ABSTRACT
Religion was a central concern of the founding fathers of the sociological enterprise. Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim and Weber, in different ways, all argued that religion had a key function to play in the structures or processes of society; and as Robertson (1977) noted, there has been a re-emergence of interest in religion amongst those sociologists not confined within the boundaries of the sub-discipline of the sociology of religion. In view of this renewed interest in religion as a central factor in any attempt to understand modern societies, it is important that we re-examine the nature of religion in the light of recent nonsociological investigations, which suggest that previous sociological ones are inadequate.
