No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Remembrance of Things Past Sociological Ken
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
In May 1996, addressing the central problems of faith, Ratzinger commented on the great disillusionment and non-fulfillment of hope that came after 1989. Covering issues such as pluralism and New Age religions, where god replaced God, Ratzinger observed that “if we consider the present cultural situation....frankly it must seem a miracle that there is still Christian faith despite everything”. For him, relativism has now become the central problem of the faith. But the issues he raises also belong to sociology. It also has to deal with relativism, nihilism and the escape into the New Age, the unexpected spiritual impulses that mark the condition known as postmodemity. Uncertainty has arisen over religious affiliations that oscillate between pluralism and fundamentalism, both ambiguous responses to modernity. The relationships between theology and culture have been affected in an inescapable manner.
The Enchantment of Sociology is an effort to provide something oddly unwritten: a sociological reading of the link between theology and culture. It was conceived against the moral and cultural despond of British society between August 1991 and Easter 1995. The theological mandate for the book, as Howes notices, came from Radcliffe’s irenic hope for peace in the vexatious relations between theology and sociology. His belief was that sociology could “provide a locus for the encounter of gospel and the world” and that this would be accomplished through the internal transformation of the discipline itself. The need for sociology to re-think its place in its own field of deliberations relates to a wider sense of unsettlement in a society characterised by postmodemity where matters concerning spirituality, identity and community have become uncertain.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1997 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Timothy, Radcliffe, “Relalivizing the Relativizers: a theologian's assessment of the role of sociological explanation of religious phenomena and theology today” in David, Martin, John Orme, Mills, Pickering, W. S. F., eds., Sociology and Theology: Alliance and Conflict, Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1980, pp. 161–162Google Scholar. This is an appropriate point to warmly thank Fr. John Orme Mills for editing this special issue with great patience and also the contributors for their thoughtful responses.
2 Kieran, Flanagan. Postmodemity and Culture: Sociological Wagers of the Self in Theology” in Kieran, Flanagan and Peter, C. Jupp, eds., Postmodemity, Sociology and Religion, London: Macmillan, 1996, pp. 152–173.Google Scholar
3 Max, Weber, The Sociology of Religion, trans. Ephraim, Fischoff, London: Methuen, 1966, p. 137.Google Scholar
4 Max, Weber, From Max Weber, trans. Gerth, H. H. and Wright Mills, C., New York: Oxford University Press, 1958, p. 155.Google Scholar
5 William, James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York: Longmans, Green, 1902.Google Scholar
6 Jean, Séguy, “Conflits el Fabrique de Connaissance”, Archives de Sciences Societies des Religions, vol. 80, Octobre-Decembre, 1992, pp. 213–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Flanagan, Kieran, Sociology and Liturgy: Re‐Presentations of the Holy, London, Macmillan, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Robert, Baldick, The Life ofJ‐K Huysmans, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955.Google Scholar
8 Huysmans, J.K., The Oblate, trans. Edward, Perceval, Cambridge: Dedalus, 1996.Google Scholar
9 Joseph Cardinal, Ratzinger, “Homily at the Funeral Liturgy of Hans Urs von Balthasar” in David, L. Schindler, ed., Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991, pp. 291–292.Google Scholar
10 John, Milbank, Theology and Social Theory. Beyond Secular Reason, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.Google Scholar
11 Aidan, Nichols, Looking at the Liturgy, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996, pp. 54–71.Google Scholar
12 Jonathan, Swift, “An Argument against Abolishing Christianity in England” in Herbert, Davis, ed. The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939, p. 36.Google Scholar
13 Grace, Davie, “Religion and Modernity: The Work of Danièle Hervieu‐Léger” in Kieran, Flanagan and Peter, C. Jupp, eds., Postmodemity, Sociology and Religion, op.cit. p. 114.Google Scholar
14 Eamon, Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400 1580, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992Google Scholar; Fraser, Antonia, The Gunpowder Plot. Terror & Faith in 1605, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996Google Scholar, and Colley, Linda, Britons. Forging the Nation 1707–1837, London: BCA, 1992.Google Scholar
15 Scott, M.P. Reid, ed., A Bitter Trial. Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on The Liturgical Changes, Hants: The Saint Austin Press, 1996, pp. 13–29.Google Scholar
16 Robin, Gill, The Social Context of Theology, London: Mowbrays, 1975.Google Scholar
17 Gavin, D'Costa, “The End of ‘Theology’ and ‘Religious Studies’”, Theology, vol. XCIX, no. 791, SeptemberOctober, 1996, pp. 338–351.Google Scholar
18 See the Centre's Newsletter, no. 1, December 1996, p. 6.
19 See Paul, Heelas, The New Age Movement, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996Google Scholar; Mellor, Phillip and Shilling, Chris, Reforming the Body: Religion, Community and Modernity, London: Sage, 1997Google Scholar; and David, , Paul Heelas, Martin and Paul, Morris, eds., Religion, Modernity and Postmodemity, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.Google Scholar
20 See for example, Maxine Birch, “The Goddess/God Within: The Construction of Self‐Identity through Alternative Health Practices” in Kieran, Flanagan and Peter, C. Jupp, eds., Postmodemity, Sociology and Religion, op.cil., pp. 83–100.Google Scholar
21 Francois‐André Isambert, “Le secularisation interne du christianisme. Revue Francaise de Sociologie, vol. 17, 1976, pp. 573–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, The Future of Religion. Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.Google Scholar
23 Steve, Bruce, Religion in the Modern World. From Cathedrals to Cults, Oxford, University Press, 1996, p. 85.Google Scholar
24 See, for example, Tester, Keith, The Inhuman Condition, London: Routledge, 1995Google Scholar and Moral Culture, London: Sage, 1997.Google Scholar