Four conceptual and methodological edges or areas of study are outlined. They are located near what have been the boundaries between the sociology of religion and other subfields, where we believe a potential exists to encourage a wide range of scholars to revisit some central concepts. Paying attention to these edges-as a means to de-center to re-center our debates in new ways-not only broadens and deepens our knowledge of the "religious," it encourages us to reexamine long-standing conceptual tools, unquestioned assumptions, and accepted methods in the sociology of religion. We illustrate these edges through a review of recent literature and examples drawn from our current empirical projects.

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This chapter explores the issue of cultural autonomy as it relates to our portrayals of religion. First, it looks at the recent move toward a more robust view of religion and culture. Then it considers at some of the critiques of the idea of cultural autonomy that have taken place over the last few decades. Finally, it reviews some alternatives for understanding the causal impact of religious culture.

This introductory chapter is structured as a discussion of four of the central empirical and analytic tendencies in the sociology of religion in the US, and as an account of what is going on at the edges where this core is being challenged. It poses a set of questions and provides a set of examples where the next generation of research might begin. What is revealed about the self, pluralism, or modernity when we look outside the United States or outside Christian settings where the center and the edges meet? What do we learn about how and where the religious is actually at work and what its role is when we unpack the assumptions about it embedded in these much used categories? What kinds of methods help bring to light these lacunae, and how do the insights they yield help us to re-center the sociology of religion? An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.