Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Religion
About the Book Series
A platform for the latest scholarly research in the sociology of religion, this series welcomes both theoretical and empirical studies that pay close attention to religion in social context. It publishes work that explores the ways in which religions adapt or react to social change and how spirituality lends meaning to people’s lives and shapes individual, collective and national identities.
Sexuality and the Catholic Priesthood: The 'Chaste' Caste
1st Edition
By Marco Marzano
June 18, 2025
Based on interviews with Roman Catholic seminarians, priests and former priests, as well as with managers of seminaries, teaching staff, psychologists and psychiatrists, this book considers the lives of the clergy, beginning with the period before entering the seminary. With attention to both ...
Beyond New Atheism and Theism: A Sociology of Science, Secularism, and Religiosity
1st Edition
By Sal Restivo
December 18, 2024
This book addresses the flaws and fallacies in the grounds for atheism and theism – flaws and fallacies that contaminate the arguments of non-believers and believers alike. Focusing on the highly visible debates between the New Atheists – such as Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard ...
Contemporary Monastic Economy: A Sociological Perspective Across Continents
1st Edition
By Isabelle Jonveaux
November 28, 2024
This book examines the economy of contemporary Catholic monasticism from a sociological perspective, considering the ways in which monasteries engage with the capitalist world economy via a model which aims less at ‘performance’ per se, than at the fulfilment of human and religious values. Based on...
Anti-Atheist Nation: Religion and Secularism in the United States
1st Edition
By Petra Klug
August 26, 2024
Atheists are a growing but marginalized group in the American religious patchwork and they have been the target of ridicule and discrimination throughout the nation’s history. This book is the first comprehensive study of anti-atheism in the United States. It traces anti-atheism through five ...
Fraternal Relations in Monasteries: The Laboratory of Love
1st Edition
By Mikaela Sundberg
May 27, 2024
This is a book about the tensions between Christian ideals of love and the concrete realities of everyday monastic life. Based on a study of Cistercian monasteries in France, it develops a novel conceptualization of fraternal relations and addresses how monks and nuns strive to accomplish such ...
Morality, Violence, and Ritual Circumcision: Writing with Blood
1st Edition
By Na'ama Carlin
May 27, 2024
This book uses the Jewish ritual of circumcision to consider how violent acts are embedded within entrenched moral discourses and offers a new perspective for thinking about violence. Intervening in contemporary debates on the Jewish ritual of circumcision, it departs from both the ordinary secular...
Celibacy, Seminary Formation, and Catholic Clerical Sexual Abuse: Exploring Sociological Connections and Alternative Clerical Training
1st Edition
By Vivencio Ballano
April 30, 2024
Does the current celibate, semi-monastic, and all-male seminary formation contribute to the persistence of clerical sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church? Applying sociological theories on socialization, total institutions, and social resistance as the primary conceptual framework, and drawing ...
In Defense of Married Priesthood: A Sociotheological Investigation of Catholic Clerical Celibacy
1st Edition
By Vivencio Ballano
August 30, 2023
This book offers an analysis of the sociological, historical, and cultural factors that lie behind mandatory clerical celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church and examines the negative impact of celibacy on the Catholic priesthood in our contemporary age. Drawing on sociological theory and secondary ...
Polish Catholicism between Tradition and Migration: Agency, Reflexivity and Transcendence
1st Edition
By Wojciech Sadlon
January 09, 2023
From a critical realist perspective, this book examines the manner and the extent to which religion is shaped by modernity. With a focus on Poland, one of the most monolithic and religiously active Catholic societies in the world – but which has undergone periods of intense transformation in ...
The Transformation of Religious Orders in Central and Eastern Europe: Sociological Insights
1st Edition
Edited
By Stefania Palmisano, Isabelle Jonveaux, Marcin Jewdokimow
January 09, 2023
The first volume to explore various facets of contemporary change in consecrated religious life in selected Central and Eastern European countries, this book presents a series of studies of Catholic and Orthodox monasticism. With attention to changes in the economy, everyday life, organisation and ...
Religion, Spirituality and Secularity among Millennials: The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends
1st Edition
By Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme
August 19, 2022
This book explores the world of religion, spirituality and secularity among the Millennial generation in the United States and Canada, with a focus on the ways Millennials are doing (non)religion differently in their social lives compared with their parents and grandparents. It considers the ...
Society and the Death of God
1st Edition
By Sal Restivo
June 09, 2021
This book advances the "strong" programme that sociology and anthropology provide a scientific foundation for arguing that God and the gods are human creations. Contending that religion is one – but not the only – way to systematize and institutionalize the moral order of a society, the ...