Journal of East China Normal University (Philosoph ›› 2011, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (5): 15-21.

• 传媒文化研究 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A Comment on Robert Bellah’s Religious Sociology

LI Feng   

  • Online:2011-09-15 Published:2011-10-12
  • Contact: LI Feng
  • About author:LI Feng

Abstract: As a contemporary famous sociologist, Robert Bellah uses his sociology of religion to mainly discuss meanings and functions of religion in the perspective of modernity. On the basis of development of his thinking, it can be divided into four phases: the academic accumulation when he studied in the university; “pessimistic optimism” when he worked in Harvard University; “optimistic pessimism” during the late 1960s; the topic of “postProtestant man” after the 1970s. In detail, he researches the essence of religion, the epistemology of religious study, the relation between religion and modernization, religious evolution, civil religion and reconstruction of American moral ecology. Though there are some studies of Bellah’s theory in Chinese academia, they are still segmented. This article tries to grasp his theory on the whole.