The Social Scientific Study of Religion

In this study, Paul S. Chung charts the history of social scientific study of religion from the axial age to the present day, and thereby lays a foundation for a new model of constructive theology in the comparative study of religion, culture and society. Analysing the thought of Max Weber, Alfred Schutz, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Edmund Husserl, Max Horkheimer and others, Chung deals effectively with material interests, power relations and the history of race, gender and sexuality. The result is a synthesis that is at once innovative, critical, and applicable to current methodology in theology and the social sciences.



Paul S. Chung (Dr Habil.) specialises in theology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and in sociology of religion at the University of California, Berkeley, CA. He is Distinguished Professor of Public Theology at HanShin University, South Korea, and has been nominated to be distinguished professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Chicago. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Historians' Debate - Public Theology website and teaches in Berkeley.



Foreword by Ulrich Duchrow Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Sociological Enquiry and World Religion 2. Hermeneutics of Life-world, Religion, and Constructive Theology 3. Sociological Hermeneutics, Power Relations, and Immanent Critique 4. Phenomenology and Social Construction of Reality 5. Social Construction of Religion, Schleiermacher, and Constructive Theology 6. Sociological Enquiry into Hinduism and Comparative Theology Epilogue Bibliography Index