Tom Kaden

This article analyzes the cult of the souls in Purgatory in Puerto Berrío, Colombia, and its relationship with the Catholic Church. Through empirical evidence, it identifies three characteristics of this cult, namely, its relative independence from the Catholic Church, its heterogeneity and its utilitarian character, and compares them with other cases of Latin American popular Catholicism. The particularities of the cult enable an analysis of how popular religion, rather than generating a conflict with the Catholic Church, maintains an ambiguous relationship with it. The case shows that popular religion not only incorporates the symbolic structure of the Catholic Church to legitimize itself, but also that the church tolerates it, contributing to the peaceful coexistence of the popular and the institutionalized. Consequently, this leads believers, instead of adhering to a supposed binary opposition, to shift between popular and institutionalized religion.

This chapter analyses the ways in which the Islamic State generates and upholds its message through what we term recognition orders, that is, complex sets of recognition by various actors for various traits and reasons, as well as complex sets of claims for recognition towards various actors as to what is to be recognised about the Islamic State in which way.

Due to the relative influence of creationist movements in the United States, most sociological research into science and religion in that context has taken religious populations, especially conservative Protestants, as its point of focus. The relationship between knowledge and identity among non-religious people has not been covered in detail. Research with mixed populations in the contrasting settings of the UK and Canada, where the populations are more secular and where debates about human origins have not become entangled with cultural conflict to the same degree, offers the opportunity to remedy this and highlight the uneven link between knowledge and identity within both religious and non-religious populations. In addition, in part due to this body of research usually employing quantitative methods that allocate people into fixed groups, sociological research into science and religion has not often been connected to broader social trends relating to contemporary styles ofbeliep Specifically, one of the most significant trends observed in the sociology of religion in recent years has been toward the individualization of belief, but this trend is rarely mentioned in relation to work on science and religion.8 In this overview of our findings, we use discussions of participants' biographies and interests to show that, as well as being involved in social conflict, public belief about science and religion has been influenced by this shift toward the personal construction of religious identities. We want to ask: What are the implications of this socialshift for understanding people's perceptions about science and religion, and for public debates about this most contested of subjects? As we will see, we suggest that it raises challenges to various common assumptions made in public discourse about science and religion. Suppositions about the validity of labels such as "creationist," as well as about the link between awareness of and identification with science, are all placed in question by the personalization of religious knowledge.

Within science and technology studies, there is an established tradition of examining publics’ knowledge of, trust in, access to and engagement with science, but less attention has been paid to whether and why publics identify with science. While this is understandable given the field’s interest in bridging gaps between publics and producers of scientific knowledge, it leaves unanswered questions about how science forms part of people’s worldviews and fits into cultural politics and conflict. Based on 123 interviews and 16 focus groups with mixed religious and nonreligious publics and scientists in the United Kingdom and Canada, this article utilises approaches from the sociology of (non)religion to delineate varieties of science identification. It maps out ‘practical’, ‘norm-based’, ‘civilisational’ and ‘existential’ identifications and explores how these interrelate with people’s social characteristics. The article illustrates how science identification is typically dependent on a constellation of cultural/political influences rather than just emerging out of interest in science.

Classical sociology addressed the relationship between science and religion, but interest in the topic waned during the 20th century. A second wave of research has emerged in the 21st century, focusing on scientists' (ir)religiosity, evolution, and the relationship between knowledge and acceptance of scientific concepts. Most of this research has been conducted in the United States, used quantitative methods, and focused on creationism, although scholars have recently begun to explore different research methods and sites. Their results suggest that the “conflict thesis” is not valid and that publics and scientists' views tend to be fluid and strongly shaped by national context. The literature on nonreligion has also expanded, but its connection to science remains ripe for further development. A more intersectional approach would also benefit the field, as would increased engagement between public understanding of science scholars and sociologists studying science and religion. Research in both areas is showing that attitudes toward science and religion cannot be understood solely in terms of knowledge about either domain. There is scope for more empirical and theoretical work internationally eschewing the assumption that science and religion conflict and focusing more on identity, culture, and power relations.

Islam's positioning in relation to Western ideals of individuality, freedom, women's rights and democracy has been an abiding theme of sociological analysis and cultural criticism, especially since September 11 2001. Less attention has been paid, however, to another concept that has been central to the image of Western modernity: science. This article analyses comments about Islam gathered over the course of 117 interviews and 13 focus groups with non-Muslim members of the public and scientists in the UK and Canada on the theme of the relationship between science and religion. The article shows how participants' accounts of Islam and science contrasted starkly with their accounts of other religious traditions, with a notable minority of predominantly non-religious interviewees describing Islam as uniquely, and uniformly, hostile to science and rational thought. It highlights how such descriptions of Islam were used to justify the cultural othering of Muslims in the West and anxieties about educational segregation, demographic 'colonization' and Islamist extremism. Using these data, the article argues for: (1) wider recognition of how popular  understandings of science remain bound up with conceptions of Western cultural superiority; and (2) greater attentiveness to how prejudices concerning Islamic beliefs help make respectable the idea that Muslims pose a threat to the West.

Issues pertaining to the relationship between science and religion, like creationism, Intelligent Design, and New Atheism, are increasingly the focus of social scientific research. This research often does not differentiate clearly between different kinds of social actors. At the most basic level, professional developers and distributors of systems of thought that deal with the relationship between science and religion, and laypeople who take up this knowledge, or parts of it, must be distinguished. Based upon interview material from the large, multinational study Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum, we identify five typical dimensions of lay knowledge visa `-vis professional knowledge: reinterpretation of professional labels; neglect of important parts of knowledge systems; addition of knowledge; lower ascription of relevance; and an individual ethical framing.

In this dialogue, Simmel and Weber meet in Berlin in 1907 and talk about rules and regularities in social life. Their conversation revolves around two editions of a book by Rudolf Stammler, which Simmel had reviewed about 10 years before and which Weber planned to review in the near future. After a discussion about the German card game Skat, they encounter the double meaning of 'rule' as both a description of a process and a normative expectation. They situate this within their respective works and develop new ideas for what would become Weber's basic sociological terms.

This  paper  provides  an  analysis  of  the  sources  of  authority  that  the  Islamic  State  employs  locally  and  globally  in  order  to  further  the  establishment  of  a  worldwide  caliphate.  To  allow  for  a  more  comprehensive understanding of the propositions the Islamic State makes towards its audiences, we
argue  that  it  can  be  regarded  as  a  sociopolitical  movement  and  a  de  facto  state  with  different sources of authority and means of power pertaining to each. Both realms of authority guarantee and reinforce  each  other,  thus  providing  the  Islamic  State  with  a  stability  that  is  often  overlooked  in 
public debates about its prospects.

We examine how the authors who represent ‘New Atheism’  refer to science, and we compare these references to how science was viewed in earlier Continental forms of atheism, namely in Ernst Haeckel’s writings and his Monist movement. We analyse and compare these references in five key areas: the general reference to science, the use of science as an argument against religion, reference to a scientific mode of knowledge, scientific theories about religion and science as a means of
giving meaning to life. While there are many similarities that clearly position New Atheism within the history of scientism, we find that the form of scientism the New Atheists employ owes at least as much to the current state of the religious field
as to their scientistic predecessors.

There are good reasons for the German sociology of religion to deal with the non-religious, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Important theoretical points of departure are Weber’s analysis of competing spheres of value as well as his sociology of religion that has become the basis for Pierre Bourdieu’s work on the religious field. One pressing motivation in empirical terms is the large proportion of non-religious population especially in the eastern part of Germany. It is in this context that this essay sets forth the markers of a sociological study of the non-religious. The authors propose to analytically define the non-religious through its relation to the religious while empirically studying arenas of conflict where relations are established between both of them. Two contrary constellations, i.e. the enduring societal norm to be religious in the United States and the normative framing of scientific atheism in the GDR, are used to demonstrate how an arena of conflict takes shape in the debate on religion where various religious and non-religious positions compete for interpretive supremacy. In both of these cases, the non-religious position assigns itself a positive identity through its relation to science, partially in an attempt to maintain the borders of the scientific domain, and partially by asserting a basic hierarchy that denies the religious all legitimacy.

Die Struktur der Religionssoziologie unterliegt wie jeder andere Teilbereich unserer Wissenschaft der multiplen Paradigmatase (Luhmann 1981, S. 50) und lässt sich, so unsere These, selbst als Resultat einer Refiguration begreifen, wie sie in der Einleitung dieses Bandes skizziert wurde (vgl. Knoblauch in diesem Band). Mit dem Begriff knüpfen die Herausgeber an den Figurationsbegriff von Elias an, der damit einen sozial skalierbaren, zwischen Handlung und Struktur vermittelnden Begriff etablieren wollte. Unter dem Titel Refiguration werden grundlegende sozialtheoretische mit historisch ausgerichteten gesellschaftheoretischen Fragen verwoben, wobei die gegenwartsdiagnostische Seite besonders akzentuiert wird. Dabei wird die aktuelle historische Situation als Konfiguration konfligierender Ordnungen und Ordnungsprinzipien (ebd.) beschrieben. Eine derartige Verzahnung von Grundlagenfragen und historischen Analysen liefert sich allerdings besonderen Problemen des Missverstehens aus. Das wollen wir am Fall der Rezeption der Invisible Religion (Luckmann 1967, dt. 1991) exemplarisch aufzeigen. In diesem Buch sind in ähnlicher Weise sozialtheoretische
mit gesellschaftsanalytischen Ausführungen verwoben, was zu zahlreichen Rezeptionsproblemen geführt hat. Wir rekonstruieren zunächst knapp die beiden Dimensionen des Werks, um anschließend dessen Aufnahme in der
Religionssoziologie genauer zu untersuchen.

Kaden, Jones, Catto und Elsdon-Baker gehen in ihrem Beitrag der Frage nach, auf welche Art und Weise sich das Wissen von Laien über die Relation von Wissenschaft und Religion von dem Professioneller unterscheidet. Dabei gehen sie nicht, wie bisherige Forschung, von dem professionellen Wissen aus, sondern setzen ihren Fokus auf Laienwissen. Basierend auf in einem größeren Forschungskontext erhobenen Interviews diskutieren sie dazu einige Fallbeispiele, anhand derer wesentliche Charakteristika des Laienwissens herausgearbeitet werden, um darauf aufbauend die Struktur und Relevanzsetzung dieses Wissens ursächlich zu erklären. Dabei zeigen sie, dass das Laienwissen ethisch oder moralisch/sozial motiviert ist und dabei einzelne Aspekte eines ganzheitlichen, professionellen Wissenssystems integriert. Zudem wird anhand einiger Referenzfälle aufgezeigt, dass Laienwissen nicht zwangsläufig weniger Kohärenz aufweist, sondern aus individuellen Beweggründen heraus ebenfalls eine Art Laienprofessionalisierung stattfinden kann.

Die Debatte zum Thema Theoriereduktion ist kaum mehr zu überschauen. Eine Konstante ist jedoch nach wie vor Ernest Nagels Position (Nagel 1961). Nagel zufolge müssen die Begriffe der Theorie, die reduziert werden soll, in die Begriffe der Theorie, auf die reduziert werden soll, übersetzt werden, um die Gesetze jener ersten Theorie aus den Gesetzen dieser zweiten Theorie deduktiv ableiten zu können.
Befürworter wie Gegner der Theoriereduktion kommen offenbar nicht umhin, sich mit diesem Nagel-Modell auseinanderzusetzen. In jüngster Zeit erfreut sich Kenneth F. Schaffners Weiterentwicklung dieses Modells besonderer Aufmerksamkeit (Winther 2009). So diente sein „General Reduction Paradigm“ (Schaffner 1967: 144) sowie sein „General Reduction-Replacement (GRR) Model“ (Schaffner 1993: 331) als Vorbild für ein „Generalized Nagel-Schaffner Model of Reduction (GNS)“, mit dem gezeigt werden soll, „that a Nagelian account of reduction is essentially on the right track“ (Dizadji-Bahmani et al. 2010: 393-394).
Im Folgenden soll es nicht um das Für und Wider dieser Modelle gehen, sondern nur um einen ihrer Aspekte, nämlich um die Bestimmung der Beziehung einer Vorgängertheorie T2 zu ihrer Nachfolgerin T2* im Sinne einer starken oder positiven Analogie.

A sociological perspective on the Islamic State’s regime paints a surprisingly multi-faceted picture. Its appeal to a traditional order can be regarded as its most pervasive argument to garner obedience. But the Islamic State also manages to forge and maintain alliances on a rational, innerworldly, means-ends basis with various groups. Our findings are of course tentative given that it is not possible to prove that the means of authority deployed by the Islamic State are, in fact, viewed as the legitimate grounds upon which its fighters and the people ruled by it adhere to it. Some of the Western adolescents that make their way to Iraq and Syria might be drawn to it not so much due to a theological pondering of their duties as Muslims, but because they identify their crises of adolescence with the Islamic State’s cause of liberating Muslims worldwide. Many of the people under its rule might not so much conform because of their admiration for the Islamic State’s measures of communal organization, but because of the sheer threat of violence against any deviation. Still these means of authority exist as programmatic and practical features of the social movement and quasi-state that is the Islamic State. Its persistence in the face of military and political opposition suggests that the sources of authority described in this chapter are at least in part salient. Explaining his basic sociological terms, Weber remarked that no power relationship of people over people is a one-way street. Rather, for a rule to be stable, the ruled need to develop a belief in the legitimacy of the order they are subject to. Naturally, the transition between obedience out of fear of punishment (itself a form of rational domination), and obedience out of a sense of legitimacy are highly fluent (Weber 1978:31). From this perspective the Islamic State’s various claims to authority can be seen as legitimacy constructs that are offered to the population in order to increase the chance of their going beyond obedience out of fear. While it is still uncertain to what extent, and based upon which legitimating narrative, it is seen as legitimate by the ruled, each month that passes with the Islamic State being relatively uncontested makes it appear more plausible that it is, indeed, much more than a mere terrorist movement.

Im Anschluss an neuere Forschungen entwickelt der Aufsatz Konturen einer soziologischen Untersuchung des Nicht-Religiösen. Ausgehend von der Position, das Nicht-Religiöse analytisch über seine Relation zum Religiösen zu bestimmen, unterscheiden wir verschiedene Formen der empirischen Verhältnisbestimmung zwischen beidem sowie drei Ebenen der Analyse. Anhand zweier gegensätzlicher Konstellationen, einer starken Norm des Religiösen in den USA und einer starken Norm des Nicht-Religiösen in der DDR, wird im Anschluss gezeigt, wie in der Auseinandersetzung um Religion ein Konfliktfeld entsteht, in dem religiöse und nicht-religiöse Positionen um Deutungsmacht konkurrieren. Es werden die verschiedenen Varianten nicht-religiöser Positionierung herausgearbeitet, die in diesem Zusammenhang erkennbar werden. In beiden Fällen gibt sich die nicht-religiöse Position über den Bezug auf Wissenschaft eine positive Identität, teilweise im Versuch, die Grenzen des wissenschaftlichen Feldes aufrecht zu erhalten, teilweise über die Behauptung einer grundlegenden Überlegenheit, die dem Religiösen letztlich die Berechtigung abspricht.

The Invisible Religion is a modern classic of social science. Its influence goes well beyond sociology as it continues to inspire research in such diverse fields as sociology of knowledge, ethnology, theology, sociology of religion, and religious studies. In this volume, the author endeavours to answer one of the most important questions regarding religion in modern times: Are Western societies indeed becoming more secular as they modernize? His surprising answer is still part of the ongoing debates about secularization as he argues that rather than a decline of religion, we are witnessing a shift from an older Church-centered form, to another invisible and still largely unexplored form of religion. Explaining why focusing only on Church when discussing religion is inadequate, this book presents a thorough case for reframing the question of the status of religion in modern life in a way that makes visible forms of religion hitherto unseen, and sketches some aspects of this new form. As such, it will appeal to sociologists with interests in social theory, religion, and the secularization thesis.

The relationship between science and belief has been a prominent subject of public debate for many years, covering everything from science communication, health and education to immigration and national values. Yet, sociological analysis of these subjects remains surprisingly scarce.

This wide-ranging book critically reviews the ways in which religious and non-religious belief systems interact with scientific methods, traditions and theories. Contributors explore how, for some secularists, ‘science’ forms an important part of social identity. Others examine how many contemporary religious movements justify their beliefs by making a claim upon science. Moving beyond the traditional focus on the United States, the book shows how debates about science and belief are firmly embedded in political conflict, class, community and culture.

Thomas Schwinn / Gert Albert (Hrsg.), Alte Begriffe – Neue Probleme: Max Webers Soziologie im Lichte aktueller Problemstellungen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016, 465 S., kt., 49,00 € (ABNP)
Achim Seiffarth, Die Sprache Max Webers. Eine soziologische Untersuchung. Marburg: Tectum 2016, 547 S., kt., 39,95 € (SMW)