This book provides a rationale for a Christian sociology, challenging the materialist epistemology of contemporary sociology, which provides only a limited understanding of social behavior. Developing a history of the origins of sociology that recognizes the centrality of Christianity to the disciplines development, it considers the secularization thesis and questions surrounding positivism, scientism and postmodernism, as well as engaging with the work of a range of figures including Margaret Archer, Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, Hans Joas, Thomas Luckmann, David Martin, and Christian Smith. A critique of modern sociology, which argues that a Christian approach provides a better explanation than contemporary paradigms of the polarization occurring today in American society,
The Not So Outrageous Idea of a Christian Sociology will appeal to scholars and students with interests in sociological theory, research methods and epistemology, and the sociology of religion.
Developing a history of the origins of sociology that recognizes the centrality of Christianity to the disciplines development, this book provides a rationale for a Christian sociology, challenging the paradigms of contemporary sociology, which provide only a limited understanding of social behavior.
Introduction
1. Christianity and a Brief Prehistory of Sociology
2. Sociology as a Substitute for Christianity
3. Sociology Comes to the United States
4. Positivism, Scienticism and the Rejection of a Moral Sociology
5. The Secularization Thesis
6. The Default Position of the Intelligentsia: Postmodernism and Scientific Materialism
7. A New Sociology of Religion?
8. The Not So Outrageous Idea of a Christian Sociology
Joseph A. Scimecca is Professor of Sociology at George Mason University, USA. He is the author of Christianity and Sociological Theory: Reclaiming the Promise, Society and Freedom: An Introduction to Humanist Sociology, Education and Society and The Sociological Theory of C. Wright Mills, the co-author of Classical Sociological Theory: Rediscovering the Promise of Sociology and Sociology: Analysis and Application, and the co-editor of Conflict Resolution: Cross Cultural Perspectives.
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