Staf Hellemans, Professor Emeritus in the Sociology of Religion, School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands

• Contents1 Introduction: Sociology and the great transformation of religion1.1. The great transformation of religion1.2. The sociology of religion: A short history and the postwarrise of an academic subdiscipline1.3. Concepts as perspectives 1.4. Set-up and limitations of the book 2 The secularization debate 2.1. Context and history of the sociological debate 2.2. 1960–1980: Secularization as the decline of religion 2.3. An aside on internal secularization 2.4. Three fundamental criticisms 2.5. Differentiation and secularization 2.6. After 1980 I: Modifications of the decline narrative 2.7. After 1980 II: Three unconvincing total rejections 2.8. After 2010: From European exception to global trend 2.9. The other side: The secular, the nones, secularities and thepost-secular 2.10. No last word 3 Religious change and modernity in the major religions,particularly in Christianity 3.1. The Weber thesis: The ascetic Protestant ethic as onedriving force behind the rise of capitalism 3.2. Sociologists and the public discourse on religion and modernity 3.3. USA: Denominations in a modern society 3.4. Europe: How to think the embeddedness of religion in modernity 3.5. Some notes on Eastern religions in the West, a sociologyof Islam, and a sociology of world religions 3.6. The big picture: The major religions in the light of human history4 Conceptualizing religion on the macro, meso and micro levels 4.1. New concepts to make sense of the great transformation ofreligion 4.2. Macro level I: A weak religious field4.3. Macro level II: Processes and dynamics in the religious field 4.4. Meso level: Concepts for religious groups, organizations,and movements 4.5. Micro level: Religious agents and their individualized practices 5 Conceptualizing diffuse religiosity and non-specific religion 5.1. Ever more elusive religion 5.2. The religion of Humanity/humanity 5.3. Luckmann’s ‘Invisible Religion’ 5.4. New Religious Consciousness and Sheilaism in the USA5.5. ‘Believing without belonging’ (Grace Davie) 5.6. Galaxy spirituality 5.7. Popular culture and hyper-real religion, fiction-basedreligion, invented religion 5.8. How to approach non-specific religion? 5.9. Varieties of non-specific religion 5.10. ‘The sacred’ as super-taxon 6 Epilogue: Assessing the sociology of religion 6.1. Looking back 6.2. The coming globalization of the sociology of religion6.3. Is there a future for the sociology of religion as a subdiscipline?