Religion as a Chain of Memory
1. Auflage Mai 2000
216 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is a major new account of the nature of religion and its
changing role in modern societies, by one of the most original
French sociologists writing on religion today. In a stylish and
accessible study, Hervieu-Léger addresses the problem of how
to distinguish religion from other systems of meaning in modern
Western society.
The crucial point, she argues, is the chain of memory and
tradition which makes the individual believer a member of the
community. From this point of view, religion is the ideological,
symbolic and social device by which individual and collective
awareness of belonging to a lineage of believers is created and
controlled.
Modern societies, Hervieu-Lé:ger argues, are not more
rational than past societies, but rather suffer from a kind of
collective amnesia. They are less and less capable of maintaining a
living collective 'chain' of memory as a source of meaning.
However, as major religious traditions decline, a range of
surrogate memories appears, which also permit the contraction of
collective identities. These 'small memories' are creating an
upsurge of 'emotional communities' and the affirmation of
ethno-religions within Europe and elsewhere.
This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of
theology, religious studies and sociology.
Introduction.
Part I Doubt about the subject matter: .
1. Sociology in opposition to religion? Preliminary
considerations.
2. The fragmentation of religion in modern societies.
3. The elusive sacred.
Part II As our fathers believed:.
4. Religion as a way of believing.
5. Questions about tradition.
6. From religions to the religious.
Part III A break in the chain:.
7. Religion deprived of memory.
8. The chain reinvented.
Conclusion: Post-traditional society and the future of religious
institutions.
Notes.
Select Bibliography.
Index.
the most important contemporary sociologists of religion. In the
best tradition of French Sociology, she places the problem of
modern religion within a broad interpretation of modern
consciousness. Her book will be a classic in the field.' Peter
Berger, Director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture
in Boston
'The author is a noted sociologist of religion in France, and
this book is yet another and very valuable, contribution to the
growing literature that rejects and moves beyond the older
assumption that there is a necessary connection between modernity
and secularization.' First Things
'This is an interesting book that deserves a wider audience if
only for its detailed consideration of the relative merits of
competing religions.' American Journal of Sociology
