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Answer & Explanation:In 6-8 pages, please write a
carefully reasoned in-depth analysis of any of the following topics
(PLEASE indicate in your very first sentence which option you are taking!).
Regardless of the option you choose, you must use and cite at least six different credible and
authoritative sources. Half of these may come from required SOC 420
course readings. Your MTB report is also acceptable. Beyond that, you should
also find at least two credible and authoritative sources that weren’t
required reading for our class, though more sources may be helpful. Again,
Wikipedia does NOT count as credible and authoritative.
A) What did you see as the
most important concept, idea, or issue you learned about in this Sociology
of Religion course? Please also explain its relationship to three or four other
particularly significant concepts you’ve also learned about in our class. As
one example (but there are many other possibilities), you could argue that
modern American religion has acquired a profoundly political dimension. What
are the reasons for this modern religious-political dilemma, and what are the
implications for religious conflict, use of media, economic factors, and the
future of religion in America?
B) Please take one of the
most significant concep

ts, ideas, or issues we’ve identified—socialization,
conversion, social construction, media, conflict, politics, gender/sexuality,
and so forth—and analyze it in depth in terms of a theoretical perspective
we’ve discussed (functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interaction, social
construction, phenomenology, etc.). Also explain the relationship of this
concept to three or four other significant concepts/ideas we’ve considered in
this course. Examples of acceptable topics: the phenomenology of religious
conversion, use of music or other media in the social construction of religious
meaning, an analysis of symbolic meaning in a religious group’s place of
worship, etc.
C) We have focused a great
deal on religion as it functions in the American cultural context. However, how
well does a particular concept or issue we’ve discussed in this class apply
within a different religious culture elsewhere in the world? How is this
concept/issue the same? How is it different? What are the relevant social
dynamics and future trends within this religious context? A possible topic, for
instance: How does the American concept of separation of church and state
compare and contrast to the tendency in a number of Islamic nations to closely
integrate church and state functions?