The Church As A Social Institution
The Sociology of American Religion
David O. Moberg

The book's eight parts treat characteristics of American churches, types of churches, their social functions and dysfunctions, social processes and the church, inter-institutional relations, social psychology of Amercian religion, and professional leadership in the church. To the concluding chapter in the first edition, "Sociology and the Church's Future," has been added another, "Change with Continuity," dealing with selected developments in the sociology of Amercian religion since the first edition appeared in 1962.

This new edition also updates the statistical data in several passages (most notably in chapter 2, "The Demography and Ecology of American Religion"), and adds many recent references to the ends of chapters and in footnotes.

The first edition "was especially appreciated by Christians who were coping with the issues it discussed and by those who felt that most current texts were unfairly critical of their values," writes the author. "They intuitively sensed that the author was a Christian and a churchman who had experienced their own dilemmas, joys, and sorrows and hence wrote from the interpretive sociological perspective of a verstehende engagement rather than an aloof, unfeeling, empirical detachment."

Hans Mol (McMaster University): "A classic in the sociology of religion that I have used for many years in my undergraduate classes. Moberg has the knack of lucid and sensitive analysis of religion in American society."

Andrew M. Greeley (University of Chicago): "Moberg's classic study of the structures of American religion has been, for many years, one of the most useful tools available for teaching and understanding the sociology of relgion. Anyone interested in this rapidly growing field will welcome its reappearance and be eager to use it in classroom discussions."

Donald H. Liebert (Whitworth College): "The author's ordered mind, broad knowledge of the literature, and creative and sympathetic imagination make this encyclopedic book an important beginning place for investigators of hundreds of different inquiries into the role of the church in contempoary society."

David O. Moberg is a former editor of the Journal of American Scientific Affiliation and the Review of Religious Research. He is the founding co-editor of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion and a prolific author of more than 300 professional and scholarly articles and numerous research papers. He still serves on the editorial boards of several professional journals.