N.J. Demerath III (‘Jay’), former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (1997-99), and winner of two SSSR distinguished publication awards (article 1992; book 2002), passed away February 5, 2021 in Leeds, Massachusetts.

Wendy Griffin (September 23,1941-February 12, 2021), a longtime member of the SSSR died peacefully at home. Wendy is best known for her research on the Goddess movement and her work in establishing contemporary Pagan studies as its own interdisciplinary field. She published numerous articles and book chapters, and was the editor of Daughter of The Goddess: Studies of Healing, Identity, and Empowerment (AltaMira, 2000).

James Arthur Beckford FBA (December 1, 1942 - May 10, 2022) was a British sociologist of religion. He was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Warwick and a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1988/1989, he served as President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and from 1999 to 2003, as the President of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. He was President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in 2010. Apart from general writings on the sociology of religion, Beckford was a prolific author of books and articles on new religious movements and society's responses to them. He also researched and wrote about religious issues affecting prison inmates.

A native of Massachusetts, James D. Davidson earned his Ph.D. at University of Notre Dame in 1969. He specialized in the sociology of religion, studying religious stratification and trends among American Catholics.

The National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL) dataset is now publicly available from both the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)!

Cambridge Scholars Publishing are inviting proposals for academic books and edited collections in Humanities and Social Sciences. We publish in all major fields of academic research and practice: Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Health Sciences. To submit a book proposal, please visit our website, where you can complete a Book Proposal Form.

In 2024, the University of Pennsylvania Press will become the publisher of the journal Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, the official journal of the Association for the Academic Study of New Religions, Inc. (AASNR). The journal is hosted on Project MUSE.

Nova Religio, the quarterly journal on alternative and emergent religions, is seeking articles for a special issue dedicated to the Afro-Cuban tradition of Lucumí/Santería.

The purpose of the Sociology of Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion is to generate cross-fertilization between the Sociology of Religion and Religious Studies. We are open to papers in all areas and therefore encourage submissions of any topic relevant to the sociology of religion. This year, we are particularly interested in the following topics:

Looking for a home for your religion and politics research? Consider submitting to our special issue of the Religions journal: "Religion and Politics: Historical Developments and Contemporary Transformations."

Join the SSSR on Monday, March 18, 2024 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. for a webinar on Religious Freedom to explore what religious freedom means to both dominant and subordinate religious groups. Moderated by Eric L. McDaniel, Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, the panel will feature Nazita Lajevardi, Department of Political Science at Michigan State University, Jason Klocek, School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, and Gary Adler, Department of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State University. The panel will highlight the current debates and research about religious freedom. The webinar is free of charge. Just send an email to office@sssreligion.org by Friday, March 15, 2024 with "Religious Freedom Webinar" in the subject line, and you will be emailed the webinar link.

From the perspective of a journal editor, this webinar will provide young scholars with tips they should consider when writing peer-reviewed manuscripts for publication. The webinar will be held on Friday, April 26, 2024 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. The presenter will be R. Khari Brown of Wayne State University. This webinar is free of charge. To register, please email office@sssreligion.org with "Publishing Webinar" in the subject line by Wednesday, April 24, 2024, and you will be emailed the webinar link.

We invite you to participate in the Second International Congress on Religious Freedom and Conscience, which will take place on the 5th and 6th of June 2024 at the Blanquerna Faculty of Communication and International Relations of Ramon Llull University. The Congress is organized by the Chair of Religious Freedom of Catalonia and will feature simultaneous panels in Catalan, Spanish and English.

Nominations are invited for the 2025 Boniuk Institute Senior Scholar. The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance’s Senior Scholar Award is given annually to the senior scholar who has made outstanding contributions to the public understanding of religious pluralism and tolerance, and who most exemplifies Boniuk Institute’s mission to understand the conditions which lead to religious pluralism, conflict, and violence, and help people apply its findings in their lives and communities. The Senior Scholar will join the Boniuk Institute at Rice University in the Spring of 2025 for about three days, where they will participate in a variety of Institute programs and give a public lecture followed by a reception in their honor, where they will be presented with an award and an honorarium.

Practices of women’s modesty, such as donning modest attire, covering the head or abiding by traditional gender relations, has significant religious, cultural, and social importance in Jewish and Muslim communities. This webinar seeks to delve into motivations and practices of Orthodox Jewish and Muslim women in Canada, the U.S. and Israel. Bringing together scholars from these two groups, this webinar aims to explore the intersections of ethnoreligious belief and belonging, as well as the researchers’ worldviews and the ways these views shape the research process. Participants: Jocelyne Cesari, Harvard University; Ilana Celeste, University of Pittsburgh; Valentina Gaddi, University of Montreal, Canada; Adina Bankier-Karp, Monash University, Australia; Sawsan Kheir, University of Haifa, Israel and Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Moderator: Ariela Keysar, Trinity College. Register at office@sssreligion.org.

We invite contributions with a wide range of theories and methods in analyzing this topic, and in particular, papers dealing with the following issues: • family structure and religious and non-religious landscapes • religious and non-religious parenting cultures in the Global South and North • spiritual diversity and family life • religion/non-religion and conflict in marital and parent‐child relationships • family schooling and parents' (non)religiosity • family and religious and non-religious activism • religious and non-religious dimensions and transformation of family relationships, including issues like separation/divorce, work-life balance, new family forms

An open access journal Open Theology published by De Gruyter (https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/opth/html) invites applications for Section Editors for the following sections: - Psychology of Religion - Sociology of Religion - Philosophy of Religion - Biblical Studies - Patristics

The Louisville Institute is excited to announce NEW and UPDATED opportunities for the 2025 grant and fellowship season. As part of renewed funding, LI will continue to support pastoral leaders, researchers, early career and seasoned scholars, and many others in the United States and Canada whose work resonates with LI’s mission to bridge Church and academy. LI has reimagined many of the existing programs and expanded funding to allow for a greater impact. We are also excited to announce a NEW opportunity: Grant for Researchers. We have six funding opportunities available for 2025.

The Review of Religious Research invites paper submissions for a special issue on American Muslims. This special issue will draw upon contemporary research on Muslims in the United States. In 2003, Karen Leonard’s Muslims in the United States: The State of Research suggested that scholarship on American Muslims was growing rapidly and starting to shift in two important ways: One was a move away from purely descriptive analyses, toward theorizing that both drew on and contributed to broader social scientific understandings. Another shift was from a focus on Muslim American subgroups in isolation, toward considerations of Muslims complete as Americans with multiple identities and affiliations.

The Institute for Religion, Culture and Societal Futures (IRCSF) aims to be a new hub for social scientific and empirical research related to religion, spirituality, and emerging forms of communities of belief and practice. The IRCSF is non-partisan, and brings together both resident and visiting scholars working in the fields of sociology of religion and the social scientific study of religion to support undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, community organizations, faith groups, schools, the media, and the general public in better understanding the religious landscape of Canada and connections between religion, spirituality, secularity and other aspects of public and social life. It’s already a great place to find qualitative and quantitative information on religion, and we aim to grow such resources even more over the coming months and years.

The International Studies Concentration at Soka University of America (SUA) invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty position as Assistant Professor of Middle East and North African Studies (MENA), effective August 1st, 2025.

The International Studies Concentration at Soka University of America (SUA) invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position with expertise in Middle East and North African Studies at the rank of Assistant Professor, effective August 2025.

Session Title: Religion and the Culture Wars: Transnational Perspectives "Since sociologist of religion James Davison Hunter published the first academic account of the culture wars in America in 1991, the phenomenon has seemingly only intensified, with religion enduring as a key factor. Some US-based research argues that the divisions exist more in the civil sphere than individual attitudes. Yet, some similar patterns of conflict between “conservatives” and “liberals” on moral and social issues have also emerged in other societies in the twenty-first century. To what extent is the culture wars a useful frame beyond (and within) America? Are there direct connections between contexts? What role does religion play in differing contexts and transnational connections contributing to culture wars? This panel aims to explore these dynamics."

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics seeks applications from junior scholars and recent Ph.D. graduates for up to four postdoctoral fellowships in residence at Washington University in St. Louis. The appointment is for one year, renewable for a second year. Eligible applicants must complete the Ph.D. by July 1, 2025, and are expected to have completed it no earlier than January 1, 2020. In exceptional cases a qualified applicant who completed the Ph.D. prior to 2020 may be considered. Research associates will spend most of their time pursuing research and writing for their own projects. They will also serve the intellectual life of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics through participation in its biweekly interdisciplinary seminar and events hosted by the Center. Their teaching responsibilities will include: 1) developing one course per year to complement and contribute to the Center’s curricular offerings, and 2) possibly assisting in one additional course each year. Washington University in St. Louis is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and especially encourages members of underrepresented groups to apply.

The Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at the University of South Florida seeks candidates who specialize in global and/or comparative sociology to fill a nine-month, full-time, tenure-earning position as Assistant Professor to begin August 7, 2025. This position aligns with our department's strategic focus on global and transnational processes including citizenship, conflict, migration/immigration, place, politics, power, social movements, and human security. A variety of epistemological and methodological approaches will be considered. Qualified individuals with diverse experience and backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

Lake Institute on Faith & Giving is pleased to announce the 2025-2026 Lake Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for doctoral students whose research engages issues at the intersection of religion and philanthropy or faith and generosity. While the intersection of faith and giving is key to our mission, we are glad to receive a broad range of proposals that consider these topics together. Lake Institute helps to build the field of faith and giving by supporting the work of emerging scholars. This one-year fellowship is given annually to support the final year of dissertation writing for a doctoral candidate at a U.S. graduate school. Learn more about the current fellows here.

Anthony J. Blasi (1946-2024) Anthony (Tony) Blasi was born April 3, 1946, in Dayton, Ohio to Emmanuel A. Blasi and Mary Ella (Marshall) Blasi, one of five children. He spent most of his childhood in Santa Clara County, California and graduated from St. Francis High School in Mountain View. One sister predeceased him. He earned the A.B. in history from St. Edward’s University in Austin,Texas, and taught at the secondary level in Sherman Oaks, California, and New Orleans, Louisiana. He completed the Ph.D. in sociology and anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1974. Most of his academic career was spent teaching at Tennessee State University.

I am a professor at Tulane University (learn about me at www.ilanahorwitz.com). I am seeking a graduate student in Economics or Sociology to assist with data analysis for a project on the socioeconomic trajectory of American Jews over the past 50-100 years. This position requires strong skills in analyzing data across multiple datasets. The ideal candidate will have an interest in social class, inequality, and mobility trends, with a focus on quantitative research.

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University invites applications for a full-time, Assistant Professor (tenure-track) appointment in sociology. The area of specialization is open. The preferred start date is August 2025. The successful candidate will be expected to contribute to graduate level courses and mentorship in quantitative research methods, statistics, and data analysis in addition to offering other undergraduate and graduate courses. The Department of Sociology and Anthropology houses a PhD program in sociology featuring specializations in four broad areas: crime, law, and deviance; inequality, diversity, and equity; social psychology and group processes; and the sociology of religion. https://wvu.taleo.net/careersection/faculty/jobdetail.ftl?job=25622&tz=GMT-05%3A00&tzname=America%2FNew_York

The editors invite proposals to contribute to the De Gruyter Handbook on Religion and Social Change, co-edited by Jeyoul Choi, Victoria Machado, Nelson Marin Alarcon, and Anna Peterson. The Handbook is a unique initiative that brings together authors from diverse disciplines to provide a broad overview of classic and emerging issues in the study of religion and social change. We are looking for authors of chapters of about 4000-6000 words on the following topics: Religion, social change, race, and racism Religion, women, gender, and sexuality Religion, war, and peace Religion, social change, and education We anticipate a deadline for draft chapters by June 1, 2025, but extensions are possible. If you have any questions or would like to submit a chapter proposal, please contact Jeyoul Choi at jeyoul@ufl.edu.

The Religion and Social Change Lab at Duke University is seeking a post-doctoral scholar to work on a large project studying student experiences in Theological Education. The position begins in summer 2025, and is for one-year, with the possibility for renewal. Apply: https://careers.duke.edu/job/Durham-POSTDOCTORAL-ASSOCIATE-NC-27710/1260071800/

We are excited to announce that applications are now open for the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, taking place July 27 – August 8, 2025, at St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. This prestigious program brings together scholars from around the world to engage in critical discussions on antisemitism and develop cutting-edge course syllabi.

Seeking an experienced and innovative researcher as Assistant Director for the new Or Initiative, with the goal of developing new alternatives for how young people are (dis)engaging from each other in learning and talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and antisemitism.

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) seeks a dynamic and innovative leader to serve as its next Executive Officer.

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion is seeking an Editor-in-Chief (EIC) to begin service in January 2026 for a four-year term, with an additional period of training under the current editorial team during Fall 2025. To be eligible, candidates should hold a Ph.D. in one of the academic disciplines represented in our membership, and relevant experience in publication and editing. The EIC will be responsible for assembling an editorial team, also beginning at the same time. While the current team comprises an Associate Editor and a Book Review Editor, we are open to other staffing models that would also reflect the diversity of our constituency.

Boniuk Institute now accepting nominations for the 2026 Senior Scholar Award.

The Young Scholars in American Religion program is designed to assist early career scholars in the improvement of their teaching and research and in the development of professional communities.

Excellence in leadership is not about perfection but about a relentless commitment to growth, integrity, and service. It is a reflection of God’s glory. Godly leaders do not settle for mediocrity; they pursue excellence because their work is ultimately an offering to God.

Drawing from my professional history as Christian University sociology faculty and senior administrator,, the book analyzes the role of fear in Christian Universities and offers an alternative path forward in a changing culture.

Claiming Citizenship focuses on Indian American civic and political activism in the U.S. public sphere around U.S.-based and India-based issues. Indian Americans are a rising political force whose patterns of activism do not follow the unified model of mobilization of other powerful American ethnic groups. The book presents an excellent template to understand how religion, national identity, race, and pan-ethnicity interact in ethnic politics, in addition to examining the role that generational status plays in determining some of these patterns.

In recent years, the relevance of religious freedom has spread well beyond academia, becoming a reference point for international relations, multi-level policy development, as well as interfaith negotiations. Meanwhile, scholarship on religious freedom has flourished on the boundaries of sociology, law, comparative politics, history, and theology. This book presents a systematic sociological analysis of religious freedom, bringing together classical sociological theories and empirical perspectives developed during the last three decades. It addresses three major questions involved in any sociology of religious freedom. First: considering its complex and controversial nature, how can religious freedom be defined? Second: what are the recurrent sociological conditions and relevant social perceptions that will foster an understanding of religious freedom in varying political, legal, and socioreligious contexts? And third, what are the mechanisms of social implementation of religious freedom that contribute to making it a fundamental value in a society? Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James T. Richardson suggest that a sociological definition of religious freedom requires us to take into account historical, philosophical, legal, religious, and political considerations of a given society-and that the social dimensions of religious freedom are as important as the legal ones.

To fully understand American Christianity, it’s essential to understand Robert Schuller. The Church Must Grow or Perish: Robert H. Schuller and the Business of American Christianity examines Schuller’s indelible imprint on the American church, and how he developed a model of ministry—both lauded and critiqued—that transformed Christian life and community across this country. Schuller’s story is the starting point for powerful trends that continue to shape much of American religion today: televangelism, seeker-sensitive outreach, megachurches, the suburbanization of white Christianity, pastoral entrepreneurship, and market-oriented Christianity in pursuit of growth. Authors Mark T. Mulder and Gerardo Martí explore Schuller’s drive to develop a theology, a persona, and a set of practices that he believed were necessary to keep Christianity vibrant long into the future. They trace Schuller’s career arc from his beginnings as an Iowa farm boy to his years as a charismatic Southern California preacher—one who believed that in order for the church to thrive, pastoral leaders needed to borrow from the best practices of big business, including the entertainment industry. This fascinating biography is essential reading for those who want to fully understand a transformative force in American Christianity.

This article, appearing on page 73 of the winter 2024/2025 issue of "The Arrow" journal, presents an author's memoir of an Imagine Peace musical storytelling project, against a backdrop of more than 70 years of life investigating different faith traditions.

This book explores the intersection of advocacy and academic practice within the social sciences, focusing on the ethical dimensions and potential consequences of researchers engaging in political action on behalf of the groups they study. Investigating the ethical and practical implications of advocacy in academic work, specifically within the social sciences. It examines how scholars, guided by their research and vision for social change, engage politically to support the groups they study. The book addresses the debate surrounding academic advocacy: is it harmful or a necessary pursuit? Through a detailed study of a historical advocacy movement, it analyzes the global campaign to gain legitimacy for new religious movements (NRMs) between 1980 and 2000. It is an important read for scholars of New Religious Movements and those interested in the way religion is studied.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2025, Vol.92 (2), p.251-275

Since the turn of the new century, the ethnic Chinese population in France has become increasingly heterogeneous in migratory trajectory and socioeconomic profile. Accordingly, the focus on economic activities among tight-knit groups in the traditional model of an ethnic enclave economy might not be adequate to capture new developments in Chinese entrepreneurship that also involve transnational religious practises. Drawing on a multi-year ethnographic study of the Chinese Christian community in Paris—a major business centre of Chinese wholesale products in Europe, this article explores the Chinese congregational life in one of the most secularised areas of Europe in order to provide an alternative explanation for the relationship of religion and Chinese entrepreneurship. It shows that the main stakeholders spearheading diasporic church growth are those first-generation male Chinese family entrepreneurs who place paramount emphasis on maintaining ethnic cultural roots and a traditional patriarchal social order. The image of Chinese Christian entrepreneurs with both intense economic aspirations and religious zeal navigating daily life in diaspora provides a timely counterpoint to the popular view of global Chinese migrants as purely economic agents.

This article sheds new light on the diverse modes in which migration and religion intersect in shaping everyday transnational practices by exploring the articulations of religion and business migration in an emerging Chinese-led transnational mission field. Drawing on multisited ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Wenzhou, Rome and Paris, I show how a large group of transnational Chinese merchants has adopted a vigorous homegrown evangelical Christianity as the spiritual and social anchor of their territorial mercantile culture in diaspora. These merchants have actively engaged in producing religious activities and events that link China to Europe and in resacralizing secular real estate and attaching evangelistic meanings to Europe's historic urban spaces. For rural-originated migrants who embrace a global hierarchy of places, the evangelical discursive distinction between the mundane and the transcendent spheres finds expression in their perceived opposition between the peripheral local and the modern global centre in the global market economy. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Abstract: Using a national opinion survey conducted in 2009 in Kyrgyzstan, we focused on responses from ethnic Kyrgyz respondents in the south where major riots between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks occurred in 1990 and 2010. We performed latent class analyses on these responses to assign Kyrgyz into Muslim religiosity categories and construct a social distance scale to measure Kyrgyz’ levels of acceptance of Uzbeks living in Kyrgyzstan. We discovered that, in spite of ongoing unresolved interethnic grievances in the south, Kyrgyz who were members of the highly active Muslim religiosity category exhibited a significantly higher probability for accepting the closest relations (kin through marriage) with Uzbeks than Kyrgyz who were members of the non-religious category. Because other researchers indicated that religion did not play any role in causing the riots in 2010, we believe that Muslim religiosity could potentially play a role in developing beneficial relations between these ethnic groups.

Despite their lack of religious belief, many choose to engage in this practice, often seen as a typical representation of Jewish physical embodiment. This study delves into meaning ascribed to their seemingly counterintuitive choice. The findings suggest that religious knowledge and identity can be derived from the marking of the body, rather than a declaration of faith.

An article by Jeremy Senn and Jörg Stolz in sociological science gives a new explanation for "loose coupling" of stated policies and actual congregational behaviour regarding female religious leadership.

Congregations are story-telling communities. The stories they tell, which link a community's past, present, and future, can play an important role in whether a congregation flourishes or not. "The Stories Congregations Tell" features detailed case study research from seven dynamic Canadian congregations across theological traditions and geographical regions. Readers will encounter narratives that congregations tell themselves through a myriad of congregational and social transitions, accounts that shape how congregations interpret, frame, approach, and ultimately flourish in ministry. On the surface congregational descriptions appear specific to local contexts. Yet, cultural analysis reveals several commonalities across distinct congregational cultures that appear resilient in the face of challenge and change. These factors include visionary leadership, clear congregational identity rooted in spiritual formation, hospitable community among members, and intentional systems and structures oriented toward a congregation's mission. This book offers social scientific analysis and theological reflection on the stories congregations tell and the function those stories play for a congregation's culture, along with practical and hopeful applications to arise from this research.

Preaching Social Issues equips preachers to craft sermons that help congregations talk about topics of public concern based on strong biblical and theological foundations and prudent sermonic strategies. Informed by years of research with clergy and congregations, Schade provides practical and pastoral guidance for preachers to find their prophetic voice for their context with integrity and wisdom. Preaching Social Issues offers an assessment tool for gauging risk and capacity for preaching about social issues and suggests three approaches – Gentle, Invitational, and Robust – and includes strategies, tactics, and case studies that illustrate different approaches for preaching about contemporary topics.

Based on a national survey of 1500+ American Catholics and nearly sixty interviews with Catholic leaders (broadly construed to include cardinals, leaders of lay apostolates, USCCB staff, etc.), Catholicism at a Crossroads looks at the way everyday Catholics and their leaders are engaging with experiences of parish life and perceptions of the institutional Church, moral authority, race and racism, civic and political attitudes and engagement, sexuality and family, and then some longitudinal trends (this is the most recent survey in a series that began in the 1980s).