Description
Lexington Books Religious Interaction Ritual The Microsociology of the Spirit by Scott Draper
This book is a microsociological study of religious practice, based on fieldwork with Conservative Jews, Bible Belt Muslims, white Baptists, black Baptists, Buddhist meditators, and Latino Catholics. In each case, the author scrutinizes how a congregation's ritual strategies help or hinder their efforts to achieve a transformative spiritual encounter, an intense feeling that becomes the basis of their most fundamental understandings of reality._x000D__x000D_The book shows how these transformative spiritual encounters routinely depend on issues that can seem rather mundane by comparison, such as where the sanctuary's entrance is located, how many misprints end up in the church bulletin, or how long the preacher continues to preach beyond lunchtime. The spirit responds to other dynamics, as well, such as how congregations collectively imagine outsiders, or how they talk about ideas like individualism and patriarchy._x000D__x000D_Building on provocative theories from sociologists such as Emile Durkheim, Erving Goffman, Randall Collins, and Anne Warfield Rawls, this book shows how "interaction ritual theory" opens compelling new pathways for sociological scholarship on religion. Micro-level specifics from fieldwork in Texas are supplemented with large-scale survey analysis of a wide array of religious organizations from across the United States._x000D_ Table of contents :- _x000D_
List of Tables and Figures_x000D_
Introduction_x000D_
Chapter 1: Collective Effervescence_x000D_
Chapter 2: Social Solidarity_x000D_
Chapter 3: Bodily Copresence_x000D_
Chapter 4: Intersubjectivity_x000D_
Chapter 5: Barriers to Outsiders_x000D_
Conclusion_x000D_
Appendix A: USCLS Findings_x000D_
Appendix B: Focus Group Questions and Characteristics_x000D_
References_x000D_