Subtitle: World Religions and Worldly Politics
Author: N. J. Demerath III
Subject: Sociology/Religion
Paper ISBN 978-0-8135-3207-3
Cloth ISBN 978-0-8135-2924-0
Pages: 304 pp.

View the table of contents for Crossing the Gods
Read an excerpt from Crossing the Gods

Description: An examination of the diverse relationships between religion and the state around the world.

Winner of the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion

Praise for Crossing the Gods

"Based on the assumption that The United States own religious dynamics may be seen best in a changing global perspective, this sociological study commences with a survey of the relationship of religion and politics in fourteen nations that have quite different religious and cultural traditions and distinctive histories of religious-political interaction. . . . Demerath concludes that the level of cultural conflict in the U.S. is relatively low in comparison with that in many contemporary societies. . . . [This studys] comparative approach offers valuable insights."Choice

"Demerath rides a global highway from South America to the Middle East, India and beyond, discovering the diversity of religious responses to the social and political crises of the contemporary age. This is a brilliant demonstration of a newly emerging global sociology of religion. A journey worth taking, with intellectual rewards every step of the way."Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence

"Fresh, enriching, challenging and witty: Crossing the Gods is the first truly sociological approach to contemporary world religions and their social and political contexts. A major contribution." Helen Rose Ebaugh, professor of sociology, University of Houston

"This book is without parallel, a truly comparative perspective on the American religious arrangement. It offers useful and insightful overviews of church-state relations around the world."Mark Silk, Trinity College

Eminent sociologist of religion Jay Demerath traveled to Brazil, China, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, and Thailand to explore the history and current relationship of religion, politics, and the state in each country. In the first part of this wide-ranging book, he asks, What are the basic fault lines along which current tensions and conflicts have formed? What are the trajectories of change from past to present, and how do they help predict the future?

In the book's second part the author focuses on the United States-the only nation founded specifically on the principle of a separation between religion and state-and examines the extent to which this principle actually holds and the consequences when it does not. Highlighting such issues as culture wars and religious violence, religion's different relations to politics versus the state, and the fluidity of individual religious identity, Demerath exposes the fallacies underlying many of our views on religion and politics worldwide.

Finally, Demerath places within a comparative context the commonly held view that America is the world's most religious nation and argues that our country is not "more religious" but "differently religious." He concludes that the United States represents a unique combination of congregational religion, religious pluralism, and civil religion.

N. J. Demerath III is a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of ten books, among them Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations and A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City. He is the immediate past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.