The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion takes a look at the role of religion in society; unpacking and evaluating the significance of religion in and on human history; and tracing and outlining the social forces and influences that shape religion.

Table of Contents

• Editorial Board
• Reader’s Guide
• About the Editors
• Contributors
• Introduction
• A
• Abortion
• Acquaviva, Sabino
• Activism
• Adorcism
• Aesthetics
• African Christianity
• African Diaspora: Religious Practices
• African Religions
• Age
• Agnosticism
• AI
• Al-Biruni
• Alevism
• Alternation
• Amish
• Anabaptist
• Ancestor Worship
• Anglican Church
• Animism
• Anomie
• Anthropology of Religion
• Anti-Cult Movement
• Anti-Semitism
• Apocalyptic Movements
• Apostasy
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Asceticism
• Assabiyah
• Association for the Sociology of Religion
• Astrology
• Atheism
• Atonement
• Attachment Theory and the Study of Religion
• Attribution Theory
• Aum Shinrikyo
• Authority
• Axial Age
• Azevedo, Thales
• B
• Baha’i Faith
• Baptist Church
• Bastide, Roger
• Bataille, Georges
• Baudrillard, Jean
• Beliefs
• Believing Without Belonging
• Bellah, Robert N.
• Berger, Peter
• Big Data Analysis
• Blasphemy
• Body, The
• Boko Haram
• Bourdieu, Pierre
• Brahma Kumaris
• Brainwashing
• Branch Davidians
• Brigolage
• Buddhism
• C
• Caillois, Roger
• Calvinism
• Candomblé
• Canon Law
• Caodaism
• Cargo Cults
• Carrier, Hervé
• Case Study
• Catholicism
• Celibacy
• Census
• Chaplaincy
• Charisma
• Charity
• Child Sexual Abuse
• Children of God
• Christian Right
• Christian Zionism
• Christianity
• Church of Almighty God
• Church–Sect Theory
• Church–State Relations
• Civil Religion
• Clarke, Peter
• Class
• Clergy
• Cognitive Dissonance
• Collective Effervescence
• Comparative–Historical Methods
• Comte, Auguste
• Conflict Perspective
• Confucianism
• Conjure
• Conspiracy Theories
• Consumer Culture
• Contemplation
• Content Analysis
• Conversion
• Counterculture
• Creationism and Intelligent Design
• Critical Theory
• Critique of Positivism
• Cultic Milieu
• Cultural, Religious, and Spiritual Capital
• Cultural Studies
• Culture
• D
• Daesoon Jinrihoe
• Daoism, or Taoism
• De Certeau, Michel
• Death
• Definition of Religion
• Demography of Religion
• Denomination
• Deprivation Theory
• Deprogramming
• Desroche, Henri
• Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization
• Detraditionalization and Retraditionalization of Religion
• Deviance
• Norms and Conformity
• Diffused Religion
• Digital Activism
• Digital Religion
• Discourse Analysis
• Doomsday Cults
• Douglas, Mary
• Du Bois, William E. B.
• Dumont, Fernand
• Durkheim, Émile
• E
• Eastern Orthodoxy
• Economics and Religion
• Economy and Society, by Max Weber
• Ecospirituality
• Ecstasy and Ecstatic Religion
• Education and Religious Diversity
• Eisenstadt, Shmuel N.
• El Shaddai Movement
• Elderly, The
• Elective Affinity
• The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by Émile Durkheim
• Eliade, Mircea
• Emerging Church
• Emotion
• Engaged Buddhism
• Environment and Religion
• Episcopal Church
• Erhard Seminars Training (est)
• Esotericism
• Ethnicity
• Ethnography
• Eugenics
• Euthanasia
• Evans-Pritchard, E. E.
• Exorcism
• Exoticism, Religious
• F
• Faith-Based Organizations
• Falun Gong
• Family
• Fanfani, Amintore
• Feminism
• Fertility
• Fichter, Joseph
• Folk Religion
• Foucault, Michel
• Frazer, James G.
• Freedom of Religion
• Freud, Sigmund
• Functionalism
• Fundamentalism
• G
• Geertz, Clifford J.
• Gender
• Ghosts and Spirits
• Ghosts, Spirits, and the Origin of Religion
• Globalization
• Gramsci, Antonio
• Greeley, Andrew
• Gülen Movement
• Gustafsson, Göran
• H
• Habitus
• Hadden, Jeffrey K.
• Halal
• Halbwachs, Maurice
• Hammond, Phillip E.
• Haram
• Hare Krishna (International Society for Krishna Consciousness)
• Hargrove, Barbara
• Hasidism
• Heaven’s Gate
• Hezbollah
• Higher Education
• Hijab
• Hindu Nationalism
• Hinduism
• Historical Sociology
• Hizb ut-Tahrir
• Houtart, François
• Human Potential Movement
• Human Rights and Religion
• Humanism
• Hybridity
• Hyper-Real Religion
• I
• Ibn-Khaldun
• Ideal Types
• Identity
• Ideology
• Illuminati
• Immigrant Religion
• Implicit Religion
• Inculturation
• Indigenous Religions
• Individualism and Individualization
• Integrism
• Intelligent Design
• Intentional Communities
• Interfaith Dialogue
• International Development and Religion
• International Society for the Sociology of Religion
• Interrituality
• Intersectionality
• Interviews
• Invisible Religion
• ISIS
• Islam
• Islamic Finance
• Islamic Jihad
• Islamization
• Islamophobia
• J
• Jainism
• Jama’at at-Tabligh
• James, William
• Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Jesus People
• K
• Kabbalah
• L
• Laïcité
• Lambert, Yves
• Late Modernity and Postmodernity
• Latter-day Saints
• Law and Religion
• Le Bras, Gabriel
• Leclercq, Jacques
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude
• LGBTQI* People and Religion
• Liberation Theology
• Life Stories
• Lived Religion
• Longitudinal Study
• Luckmann, Thomas
• Lutheranism
• M
• Maduro, Otto
• Magic
• Mahāyāna Buddhism
• Malinowski, Bronislaw
• Mana
• Marian Apparitional Movements
• Marketization and Branding
• Martin, David
• Martyrdom
• Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich
• Material Culture
• Mauss, Marcel
• McDonaldization
• Mecca
• Media
• Meditation
• Megachurch
• Mennonite
• Methodism
• Millennialism
• Mindfulness
• Missionization
• Modernization and Modernity
• Mol, Hans
• Monasticism
• Monotheism
• Monsters and Horror
• Mormons
• Movies
• Multiculturalism
• Multiple Modernities
• Multiple Secularities
• Music
• Muslim Brotherhood
• Mysterium Tremendum
• Mysticism
• N
• Naqshbandiya
• Narrative Analysis
• Nation of Islam
• Nationalism
• Native American New Religions
• Neal, Marie Augusta
• Neo-Pentecostalism
• Neo-Shamanism
• Neo-Sufism
• New Age Movement
• New Religious Movements
• Nuwaubian Nation
• O
• O’Dea, Thomas F.
• Online Ethnography
• Ontological Security
• Opus Dei
• Order of the Solar Temple
• Ordination
• Orientalism
• Otherworldly and Inner-Worldly
• Otto, Rudolf
• P
• Paganism, Contemporary
• Pancasila
• Papacy
• Paranormal
• Parsons, Talcott
• Participant Observation
• Pentecostalism
• Peoples Temple
• Phenomenology
• Philosophy of Religion
• Piety and Pietism
• Pilgrimage and Tourism
• Pillarization
• Plausibility Structure
• Plymouth Brethren Christian Church
• Politics and Religion
• Popular Religion
• Possession, Spiritual
• Post-apocalypse
• Postcolonialism
• Post-Islamism
• Postmodernism
• Postsecular Society
• Prayer
• Predestination
• Prejudice and Racism
• Presbyterianism
• Prison, Religion in
• Privatization of Religion
• Procession
• Profane
• Prophecy
• Prosperity Gospel
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
• Protestant Ethic Thesis
• Protestantism
• Protestantization of Religion
• Psychoanalysis
• Psychology of Religion
• Public Faith
• Public Funding of Religion
• Puritanism
• Q
• Quakers
• Qualitative Data Analysis Software
• Qualitative Research
• Quantitative Data Analysis Software
• Quantitative Research
• Quimbanda
• R
• Race
• Radicalization
• Raëlians
• Rajneesh/Osho Movement
• Rastafarianism
• Rational Choice Theory
• Reasonable Accommodation
• Reenchantment and Disenchantment
• Refugees
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Science
• Religion in China
• Religious Accommodation
• Religious Diversity
• Religious Entrepreneurship
• Religious Experience
• Religious Field
• Religious Healing
• Religious Literacy
• Religious Research Association
• Religious Studies
• Resacralization
• Research Committee 22 for the Sociology of Religion
• Research Methods in the Sociology of Religion
• Revivalism
• Risk Society and Religion
• Ritual
• Rohingya People
• Rosicrucianism
• Routinization
• S
• Sacred
• Sacrifice
• Sai Baba Movement
• Saint-Simon, Henri de
• Salafism
• Salvation Army
• San La Muerte
• Sangha
• Santa Muerte
• Satanism
• Schism
• Scientology
• Secular Spirituality
• Secularization
• Seekership
• Séguy, Jean
• Sexuality
• Shamanism
• Shari’a
• Shariati, Ali
• Shi’ite Islam
• Shinto
• Sikhism
• Simmel, Georg
• Social Cohesion
• Social Constructivism
• Social Control
• Social Darwinism
• Social Fact
• Social Gospel Movement
• Social Justice
• Social Memory
• Social Movements
• Social Psychology
• Social Theory
• Socialization
• Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
• Soka Gakkai International
• Sound
• Spatial Analysis
• Spencer, Herbert
• Spiritualism
• Spirituality
• Sport
• Standardization
• State Management of Religion
• State Religion/Official Religion
• Stratification
• Structuralism
• Sturzo, Luigi
• Subud
• Sufism
• Suicide
• Sunni Islam
• Supply-Side Theory
• Survey Methodology
• Symbolic Interactionism
• Symbolic Power and Violence
• Syncretism
• Syriac Christianity
• Syro-Malabar Churches
• Systems Theory
• T
• Tablighi Jama’at
• Taboo
• Tattoos
• Taxes
• Televangelism
• Tenrikyō
• Theology
• Theosophy
• Theravāda Buddhism
• Tibetan Buddhism
• Time Series Analysis
• Tocqueville, Alexis de
• Tomka, Miklós
• Totemism
• Tradition
• Transformative Phenomenology
• Transnationalism
• Troeltsch, Ernst
• U
• UFO Cults
• Ulama
• Umbanda
• Ummah
• Unification Church
• Universalism
• V
• Vaillancourt, Jean-Guy
• Values
• Vatican
• Vatican II
• Vicarious Religion
• Victory Altar
• Video and Role-Playing Games
• Violence
• Virtuoso
• Visual Sociology
• Vitalism
• Vocation
• Voodoo
• W
• Wach, Joachim
• Wahhabism
• Wallis, Roy
• Weber, Max
• Weixin Shengjiao
• Welfare
• Well-being
• Westernization and Easternization of Religion
• Wicca
• Willems, Emilio
• Wilson, Bryan R.
• Witchcraft
• Y
• Yezidis
• Yinger, J. Milton
• Yoga
• Youth
• Z
• Zen Buddhism
• Zionism
• Zoroastrianism