my
conclusions. Also, there are data on current religiosity in 8 Western nations that
seem to challenge Stark and Finke.
Weber and his followers on disenchantment
Bryan Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (on secularization)
Lechner’s articles on the secularization thesis, and check the other recent literature on
this debate.
See Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, ch. 3 critiquing the secularization thesis, and see
their references
See Macro book on secularization
M. Hout and C. Fisher, “Why more Americans have no religious preference,” ASR
67:165-90, April 2002.
G. Marwell and N. Demerath III, “Secularization by any other name,” ASR April 2003
(comment on Hout and Fisher).
Hout and Fisher, “O be some other name,” ASR April 2003 (reply to Marwell and
Demerath).
Steve Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the Modern World (21.83 used, Blackwell
2002, 272 pp.)
P. Berger, ed., The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World
Politics (11.12 used, 143 pp. Eerdmans, 1999).
S. Bruce, God is dead, Blackwell, 2002, 288pp.
My notes “Addendum on secularization,” in stack of articles on religion shelf.
Crippen, “Old and new gods in the modern world: Toward a theory of religious
transformation,” on shelf.
F. Lechner, “The case against secularization: A rebuttal,” on shelf.
17
Chapter 11. Religion in the Global Age
Lester Kurtz, Gods in the Global Village: The World’s Religions in Sociological Perspective
(1995, PineForge)
Juergensmayer, ed., Oxford Handbook of Global Religions, OUP 2006, 631 pp.
J.R. Himmels, ed., New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, 2e, Penguin 2003, 912 pp.
Glock and Bellah, The New Religious Consciousness (a few of the essays)
S.J. Hunt, Religion in Western Society, Palgrave 2002, 235 pp., paper $24.95.
S. Bruce, Religion in the Modern World, OUP 1996.
P. Berger, ed., The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World
Politics (11.12 used, 143 pp. Eerdmans, 1999).
Numerous printouts of data on membership in world religions, etc.
Sub-category: Religion in Contemporary America
R.W. Fogel, The Fourth Great Awakening, Chicago 2002.
Check out other work on great awakenings.
Harris, America Now (ch. on “Why the Cults are Coming”)
American exceptionalism (Lipset and others)
Epilogue. The Death of Religion?
Durkheim
Dawkins
18
Dennett
Hitchens
Replies, such as that of D’Souza
19