Presenting a thorough understanding of the many ways in which religion interacts with modernization and its debates, respected scholars such as David Voas, Steve Bruce and Anthony Gill examine modern societies across the world in this splendid book.

1. Introduction: Religious Change in Modern Societies- Perspectives Offered By the Sociology of Religion 2. The Continuing Secular Transition 3. God, Gaelic and Needlepoint: Religion as a Social Accomplishment 4. Religion in Central and Eastern Europe: Was There a Re-awakening After the Breakdown of Communism? 5. Quantitative Evidence Favoring and Opposing the Religious Market Model 6. Secularization and the State: The Role Government Policy Plays in Determining Social Religiosity 7. Unsecular Europe: The Persistence of Religion 8. From ‘Believing without Belonging’ to ‘Vicarious Religion’: Understanding the Patterns of Religion in Modern Europe 9. The Cultural Paradigm: Declines in Belonging and Then Believing 10. Religious Individualization or Secularization: An Attempt to Evaluate the Thesis of Religious Individualization in Eastern and Western Germany 11. Religion and Science or Religion versus Science? About the Social Construction of the Science-Religion-Antagonism in the German Democratic Republic and its Lasting Consequences 12. Secularization Theory and Rational Choice: An Integration of Macro- and Micro-Theories of Secularization using the Example of Switzerland