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Invitation to the Sociology of Religion

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This is one of the best books I have ever read about religion. I am personally not religious but I have always wondered how so many people can be so religious and I have always had all these theories about religion -- many of which were confirmed in this book. Fundamentalists will probably hate this book -- and will surely be offended -- because the writer clearly thinks religion is not true, or at least a lot of the details. This is a very sociological approach (obvious from the title) and the author uses a lot of fascinating examples, especially a lot of stuff about Mormons. Other topics I liked were the discussion of religion and sexuality, religion and the Civil Rights Movement, and the last chapter about some kids believing in fairies and some in Jesus. The book is written in a very casual style, and has lots of anecdotes. But the theories are also strong and serious. A great read.

A previous reviewer indicated that he felt this is a scholary work. I think this is misleading as it actually is a very easy to read book, and it is obviously meant for those who lack familiarity not only with the sociology of religion, but with the field of Sociology itself. It is a very short book in which only about 80 pages are spent discussing the actual subject matter. After a long introduction, a 17 page chapter is dedicated to telling the reader what the general field of Sociology is all about.

The rest of the book details several main topics. One chapter tells us that we follow a certain religion because of time and place. If we are born in Calcutta today we undoubtedly become a member of the Hindu faith. If we are born in America we might easily be born into a Christian family. And that's it. Nothing more profound than that.

The next chapter states that religion is socially learned. Your religious beliefs are a function of your social environment, e.g. family, school, peer groups, etc. People raised as Catholics tend to stay Catholic. Another whole chapter is spent defining the difference between a cult and a religion: a cult is usually a religious group that is too small, and of too recent an origin to become accepted as a religion. The author then explains how social life affects religion using an example of the disruption of a synagogue by dissident factions in the congregation.

Finally we have a chapter on how religion affects social life. The two examples used are how the black churches significantly helped the civil rights movement; secondly how religions affect sexual behavior.

That is the totality of this book. When discussing the churches' effect on civil rights in the south the author spends a lot of time summarizing the history of the times, something I would assume most people are aware of. Yes it's easy reading, but it goes into absolutely nothing in detail.

The author loves to include references as he writes (as many as 26 per page), but almost never quotes anything significant from these references. This is certainly a very basic introduction to the topic, and it is a shame that the author could not suggest additional readings to advance one's knowledge of the subject - he does have a 19 page bibliography for all the citations in the book, but most of these pertain to journal articles or books of narrow focus.

There is one thing that I found annoying in the book. Zuckerman gives the impression that psychologists seem to study religion from the standpoint of neuroscience, which is simply not true. I have several serious and empirical books on the Psychology of religion, and none of them even bring up the subject. Psychology (my field of interest) has better things to do than chase the tired concept of brains being "hard wired" for religion.

In summary it's an easy to read book that, sadly, won't take you very far into the topic. Unfortunately there aren't many books addressing the sociology of religion at this level, and it's a shame that this one didn't cover the topic better. As far as I can tell most, if not all, other books on the subject are either full sized textbooks, or books of rather sophisticated readings like The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion. One final comment: I think this book is outrageously priced when you consider that only about half of its 156 pages are devoted to the actual subject matter. Zuckerman's book will whet your appetite for more, but I do wish his book had been more of a meal instead of a light snack.

The Invitation to the Sociology of Religion is the book for those who are either social scientists, student of sociology or anyone simply interested in this particular topic of Sociology of Religion. The book is a scholarly work, written by Phil Zuckerman who is a scholar, and a sociologist of religion. It is an easy read even though it is a serious subject with a lot of important information and details. Phil Zuckerman is writing about subject that affects our lives on many fronts, even if some of us not religious at all. He has taken up a task of showing a dialectical relationship between the society and the institution of religion. Our existence in this dualism is not only an important factor to know and understand, it also crucial to see how both sides work in our world, maybe we will learn something about our ways as a society. Basically in short the book can be expressed by the following: the essence of society is present and affects religion and the essence of religion is present and affects society. Even though the book is relatively short, Zuckerman was able to convey his research and his main ideas effectively and persuasively.
As mentioned earlier the book is an easy read, but it is not to be confused with entertainment literature. It is a serious work based on years on research and study of dualism between society and religion. The book starts out simply by giving statistics on whom and where are people more religious or less, he gives some percentages where he states that industrial and post-industrial countries have less people who are devoutly religious as oppose to in low income countries. He makes a point by saying that some people cling to their faith due to ethnic backgrounds, and gives an example of his father who is Jewish/Atheists, who goes to synagogue to talk to Sam, while Sam is there to talk to god. Such occurrences are common among people whose religion defines their cultural and ethnic background.
Since, in many cases, religion defines people and their culture, it safe to assume that if lets say Zuckerman's father was born in Yemen in 1785 he 100% be Shiite Muslim, or if he was born in Ethiopia in 19th century he would most likely belong to Coptic Orthodox church. The argument here is the time and place is as important as sun to our survival. It would make great difference if the same person was born in different time and in different place, the notion that not just offends the "true" beliers but it angers them
Another important factor in the book is his mission to eliminate the myths and lies about cults and sects. The thesis here is that there is no really difference between the "official" religion and so-called cults and sects. By that he means that all three have a set of bylaws and/or holy scripture, all three have charismatic and powerful leader who they would obey no matter what. Whether it the Pope or David Koresh who was a leader of Branch Dravidians, the religion that did not go so well, because of the death church members in the siege of their house of worship in '93. The pint being is the Zuckerman broke down a lot of walls by this notion, where the "official" religion of 200 mil. People and the "cult" of 5 people, really have no organizational/structural or even doctrinal difference whatsoever.
Later in the book he moves on to his main objective which is to describe the dualistic or dialectical relationship between society and the institution of religion. First and forth most, the religion is socially learned, and Zuckerman goes into great detail about that. He names specific agents of socialization in defining out religiosity or lack of thereof. Mothers, father, aunts, uncles, the kind of education etc., all affect what our religion will be or won't be. He gives example of his daughter who believes in fairies because Judy and Stacy beloved in them, as she grew up there was no reinforcement of her believes, so she gave up believing in fairies. However, since some of our childhood believes still being reinforced, we still believe in that, whatever that might be. Such reinforcement leads to his next topic which is how society and religion affect each other.
In great detail he described how modern day feminists and liberal in Jewish synagogue clashed with conservatives over the wording in the prayers, which resulted in separated services for the two groups and eventually the conservatives moved to a different temple. Additionally Zuckerman provided example in vice versa, where the Mormon leaders rufused to admit Black men into the priesthood, and come civil rights its all began to change. The god "spoke" to one of the Mormon priests and said to him to begin to admit the black men into the clergy. With those two examples Zuckerman clearly demonstrated how the religion and society can change each other and define each other.
In general the book is very strong and the quality of research and writing is very commendable. For me some of the Zuckerman's ideas and thesis were very eye opining and refreshing. He draws upon his extensive work in field to make a very entertaining piece of scholarly work. Among his many strong central themes, the two stand out the most which re the notion of Time and Place and how religion affects society and vice versa, those toe I found to be very informative and meticulously researched. However, one point I did not agreed upon was the idea of brainwashing in the religious institution. He says that the preacher, the priest, the rabbi etc do not posses some special magic trick that makes the parishioners to be brainwashed or make them do what they would not have done. Even though he makes reference to manipulation and advertisement and promotion of some religious cause, I see it as no other as deliberate brainwashing. However, my disagreement does not make this book any weaker,
Other then that I would highly recommend the book to other sociology students who are interested in taking the course. The book has more strengths and very little weaknesses. I wish he would provide a little more information about Middle East and its relationship with religion. One more little weakness I found was that he did not expand on psychology of religion, other then that the book is very good source to elaborate on subject.