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This book comprehensively examines religious faith in China from the perspective of cultural philosophy and cultural history. It explores the social, political, cultural and spiritual meanings of religions, tracing their historical development and related paradigm shifts. It also analyzes the characteristics of the country's local religions and the process of indigenization of world religions, and describes the peaceful co-existence and harmonious confluence of multiple religions in Chinese spiritual life, revealing the vibrant and diverse colors of its religious culture. Examining these religions' social and cultural functions in contemporary Chinese society, the book demonstrates the rich and complex intertwinement of religious faith, cultural spirit and national disposition among the Chinese people

This 1990 study in historical sociology explores the relationship between educational development and religious change in Norwegian society during a period of significant social and economic transition. John Flint traces the processes whereby the laity radically reduced clerical control over religious institutions. He examines census materials, reports to the Ministries of the Church and Education, and information from organizational histories, using historical role analysis to describe the changing relationships among state church pastors, parish school teachers, pupils, parents, and lay preachers. In his examination of the movement toward mass literacy, John Flint draws on and contributes to the sociology of comparative education development. His findings from this Norwegian study have wider theoretical and methodological implications, and will be of interest to historians and sociologists studying religion and education

Through the use of epigraphical evidence, Leslie C. Orr brings into focus the activities and identities of the temple women (devadasis) of medieval South India. This book shows how temple women's initiative and economic autonomy involved them in medieval temple politics and allowed them toestablish themselves in roles with particular social and religious meanings. This study suggests new ways of understanding the character of the temple woman and, more generally, of the roles of women in Indian religion and society.