TRS 376 - Sociology of Religion

Upper Division

Prerequisites
TRS 281 or TRS 380 or TRS 381 or TRS 382 or TRS 383 or TRS 384 or TRS 385 or TRS 386 or TRS 387 or TRS 388 or TRS 389 or PHIL 220; Minimum grade D-.

Religion is one of the most powerful sources of social cohesion, order, meaning, disruption, protest, and change in human societies, both historically and today in the modern world. While there are many approaches to studying religion-theological, historical, psychological, anthropological, etc., this class will take a distinctively sociological approach which provides a particular disciplinary perspective and analytical tools and theories for describing, understanding, and explaining the nature and influence of religion. This course will engage these kinds of questions: What is religion? Why is religion so primordial and prevalent in human societies? Why are people religious or not religious? What causal role does religion play in human personal and social life? Why and how do religious organizations grow and decline? How, for example, did an obscure, early Jesus Movement manage to become the largest religion in the world today? How and why do people convert to a different religious faith or lose their faith entirely? Is modernity secularizing? What are the religious and spiritual lives of 18-23 year-old Americans today like? Why has the Islamist movement become so powerful in recent decades? What is happening today at the global level when it comes to religious movements and their social, cultural, political, and economic impacts?

Core Curriculum Designation(s)
TUTE - Theological Explorations

Repeatable
No

Fee
$5

Additional Notes
Previous course number: TRS 170

Course credits: 3