Religion as a chain of memory / Danièle Hervieu-Léger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hervieu-Léger, Danièle, 1947-

Standardized Title:

Religion pour mémoire. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Religion and sociology.

Physical Description:

x, 204 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Contents:

Part I Doubt about the Subject Matter 7

1 Sociology in Opposition to Religion? Preliminary Considerations 9

From religious sociology to the sociology of religion 9

Science opposed to religion 13

Undermining the subject? 18

2 The Fragmentation of Religion in Modern Societies 23

The future of religion in the modern world: the classical sociological approaches 24

Constructing a new perspective 27

Defining religion: a new look at an old debate 30

Religion and systems of meaning: an inclusive approach 33

In contrast: a much more restrictive framework 35

A false opposition 36

One way out of the dilemma? 39

3 The Elusive Sacred 42

The sacred: an impossible concept 42

The genealogy of the sacred: Isambert's contribution 48

Emotional experience vis-a-vis religion 51

Between the sacred and religion: the example of sport 53

The sacred opposed to religion: the emotional culmination of secularization? 57

Part II As our Fathers Believed ... 63

4 Religion as a Way of Believing 65

Metaphorical religion, following Jean Seguy 66

Towards an analysis of the transformation of belief in contemporary society 72

Religion as a way of believing: the example of apocalyptic neo-rural communities 75

5 Questions about Tradition 83

Tradition opposed to modernity 83

The creative power of tradition 86

Religion as folklore 89

The religious productions of modernity: is this concept meaningful? 92

Back to the question of definition 97

6 From Religions to the Religious 101

A second look at sport as a religion 102

Two ways of thinking 106

Is the notion of a religious sphere still a helpful one? 108

From the sociology of religion to the sociology of the religious: a political example 111

Part III A Break in the Chain 121

7 Religion Deprived of Memory 123

Memory and religion: a structural connection 124

The crumbling memory of modern societies 127

Secularization as a crisis of collective memory: the example of French Catholicism 130

8 The Chain Reinvented 141

Utopia: a major manifestation of religious innovation in modernity 143

The religious reinforcement of elective fraternities 149

The rise of ethnic religions 157

Conclusion: Post-traditional Society and the Future of Religious Institutions 163

Post-traditional religion and the institution of the religious 166

Beyond secularization, de-institutionalization 167

The institutional production of a chain of memory 171.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [192]-201) and index.

ISBN:

0813528275

0813528283

OCLC:

43083390