The discipline of sociology has been closely associated with the study of religion ever since sociology emerged as a distinct field in the mid-nineteenth century; only psychology is similarly close. Indeed, Auguste Comte, the social philosopher who coined the word sociology, saw his new science equally as religion and as science. In his Positive Philosophy (1830–1842), and again in Positive Polity (1851–1854), Comte envisioned sociology (which he first named social physics) not only as the queen of the sciences but also as the scientific basis of the new religion of Positivism, which would gradually push all existing religions out of sight. There were some excellent thinkers of the nineteenth century—among them Harriet Martineau and Frederick Harrison in England—who took Comte's religion very seriously. But the real and enduring relationship between sociology and religion was established by those, including Comte, who...