Chapter Ten. Globalization And The Sociology Of Religion In America: Some Representative Perspectives

This chapter summarizes some of the perspectives that have emerged in the past twenty-five years or so in the sociology of religion in America where the phenomenon of globalization has been addressed. In some cases these are "home grown" developments arising from within the field of the sociology of religion and finding resonance and possibilities for fruitful embellishment in conversation with sister disciplines. In other cases, especially with regard to left (Marxist) or right (choice) "economisms", there has been an edgy accommodation at best between the development of perspectives on globalization and the discourses of the sociology of religion. Reductive asymmetry whether underwritten by the viewpoint of linear secularization, simple materialism, or some hard rock fundamentalism is pretty much absent from representative work in the sociology of religion and globalization.Keywords: America; economisms; globalization; Marxist; sociology