The French Sociologist Émile Durkheim is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology. Principle to the work of Durkheim was his concern with regard to how modernity was effecting traditional social and religious institutions, more specifically with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in an era in which new social institutions have come into being. One of his principles works, "The...

Influential scholar Peter L. Berger reveals five signs that point to the supernatural and its place in a modern secular society   Acclaimed scholar and sociologist Peter L. Berger examines religion in twentieth-century Western society, exploring the social nature of knowledge and its effect on religious belief. Using five signs evident in ordinary life-order, play, hope, damnation, and humor-Berger calls for a rediscovery of the supernatural as a...

The Greening of Protestant Thought traces the increasing influence of environmentalism on American Protestantism since the first Earth Day, which took place in 1970. Robert Booth Fowler explores the extent to which ecological concerns permeate Protestant thought and examines contemporary controversies within and between mainline and fundamentalist Protestantism over the Bible's teachings about the environment. Fowler explores the historical roots...

Western society has never been more interested in interiority. Indeed, it seems more and more people are deliberately looking inward-toward the mind, the body, or both. Michal Pagis's Inward focuses on one increasingly popular channel for the introverted gaze: vipassana meditation, which has spread from Burma to more than forty countries and counting. Lacing her account with vivid anecdotes and personal stories, Pagis turns our attention not only...

"Follow the science" is a phrase we often hear these days. All too often it means "listen to anything coming from the scientific community that supports my position, but ignore anything which does not." During my lifetime, I have seen a number of changes in many things that were once "known" to be true. For instance, when I was in grade school, it was a commonly believed "fact" that lemmings committed suicide periodically by jumping off a cliff into...

Muslim Women In Western Society is a Book which demonstrates the struggle and challenges that a Muslim woman faces on day to day basis, which feels the need to clarify issues and solutions. Throughout her travels across European countries during holidays or business trips as well as from being a resident in the UK, Khadija has resumed her various interactions (both good and bad) with peoples from different cultures. This book is full of motivational...

Intentionally provocative, Alban founder and former president Loren Mead's dynamic work sets out dramatic and compelling challenges for today's churches. Mead chose the word "meltdown"-a strong term, indeed-very carefully and consciously. His clarion call urges congregations to direct attention to their dwindling financial resources and their unreliable fiscal practices, and to take major action now-or face disaster in the future. Mead addresses changing...

Many people these days regard religion as outdated and are unable to understand how believers can intellectually justify their faith. Nonbelievers have long assumed that progress in technology and the sciences renders religion irrelevant. Believers, in contrast, see religion as vital to society's spiritual and moral well-being. But does modernization lead to secularization? Does secularization lead to moral decay? Sociologist Hans Joas argues that...

The Religious Studies Edition Contains the same Social Science as the Secular edition, but additionally, it associates all 55 Meme Laws with either Historical or Teaching Scriptures from as distant as 1500 B.C. Taken from Christian and Jewish scripture; we also tap Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. Also throughout the book highlights many ways that Meme Law affects local congregations and denominational ministries and creates clericalism and child abuse....

As Muslim women continue to be a focus of media-led debate, Naaz Rashid uses original scholarship and empirical research to examine how Muslim women are represented in policy discourse and how the trope of the Muslim woman is situated within national debates about Britishness, the death of multiculturalism and global concerns over international terrorism. Analysing the relevance of class, citizenship status, and regional differences, Veiled threats...