Introduction - sociology of culture and sociology of religion

Sociology of Religion, Spring, 1996 by Rhys H. Williams

This is an exciting time in sociological approaches to culture. Culture is not being forced to choose between undifferentiated roles as either vulgar Marxism's "ideology" or functionalism's integrative value-orientations. Similarly, the sociology of religion, as evidenced in these essays, can use culturalist perspectives to understand the interactions between the contexts and the content of religious cultural objects. Religion, like culture, is being rescued from dismissal as epiphenomenon on one hand, and removed from its functionalist pedestal on the other.

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