ABSTRACT
Will Herberg suggested the triple distinction of American religions: Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. The three religions used to comprise the largest religious affiliations in the United States. In Herberg's view, affiliation with a specific religious denomination somehow established a way of life by directing many individual and collective actions and interactions. J. Milton Yinger's best-known work, Religion, Society, and the Individual, appeared in 1957. Yinger went on to publish The Scientific Study of Religion. According to Yinger, sociology of religion must have a highly scientific character in examining the different ways the religious experience— its origins, theologies, cultural expressions, and ideological evolution— can be influenced by society, cultures, and individual personalities. Gerhard E. Lenski became well-known in sociology of religion thanks to fieldwork research on the religious factor that he conducted in 1957–58. Lenski's research approach concerned several religious and ethnic groups, thereby confirming what Herberg (1955) had suggested on the importance of religious affiliation.
