Foundations: Sociology & Religion

If you are already reading this blog you know that its primary purpose is to find an association between God and Work.  There will be a series of posts that on the surface may seem to divert from this primary theme, however that will be necessary to build a common framework for understanding both God and Work before we can get anywhere near merger.  With that in mind, I must weave in a sociological thread.  Bear with me, think of it as a season of Lost- it will eventually fit together. Hopefully it won't take 6 seasons to get to the point.

I will start with a book that has been particularly useful to me in providing a fast foundation for a behavioral science viewpoint on God,  Sociology of Religion: A Collection of Readings, by Andrew Greeley.  Before you run- you should know that Greeley is both a Sociologist and a Catholic Priest, the combination makes him interesting and less threatening, whichever side you may be on, if in fact you believe there are sides.

In way of introduction I go to Greeley's Section One Intro, which I will leave in his words.

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Serious, critical, and non-theological reflection on religion has presumably gone on for as long as there has been religion. But as a formal activity, which preoccupied many thinkers and writers, it was a nineteenth-century phenomenon. The men who engaged in such reflection, all of them brilliant and some of them geniuses, provided the raw materials out of which came contemporary social science.

One could divide them into two categories: those who sought to explain religion, and those who sought to explain it away. Marx and Freud, and perhaps Durkheim, can be included in the later category, while Weber, Simmel, Otto, and especially William James belong in the former
.....

The search for the meaning of religion in these classic thinkers (as interpreted and clarified by their contemporary disciples) continues to be define the terms of sociology's attempt to understand religion. They are to be read, not because they were right, not because what they say is the final word, but because it is within the context of the questions they ask- perennial questions, perhaps- that our search continues.

Sociology of Religion: A Collection of Readings, by Andrew Greeley
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When embarking on the thread of classic social science I will differentiate the post with the label "Foundations".