ABSTRACT
Religion will become a more important source of meaning and continuity because of increasing information connectedness, the extent of state weakness in much of the developing world, and the rise of alienation due to the dislocation from traditional work in the developed world. The implementation of the concept of transcendence is some kind of 'hat trick' for sociology of religion scholar and my focus on it here is an attempt to avoid the vicious circle of trapping our understanding of religion within the concepts of culture and social structure. The growing importance of religion in global perspective reveals the complex nature of acts of faith. Moreover, emerging new social forms and the shifting nature of social bonds are transforming religion. The very dynamism of religion in the modern world is a challenge for the sociologists who set out to study.
