Hans Mol and the Sociology of Religion

Adam J. Powell is COFUND Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, UK. He has presented numerous papers and lectures on the sociological theories of Hans Mol and has previously published an edited collection on Hans Mol’s work entitled Sacred Selves, Sacred Settings (2015).

• PART I HANS MOL: THEORY AND PLACEOne: Religion as Process: Introducing Identity TheoryTwo: Function or Fallacy: Reconsidering Identity TheoryPART II THE HANS MOL PAPERSProemThree: Introduction to Appraisal and Application - Hans MolFour: Evolutionary Origins of Authority and Wholeness - Hans MolFive: Consciousness, Identity and Religion - Hans MolSix: The Social Effect of Conservative/Evangelical Religion - Hans MolPostscript: An Interview with Hans Mol

‘This book offers the possibility of a detailed knowledge about an eminent scholar like Hans Mol, a great specialist on the topic of "identity and religion" which is a key problem in the contemporary socio-religious global situation.’Roberto Cipriani, Senior and Emeritus Professor at Roma Tre University, Italy & Former President of the ISA Research Committee ‘Sociology of Religion’.‘Identity demands ever increased attention in today's interdisciplinary world and here Adam Powell doubly illuminates this dynamic human process. He not only returns Hans Mol's creative formulation of identity-sacralization to focused attention within theories of religion, but also provides an astutely crisp sociological account of identity theories at large. Sociologists, anthropologists, theologians and religious studies colleagues will enjoy this book a great deal.’Douglas J. Davies, Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University, UK & Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences‘In this admirably thoughtful study, A. J. Powell has provided a timely reminder of the achievement recorded by Hans Mol, whose Identity and the Sacred (1976) left a notable imprint on debate among specialists in both the sociology and theory of religion during the later decades of the last century. Dr. Powell contends, rightly, that Mol has been an underappreciated figure, too readily depicted as "yet another functionalist" at a time when his dialectical conception of religion as the "sacralization of identity" offered elements of originality more evident and discernible today—in newer light cast by current shifts in theory and criticism. Mol has remained steadily productive over his many years, and fully half of the volume consists of four of his previously unpublished papers, offering a convenient occasion to measure the assessments made by Powell as author agains