Amerika’da Din Sosyolojisinin Son Otuz Yılı, 1960-1990

This article argues that the sociology of religion in the U.S. has been caught between classical sociological assumptions about the demise of religion and the unexpected rise of religious activities that have challenged these assump-tions. The primary interest of this paper is not in the rellglous developments of the last few decades themselves, but in the sociological cheories and concepts they have inspired and the terms in which they have been analyzed and interpreted. In this climate, some of the classical assumptions have endured while some of them have undergone criticism and modification. The article has two parts: The first part presents brief summaries of the major theoretical orientations in the period and the second part surveys the implications of some of the new orientations for actual research about religion. The article concludes that American sociologists are refiguring the boundaries of their disci-pline, but they have diflicuities in translating theories into actual research.