A modern classic of social science, this book addresses the question of whether Western societies are becoming secular as they modernize, arguing that rather than a decline of religion, we are witnessing a shift from an older, Church-centered form to another, invisible and still largely unexplored form of religion.

Thomas Luckmann was born in Jesenice, Slovenia and studied in Vienna and Innsbruck in Austria. From 1955 to 1965, he taught both at The New School and at Hobart College in New York. Returning to Europe, he became Professor of Sociology first at the University of Frankfurt, then at the University of Konstanz, where he remained until his retirement in 1994. The co-author of The Social Construction of Reality and The Structures of the Life-World, he is regarded as one of the founders, with Peter L. Berger, of the 'new' sociology of knowledge.

Tom Kaden is a faculty member at the Institute of Sociology, University of Bayreuth, Germany. He is the author of Creationism and Anti-Creationism in the United States of America and the co-editor of Science, Belief and Society: International Perspectives on Religion, Non-Religion and the Public Understanding of Science.

Bernt Schnettler is Professor and Chair for Sociology of Culture and Religion at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He is the author of the book on Thomas Luckmann in the German book series Klassiker der Wissenssoziologie.

Editors' Introduction

Foreword

Introduction

I. Religion, Church and Sociology

II. Church-Oriented Religion on the Periphery of Modern Society

III. The Anthropological Condition of Religion

IV. The Social Forms of Religion

V. Individual Religiosity

VI. Religion and Personal Identity in Modern Society

VII. Modern Religious Themes

Postscript