Phillip E. Hammond – författare

This book brings together some of the most acknowledged essays by Hammond written over the last decade and explores religious organizations, their internal dynamics, and their impact. The first half of the book examines issues such as: church membership; the formation of religious identity; the changing meaning religious organizations have in the mind of persons returning to church after 'dropping out' for a significant period; the orderly dynamics idertaken by small sects who, in growing, lower tension with social environments. The second half of the book examines the consequences of these internal dynamics including world system theory, the church and its impact on voting behaviours, the cultural impact of cults, ideological reformation, ethnicity and conscience, and the relationship between religious and ethnic identities.

Sacred in a Secular Age, edited by Phillip E. Hammond, brings together leading scholars to reassess one of the most enduring assumptions in the sociology of religion: the secularization thesis. Long taken as conventional wisdom, the thesis posits an inexorable decline of the sacred as societies modernize. Yet the persistence—and even resurgence—of religion in new movements, conservative traditions, and political struggles around the world challenges the adequacy of this model. This volume explores these paradoxes, asking how the sacred endures, transforms, and reasserts itself within ostensibly secular contexts.The essays span theory, method, and case studies, engaging topics from new religious movements to conservative Protestantism, from cultural institutions to private life and global politics. Contributors probe the distinction between “religion” and “the sacred,” a line blurred in much modern scholarship but central to the work of classical theorists like Durkheim and Simmel. By interrogating this distinction, the volume points toward more nuanced frameworks for understanding sacred phenomena in secular societies. Rather than discarding the secularization paradigm, the contributors refine and revise it, suggesting ways forward for a field in transition. A landmark in the sociology of religion, the collection maps both the challenges and the possibilities for the next generation of inquiry.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

Sacred in a Secular Age, edited by Phillip E. Hammond, brings together leading scholars to reassess one of the most enduring assumptions in the sociology of religion: the secularization thesis. Long taken as conventional wisdom, the thesis posits an inexorable decline of the sacred as societies modernize. Yet the persistence—and even resurgence—of religion in new movements, conservative traditions, and political struggles around the world challenges the adequacy of this model. This volume explores these paradoxes, asking how the sacred endures, transforms, and reasserts itself within ostensibly secular contexts.The essays span theory, method, and case studies, engaging topics from new religious movements to conservative Protestantism, from cultural institutions to private life and global politics. Contributors probe the distinction between “religion” and “the sacred,” a line blurred in much modern scholarship but central to the work of classical theorists like Durkheim and Simmel. By interrogating this distinction, the volume points toward more nuanced frameworks for understanding sacred phenomena in secular societies. Rather than discarding the secularization paradigm, the contributors refine and revise it, suggesting ways forward for a field in transition. A landmark in the sociology of religion, the collection maps both the challenges and the possibilities for the next generation of inquiry.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

The United States is founded upon the principles of freedom of religion, although it has been difficult at times to understand and apply those principles. Phillip Hammond argues that the Constitution assumes a radical religious liberty, which protects the convictions of individual Americans, whether or not those convictions are explicitly religious. This book is an excellent guide to the church-state debate of today, and deepens that discussion by examining the root cause of disagreement about what freedom of religion means in America.

The free exercise of conscience is under threat in the United States. Already the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court is reversing the progress of religious liberty that had been steadily advancing. And this danger will only increase if more conservative judges are nominated to the court. This is the impassioned argument of Religion on Trial. Against Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Chief Justice Rehnquist, the authors argue that what the First Amendment protects is the freedom of individual conviction, not the rights of sectarian majorities to inflict their values on others. Beginning with an analysis of the origins of the Constitution and then following the history of significant church-state issues, Religion on Trial shows that the trajectory of American history has been toward greater freedoms for more Americans: freedom of religion moving gradually toward freedom of conscience regardless of religion. But in the last quarter-century, conservatives have gained political power and they are now attempting to limit the ability of the Court to protect the rights of individual conscience. Writing not just as scholars, but as advocates of church-state separation, Hammond, Machacek, and Mazur make the strong case that every American needs to pay attention to what is happening on the Surpeme Court or risk losing the liberties of conscience and religion that have been gained so far.