Changes in the religious landscape present challenges to conceptualization, methodology and empirical research of religion. The volume, Religion inside and outside Traditional Institutions, which includes contributions to the 2nd conference of the International Society for Empirical Research in Theology (ISERT) in Bielefeld, Germany, responds to these contemporary challenges. While the concept of religious praxis is their common theme, they include a focus on deinstitutionalized religion. The contributions in the first part present and discuss a variety of innovative conceptual,...

'Lived religion' signifies a shift of focus in order to attend to the religiosity of individuals and groups as embedded in the contexts of life-worlds. It suggests fresh attention to the body, to perception, to experience, to everyday life, and to biography. The essays in this collection gravitate around the concept of 'lived religion', honoring the contributions of Hans-Gunter Heimbrock, in which he suggests this conceptual framework for understanding practical theology and religious education and for designing empirical research in theology. The contributions embrace a broad spectrum...

This book examines what people mean when they say they are spiritual . It looks at the semantics of spirituality, the visibility of reasons for spiritual preference in biographies, in psychological dispositions, in cultural differences between Germany and the US, and in gender differences. It also examines the kind of biographical consequences that are associated with spirituality . The book reports the results of an online-questionnaire filled out by 773 respondents in Germany and 1113 in the US, personal interviews with a selected group of more than 100 persons, and an experiment. Based on...