ABSTRACT
This chapter examines that the problematisation of modernity currently in vogue within the sociology of religion actually loses as much as it gains in respect of its theoretical grasp of contemporary belief and religious practice. It also examines the theoretical indispensability of modernity as a means of construing and interpreting contemporary societal and religious development. Shmuel Eisenstadt's multiplication of modernity is founded on the socio-cultural variegation generated by the ongoing dialogue' between globalising forces of modern reconstruction' and regional cultural resources' embodied by respective civilizational traditions'. According to Beck and Sznaider, methodological nationalism equates societies with nation-state societies and sees states and their governments as the primary focus of social-scientific analysis. It assumes that humanity is naturally divided into a limited number of nations, which organize themselves internally as nation-states and externally set boundaries to distinguish themselves from other nation-states.
