David Yamane is a Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University. Yamane’s primary scholarly interest has been in sociologically understanding organized religion, particularly Roman Catholicism in the postwar United States. His books in this area include The Catholic Church in State Politics: Negotiating Prophetic Demands and Political Realities (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), a study of the role of conferences of Catholic bishops in state legislative politics; Real Stories of Christian Initiation: Lessons for and from the RCIA (The Liturgical Press, 2006), five case studies of the process by which individuals are initiated into the Roman Catholic church; and Becoming Catholic: Finding Rome in the American Religious Landscape (Oxford University Press, 2014).Yamane has previously served as Editor of as of Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review (2006-2010) and Associate Editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2012-2015). He also edited Richard Schoenherr’sposthumous book, Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church (Oxford University Press, 2002), and co-authored with Keith Roberts the 6th edition of the best-selling sociology of religion textbook Religion in Sociological Perspective (Sage Publications, 2015).
