One Woman’s Partial and Idiosyncratic Guide to Recent Literature in Sociology of Religion
Prepared by Nancy T. Ammerman*
For the Northeast Regional Faculty Conference on Religion and American History November, 2001 – Yale University
*Dr Ammerman is teaching at Boston University and can be emailed at nta@bu.edu.
In the fall of 2001, a group of historians of American religion gathered from around the New England region, as they do each year, at Yale University. They asked me to talk to them about "what historians ought to be reading in sociology of religion." With such a wide-open invitation, I felt free to talk about the field as I see it, and the following list reflects my own take on how one might think about the issues and topics that have been at the forefront of the field. Because these were historians, I tried to think about questions that have been addressed over time, looking for how sociologists are contributing to our on-going understanding of how American religion has evolved.
Two guidelines further limited and shaped the list. First, I chose primarily monographic literature – books that give an extended treatment, rather than more specialized and limited articles. There are, however, a few key exceptions you will note. Likewise, I chose primarily material that has been published in roughly the last 10 years. Clearly there are many classics that any student of the field ought to read, but for this list I wanted to bring people up to date, assuming that Weber, Marx, and Durkheim (and probably Neibuhr and Berger) were already on their shelves. Again, there are a few key exceptions, especially a few older items that might not previously have been thought of as required classics.
So, this list attempts to do two things. It provides a relatively short list of topics and issues that sociologists of religion have been thinking about. And for each, it provides a relatively short list of books that can give the reader an introduction to the findings and debates that have been informing us. Enjoy!
I. Theoretical Debates
 Secularization
Rational Choice Theory
Practices and Narratives - 'Lived Religion'
II. Current trends and Hot Topics
Baby Boomers
New Religious Movements
 The Margins
The Cutting Edges?
Women
Religion and Family
Religion, Politics, Change, and Civil Society
New Christian Right
III. The Changing Religious Landscape
The Black Churches
Changing American Catholics
Diverse and Changing Jews
The New Immigrants
Congregations
IV. Older Religious Organizations and Groups
Issues of Change and Conflict
I. The Theoretical Debates
Secularization
Beckford, J. (2000). "'Start Together and Finish Together': Shifts in the Premises and Paradigms Underlying the Scientific Study of Religion." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39(4): 481-96.
Berger, P. L. (1969). The Sacred Canopy. Garden City, New York, Anchor Doubleday. Buy it now
Berger, P. L. (1992). A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity. New York, Free Press.
Casanova, J. (1994). Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Buy it now
Smith, C. (1998). American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Buy it now
Sociology of Religion 60(3) (Fall, 1999) – special issue with contributions from several key players in the debates.
Warner, R. S. (1993). "Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States." American Journal of Sociology 98(5): 1044-93.
Rational Choice Theory
Bruce, S. (2000). Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice. New York, Oxford University Press. Buy it now
Iannaccone, L. R. (1990). "Religious Practice: A Human Capital Approach." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29(3): 297-314. Find this on the web
Iannaccone, L. R. (1991). "The Consequences of Religious Market Structure: Adam Smith and the Economics of Religion." Rationality and Society 3(2): 156-177.
Iannaccone, L. R. (1994). "Why Strict Churches are Strong." American Journal of Sociology 99(5): 1180-1211. Find this on the web
Jelen, Ted. (2002). Sacred Markets, Sacred Canopies: Essays on Religious Markets and Religious Pluralism. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Buy it now
Sherkat, D. E. and C. G. Ellison (1999). "Recent Developments and Current Controversies in the Sociology of Religion." Annual Review of Sociology 25: 363-394.
Stark, R. and R. Finke (2000). Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press. Buy it now
Young, L. A., Ed. (1997). Rational choice theory and religion: summary and assessment. New York, Routledge. Buy it now
Practices and Narratives: Popular Religion, Rituals, Practices, Spirituality, Material Culture – "Lived Religion"
Ammerman, N. T. (1997). "Organized Religion in a Voluntaristic Society." Sociology of Religion 58(2): 203-215. Find it on this site
Becker, P. E. and N. L. Eiesland, Eds. (1997). Contemporary American Religion: An Ethnographic Reader. Walnut Creek, Cal., AltaMira Press. Buy it now
Hervieu-Leger, D. (2000). Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Warner, R. S. (1997). "Religion, Boundaries, and Bridges." Sociology of Religion 58(3): 217-238.
Wuthnow, R. (1998). After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. Berkeley, University of California Press. Buy it now
Wuthnow, R. (2001). Creative Spirituality: The Way of the Artist. Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press. Buy it now
II. Current Trends and Hot Topics
Baby Boomers
Hoge, D. R., B. Johnson, et al. (1994). Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers. Louisville, Westminster/John Knox. Buy it now
Hoge, D. R., W. D. Dinges, et al. (2001). Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice. Chicago, University of Notre Dame Press. Buy it now
Roof, W. C. (1993). A Generation of Seekers. San Francisco, Harper San Francisco. Buy it now
Roof, W. C. (1999). Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press. Buy it now
New Religious Movements
-- The Margins
Hall, J. R. (1987). Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History. New Brunswick, Transaction. Buy it now
Hall, J. R. (2000). Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe and Japan. New York, Routledge. Buy it now
Lewis, J. R. (1994). From the Ashes: Making Sense of Waco. London, Rowman & Littlefield.
Palmer, S. J. (1994). Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers: Women's Roles in New Religions. Syracuse, Syracuse University Press. Buy it now
Robbins, T. and S. Palmer (1997). Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements. New York, Routledge. Buy it now
Saliba, J. A. (1995). Understanding New Religious Movements. Grand Rapids, Mich., William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Buy it now
Wright, S. A. (1995). Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Buy it now
-- The Cutting Edges?
Berger, H. A. (1999). A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States. Columbia, S.C., University of South Carolina Press. Buy it now
Miller, D. E. (1997). Reinventing American Protestantism. Berkeley, University of California Press. Buy it now
Neitz, M. J. (2000). "Queering the Dragonfest: Changing Sexualities in a Post-Patriarchal Religion." Sociology of Religion 61(4): 369-392.
Wilcox, M. M. (2001). "Of Markets and Missions: The Early History of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches." Religion and American Culture 11(1): 83-108.
Wuthnow, R. (1994). Sharing the Journey. New York, Free Press. Buy it now
Women (especially in conservative traditions)
Brasher, B. E. (1998). Godly Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Brusco, E. E. (1995). The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia. Austin, University of Texas Press. Buy it now
Davidman, L. (1991). Tradition in a Rootless World. Berkeley, University of California Press. Buy it now
Gilkes, C. T. (2001). "If It Wasn't for the Women...": Black Women's Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community. Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books. Buy it now
Gillespie, J. B. (1995). Women Speak: Of God, Congregations and Change. Valley Forge, Penn., Trinity Press International. Buy it now
Griffith, R. M. (1997). God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission. Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press. Buy it now
Kaufmann, D. (1991). Rachel's Daughters. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Manning, C. (1999). God Gave Us the Right: Conservative Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, and Orthodox Jewish Women Grapple with Feminism. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Religion and Family
Bartkowski, J. P. (2001). Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Becker, P. E. (2001). Articles linked at www.hirr.hartsem.edu/research/research_religion_family.html
Klassen, P. E. (2001). Blessed Events: Religion and Home Birth in America. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press. Buy it now
Religion, Politics, Change, and Civil Society
Aho, J. A. (1990). The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism. Seattle, University of Washington Press. Buy it now
Demerath, N. J., III and R. H. Williams (1992). A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Harris, F. (1999). Something Within: Religion in African-American Political Activism. New York, Oxford University Press. Buy it now
Pattillo-McCoy, M. (1998). "Church Culture as a Strategy of Action in the Black Community." American Sociological Review 63: 767-784.
Skocpol, T. (2000). "Religion, Civil Society, and Social Provision in the U.S." Who Will Provide? The Changing Role of Religion in American Social Welfare. M. J. Bane, B. Coffin and R. F. Thiemann. Boulder, Colo., Westview Press: 21-50.
Smith, C. S. (1996). Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism. New York, Routledge. Buy it now
Verba, S., K. L. Schlozman, et al. (1995). Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Buy it now
Williams, Rhys H. Ed. (1997) Cultural Wars in American Politics: Critical Reviews of a Popular Myth. New York, Aldine de Gruyter. Buy it now
Wolfe, A. (1998). One Nation, After All. New York, Viking. Buy it now
Wuthnow, R. (1998). Loose Connections: Joining Together in America's Fragmented Communities. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. Buy it now
Wuthnow, R. and J. H. Evans, Eds. (2002). The Quiet Hand of God: Faith Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism. Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press. Buy it now
New Christian Right
Green, J. C., J. L. Guth, et al. (1996). Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front. Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield.
Green, J. C., M. J. Rozell, et al., Eds. (2000). Prayers in the precincts : the Christian right in the 1998 elections. Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press. Buy it now
Harding, Susan F. (2000). The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press. Buy it now
Smith, C. (2000). Christian America? What Evangelicals Really Want. Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press. Buy it now
III. The Changing Religious Landscape
The Black Churches
Billingsley, A. (2000). Mighty Like a River: The Black Church and Social Reform. New York, Oxford University Press. Buy it now
Kostarelos, F. (1995). Feeling the Spirit: Faith and Hope in an Evangelical Black Storefront Church. Columbia, SC, University of South Carolina Press. Buy it now
Lincoln, C. E., L. Mamiya. (1990). The Black Church and the African American Experience. Durham, Duke University Press. Buy it now
McRoberts, O. M. (2000). Saving Four Corners. Diss., Sociology, Harvard University.
Morris, A. D. (1984). The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York, Free Press. Buy it now
Nelson, T. J. (1997). "He Made a Way Out of No Way: Religious Experience in an African-American Congregation." Review of Religious Research 39(1): 5-26.
Changing American Catholics
D’Antonio, W.V., et al. (2001). American Catholics: Gender, Generation, and Commitment. Walnut Creek, Cal.: Altamira. Buy it now
Dillon, M. (1999). Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith and Power. New York, Cambridge University Press. Buy it now
Schoenherr, R. A. and L. A. Young (1993). Full Pews and Empty Altars: Demographics of the Priest Shortage in the United States Catholic Dioceses. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press. Buy it now
Diverse and Changing Jews
Diamond, E. (2000). And I Will Dwell in Their Midst: Orthodox Jews in Suburbia. Chapel Hill, N.C., University of North Carolina Press. Buy it now
Heilman, S. C. (1999). Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Buy it now
Lazerwitz, B., J. A. Winter, et al. (1998). Jewish Choices: American Jewish Denominationalism. Albany, NY, SUNY Press. Buy it now
Wertheimer, Jack. (2000) Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and Their Members. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
The New Immigrants
Ebaugh, H. R. and J. S. Chafetz (2000). Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations. Walnut Creek, Cal., Altamira Press. Buy it now
Numrich, P. D. (1995). Old Wisdom in the New World: Americanization in Immigrant Theravada Buddhist Temples. Knoxville, Tenn., University of Tennessee Press. Buy it now
Walbridge, L. S. (1997). Without Forgetting the Imam: Lebanese Shi'ism in an American Community. Detroit, Wayne State University Press. Buy it now
Warner, R. S. and J. G. Wittner (1998). Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration. Philadelphia, Temple University Press. Buy it now
IV. Older Religious Organizations and Groups
Issues of Change and Conflict
Ammerman, N. T. (1990). Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention. New Brunswick, New Jersey,Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Chaves, M. (1997). Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. Buy it now
Lehman, E. (1993). Gender and Work: The Case of the Clergy. Albany, NY, State University of New York Press. Buy it now
Wallace, R. (1992). They Call Her Pastor: A New Role for Catholic Women. Albany, State University of New York. Buy it now
Wellman Jr, J. K. (1999). "The Debate over homosexual ordination: Subcultural identity theory in American religious organizations." Part of a special issue on debates over homosexuality in Review of Religious Research 41: 184-206.
Zikmund, B. B., A. T. Lummis, et al. (1998). Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling. Louisville, Westminster/John Knox. Buy it now
Congregations
Ammerman, N. T. (1997). Congregation and Community. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Becker, P. E. (1999). Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Buy it now
Chaves, M., M. E. Koneiczny, et al. (1999). "The National Congregational Study; Background, Methods, and Selected Results." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38(4): 458-476.
Cnaan, R. A. (1999). The Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion in Partnership. New York, Columbia University Press.
Douglass, H. P. and E. d. S. Brunner (1935). The Protestant Church as a Social Institution. New York, Harper and Row.
Eiesland, N. (2000). A Particular Place: Urban Restructuring and Religious Ecology. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Buy it now
Warner, R. S. (1988). New Wine in Old Wineskins. Berkeley, University of California Press. Buy it now
Warner, R. S. (1994). "The Place of the Congregation in the Contemporary American Religious Configuration." American Congregations: New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations. J. Wind and J. Lewis. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 54-99. Buy it now
Wellman Jr, J. K. (1999). The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto: Christ and Culture in Mainline Protestantism. Champagne, Ill., University of Illinois Press. Buy it now
Wind, J. P. and J. W. Lewis, Eds. (1994). American Congregations: Portraits of 12 Religious Communities. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Buy it now
Wuthnow, R. (1997). The Crisis in the Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe. New York, Oxford University Press. Buy it now
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