ABSTRACT
Sociology has always been concerned with how societies hold together. Its founders all thought this had something to do with religion – as societal self-representation, whether functional (Durkheim) or dysfunctional (Marx), or as an influence on social formations in a variety of ways (such as the Protestant ethic for Weber). However, they also all thought the influence of traditional religions on social integration was declining, and this idea has been further developed and apparently
confirmed by secularisation and systems theories. Yet in 2001 in a British society that in terms of religious observance at least is one of the most secularised in the world, we again find ourselves in a debate about social integration that has religion at its centre (Gill et al. 1998). In particular Islam and Christianity are in the spotlight of public debate, through the former’s supposedly self-chosen ghettoisation and the latter’s church schools. Has the mainstream sociological tradition missed something?
