A Cultural Sociology of Religion: New Directions

Edgell, Penny

doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-071811-145424

Cited by 172 publications

(155 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…4 The either/or model and its implications for interview data has engendered significant critique, even by supporters of a cognitive sociology more generally (Leschziner and Green 2013;McDonnell 2014;Mische 2014;Shepherd 2011;Vaisey 2014;Vila-Henninger 2015). Several sociologists have consistently argued for the value of supposed System 2 settings, such as in-depth interviews, to provide access to motivational issues (Edgell 2012;McDonnell 2014;Mische 2014;Pugh 2013). Vaisey also later moved towards this camp, writing in a response to Pugh (2013) that the relationship between the processing systems is likely more complex than he originally presented (Vaisey 2014).…”

Section: The Relationship Between Fast and Slow Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fast or Slow: Sociological Implications of Measuring Dual-Process Cognition

Moore¹

2017

SocScience

104

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Dual-process theories of cognition within sociology have received increasing attention from both supporters and critics. One limitation in this debate, however, is the common absence of empirical evidence to back dual-process claims. Here, I provide such evidence for dual-process cognition using measures of response latency in formal data collected in conjunction with an ethnographic study of atheists and evangelicals. I use timed responses to help make sense of evangelicals' language that frames "religion" as negative but "Christ-following" as positive. The data suggests that despite these Christians expressing a concept of the self that rejects "religion, " deep dispositions remain associating religion as a positive entity, not a negative one. I further argue that the significance of dual-process theories to sociology is in untangling such complex webs of identity discourse by distinguishing between immediate responses primarily due to fast cognition and those that are further mediated by slower, more deliberate cognition.

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Section: The Relationship Between Fast and Slow Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fast or Slow: Sociological Implications of Measuring Dual-Process Cognition

Moore¹

2017

SocScience

104

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“…While debates about whether American adults are becoming less religious have subsided as scholars have increasingly recognized more individualistic spiritual practices and shifts in patterns of institutional membership (e.g., [1][2][3]), research on religious youth and young adults has often continued to focus on just how religious young adults are by analyzing how often they attend religious services and comparing their beliefs to adults in their faith traditions [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. This focus may stem from a paradox researchers have observed; that is, while attendance tends to decrease in adolescence and college, youth themselves often report that religious beliefs remain important and sometimes even increase during this period [12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Church” in Black and White: The Organizational Lives of Young Adults

2016

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Abstract:The religious lives of young adults have generally been investigated by examining what young people believe and their self-reported religious practices. Far less is known about young adults' organizational involvement and its impact on religious identities and ideas about religious commitment. Using data from site visit observations of religious congregations and organizations, and individual and focus group interviews with college-age black and white Christians, we find differences in how black and white students talk about their religious involvement; and with how they are incorporated into the lives of their congregations. White students tended to offer "organizational biographies" chronicling the contours of belonging as well as disengagement, and emphasizing the importance of fulfilling personal needs as a criterion for maintaining involvement. On the other hand, black students used "family" and "home" language and metaphors to describe how their religious involvement, a voluntary choice, was tied to a sense of "calling" and community. We show that this variation is aligned with organizational differences in black and white congregations that situate white youth as separate and black youth as integrated into the larger church community.

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“…As previous reviews of lived religion have noted, one of its primary contributions is participating in a cultural turn to the material (Neitz 2011;Edgell 2012). In the articles we analyzed, over one third give attention to the sacralization of things (42%) and places (36%).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Over the last three decades, the study of religion has taken a cultural turn, giving attention to discourse and identity and ritual, but especially looking at the way religion is embedded in the practices of everyday life (Edgell 2012). The turn to lived religion in the 1990s marked a significant shift in the sociological study of religion, a shift that has been remarkably fruitful.…”

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confidence: 99%

Lived Religion as an Emerging Field: An Assessment of its Contours and Frontiers

Ammerman¹

2016

NJRS

137

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Over the last three decades, lived religion has emerged as a distinct field of study, with an identifiable "canon" of originating sources. With this body of work reaching maturity, a critical assessment is in order. This study analyzes sixty-four journal articles published in English, since 1997, which have used either "lived religion" or "everyday religion" in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. We find that the field has largely been defined by what it excludes. It includes attention to laity, not clergy or elites; to practices rather than beliefs; to practices outside religious institutions rather than inside; and to individual agency and autonomy rather than collectivities or traditions. Substantively, the focus on practice has encompassed dimensions of embodiment, discourse and materiality; and I argue here that these substantive foci can form the analytical structure for expanding the domain of lived religion to include the traditions and institutions that have so far largely been excluded from study. In doing so, lived religion's attention to gender, power, and previously-excluded voices must be maintained. But that task cannot be accomplished without continuing to expand the field beyond the still-limited geographic and religious terrain it has so far covered.Keywords: Lived religion; everyday religion; embodiment; gender; discourse; materiality 2 Over the last three decades, the study of religion has taken a cultural turn, giving attention to discourse and identity and ritual, but especially looking at the way religion is embedded in the practices of everyday life (Edgell 2012). The turn to lived religion in the 1990s marked a significant shift in the sociological study of religion, a shift that has been remarkably fruitful.In this paper, I will step back to observe what this move has enabled us to do, as well as what it may be leading us to miss. Such an assessment is important both to build on and to go beyond the advances that have been made.The turn to lived religion 1 arose out of a widespread recognition that our discipline had gotten itself mired in endless debates over whether the modern world was or was not secularizing, debates mostly relevant to the North Atlantic world that threatened to blind us to much of the very phenomenon we wanted to study, in that region and beyond (Warner 1993).At an opportune moment, new voices began to be heard in the field, inviting us to pay attention to the way religion is lived. Not surprisingly, those voices came from the margins where the existing debates made the least sense. 2 They came first from the women who were finding their place in the study of religion. In the US, they also came from scholars of color whose work began to gain more credence (e.g., Gilkes 1985). They came from immigrants, whose religious communities began to be noticed (e.g., Min 1992). As scholars from the postcolonial world became a more frequent presence -and we spent more time in their locales -another channel opened (e.g., N'Guessan 2015). And today all these voices are...

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A Cultural Sociology of Religion: New Directions

Cited by 172 publications

References 115 publications

Fast or Slow: Sociological Implications of Measuring Dual-Process Cognition

Fast or Slow: Sociological Implications of Measuring Dual-Process Cognition

“Church” in Black and White: The Organizational Lives of Young Adults

Lived Religion as an Emerging Field: An Assessment of its Contours and Frontiers

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