In the late twentieth century sociology of religion has been marked by three trends, all of which represent a broadening of the field. The standard focus on the origin and function of religion has been broadened into a concern as well with, first, the propriety of religion and, second, the truth of religion. Peter Berger and Robert Bellah best represent these dual trends. The third trend has been the supplementing of an explanatory approach to religion with a hermeneutical, or interpretive, one. This trend is best represented by Clifford Geertz. Though Geertz is, formally, an anthropologist, he has been more influential than any sociologist in pioneering this approach to religion and to culture as a whole. By no coincidence his key work, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), won the Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association.

The Propriety of Religion

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