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Religious Oddities: Explaining the Divergent Religious Markets of Poland and East Germany

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Church and Religion in Contemporary Europe

Abstract

Over the past two decades a new paradigm within the sociology of religion has been amassing empirical support and theoretical refinement (Finke/Stark 1992; Iannaccone 1991; Jelen/Wilcox 1998; Gill 1998; Stark/Bainbridge 1987; Stark/Iannaccone 1994) while also garnering its share of criticism (Bruce 1999; Chaves/Gorski 2001; Lechner 1989; Olsen 1999). This attempt at a general theory has been described as offering “supply-side” or “rational choice” explanations of religious change and proposes an alternative to the traditional family of secularization theories (Gorski 2000). Advocates of the new paradigm have attempted to garner empirical support through a wide-ranging series of studies of religiosity in Western Europe (Men/Wilcox 1998; Stark/Iannaccone 1994) North America (Finke and Stark 1992) and South America (Gill 1998). Critics have offered case studies that attempt to disprove the predictions of the new theory (Bruce 1999; Lechner 1989; Olsen 1999) and appear “tempted at this stage to bow to historians such as Hugh McLeod, who argue that sociological explanation for such a broad phenomenon as religion over such a broad range of countries is impossible” (Bruce 1999: 115).

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Authors
  1. Paul Froese
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  2. Steven Pfaff
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Gert Pickel Olaf Müller

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Froese, P., Pfaff, S. (2009). Religious Oddities: Explaining the Divergent Religious Markets of Poland and East Germany. In: Pickel, G., Müller, O. (eds) Church and Religion in Contemporary Europe. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-91989-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-91989-8_8

  • Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-531-91989-8

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