Introduction to the Study of Religions: Sociology of Religion

Author(s)

An adoption and partial rewrite by Tim Jensen and Karna Kjeldsen of an English draft version of an introduction to Horisont a textbook for the Danish upper-secondary school RE, edited by Associate Professors Annika Hvithamar and Tim Jensen, and Upper-Secondary School teachers Allan Ahle and Lene Niebuhr, published by Gyldendal, Copenhagen 2013. The original introduction was written by Annika Hvithamar and Tim Jensen based on a contribution draft by Peter Lüchau.

Department of the study of religion, University of Southern Denmark

Thanks are extended to the publisher, Gyldendal, as well as to our upper-secondary school IERS partner, Nyborg Gymnasium, for allowing us to use the and the draft English translation as the basis for this adoption as well as for their assistance in the production of this module.

Abstract

This module gives an introduction to the sociology of religion as a part of the academic study of religion and some of the theoretical and methodological approaches used to study the relationship between society, the individual and religion. You will be introduced to different theories and concepts about civil religion, secularization, religion in modern and post-modern society, minority and majority religions, individualized and lived religion. In the different tasks you can try to apply some of the theories and approaches and also analyse and discuss different cases about society, the individual and religion.