The Sociology of Religion in Late Modernity 15
Irrespective of what specific question is investigated, the inevitable challenge is
to identify the various mechanisms underlying the implications of religion for other
social phenomena. Under what conditions does, for example, the substance of specific
doctrinal or spiritual beliefs matter and with what social consequences; and in what
circumstances are the characteristics of the local or macro societal context in which
religion is practiced more substantively interesting than the religious practices per se?
Before being able to address any such questions, however, sociologists must invari-
ably wrestle with questions of measurement. Given that religion is such a multifaceted
construct, its operationalization in any given study will necessarily omit some dimen-
sions and emphasize others. With varying substantive purposes, some studies will want
to focus on religious affiliation and belief, others on church attendance irrespective of
affiliation, and still others on the importance of religion in the respondent’s every-
day life. Scholars new to the field will find a great resource in the well-validated and
wide-ranging questions on religion that are asked in the General Social Survey. Find-
ing comparable measures that can capture the more spiritual and less overt behavioral
dimensions of religion is more difficult. But just as we treat religion as an observable
social fact so, too, must we operationalize spirituality in order to be able to assess the
expanding place of spiritual seeking and practices in individual lives and contemporary
culture. All measures have imperfections but as a first step we can begin by testing the
conceptual and empirical differences and overlap between religiousness and spirituality.
As a final thought, knowledge of social life as a whole would be enhanced if soci-
ologists were to begin to think of religion as a variable somewhat akin to, for example,
social class, race, or gender (cf. Wuthnow, Chapter 2, this volume). Most sociologists
today recognize these variables in shaping and differentiating social experiences and
practices. Consequently, irrespective of a theoretical interest in stratification many soci-
ologists include measures of social class in their research designs. A similarly inclusive
disposition toward the probable social relevance of religion may lead sociologists to
serendipitous discoveries and fuller explanations of otherwise puzzling patterns and
outcomes.