study of religion
An extensive literature on religious sects and similar groups has also developed. To some extent this has been influenced by the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch in his distinction between church and sect (see below Theological studies). Notable among modern investigators of sectarianism is the British scholar Bryan Wilson. Church organizations also have attempted to use the insights of sociology in the work of evangelism and other church-related activities—a use of the discipline that is sometimes called “religious sociology” to distinguish it from the more theoretical and “objective” sociology of religion. Coordination between sociology and the history of religions is not usually very close, since the two disciplines operate as separate departments in most universities and often in different faculties. From the sociological end, Weber represents one kind of synthesis; from the history-of-religions end, the writings of the German-American scholar Joachim Wach (see below The “Chicago school”) were quite influential. In his book Sociology of Religion he attempted to exhibit the ways in which the community institutions of religion express certain attitudes and experiences. This view was in accordance with his insistence on the practical and existential side of religion, over against the intellectualist ... (200 of 18,807 words)Other sociological studies