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Contents -- Contributors -- 1: Introduction -- References -- Part I: Religion and Social Institutions -- 2: Health and Biological Functioning -- Gene-Environment Interplay -- Low Birth Weight, Preterm Birth, and Infant Mortality -- Allostatic Load -- Physical Functioning and Mortality Risk in Adulthood -- Directions for Future Research -- Biological Outcomes -- Indirect Effects -- Subgroup Variations -- The Dark Side -- Alternative Explanations -- References -- 3: Work, Occupations, and Entrepreneurship -- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Handbook of Religion and Society is the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of a vital force in the world today. It is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, policy makers, and other professionals seeking to understand the role of religion in society. This includes both the social forces that shape religion and the social consequences of religion. This handbook captures the breadth and depth of contemporary work in the field, and shows readers important future directions for scholarship. Among the emerging topics covered in the handbook are biological functioning, organizational innovation, digital religion, spirituality, atheism, and transnationalism. The relationship of religion to other significant social institutions like work and entrepreneurship, science, and sport is also analyzed. Specific attention is paid, where appropriate, to international issues as well as to race, class, sexuality, and gender differences. This handbook includes 27 chapters by a distinguished, diverse, and international collection of experts, organized into 6 major sections: religion and social institutions; religious organization; family, life course, and individual change; difference and inequality; political and legal processes; and globalization and transnationalism.

I trace the evolution of gun culture in the U.S., starting with the prehistorical normality and significance of projectile weaponry among Homo sapiens, then turning to the largely practical use of firearms as tools in the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early Republic eras (ca. 1607–1850). I highlight the emergence of Gun Culture 1.0, which centered on sport hunting, recreation, and collecting and was the core of American gun culture from approximately 1850 to 2010. I then show the roots of Gun Culture 2.0, which began in the 1960s and 1970s and centered on self-defense. I use various indicators to document that, by 2010, armed self-defense had become the core of American gun culture. In the penultimate section of the article, I use the great gun-buying spree of 2020+ to show the diversity that exists within Gun Culture 2.0, a theme that carries over to the conclusion, where I consider possible future directions of gun culture.

AbstractDespite the fact that a robust culture centered on the legal ownership and use of guns by law‐abiding gun owners exists in the United States, there is no sociology of U.S. gun culture. Rather, the social scientific study of guns is dominated by criminological and epidemiological studies of gun violence. As a corrective to this oversight, I outline what a sociology of U.S. gun culture should look like. In the first section, I give a brief history of U.S. gun culture from the founding era through the 1960s. Guns began as tools of necessity in the colonies and on the frontier, but evolved into equipment for sport hunting and shooting, as well as desired commodities for collecting. The second section examines these recreational pursuits which formed the core of U.S. gun culture for most of the 20th century. Although recreation remains an important segment, the central emphasis of U.S. gun culture has gradually shifted to armed self‐defense over the course of the past half‐century. The third section examines the rise of this culture of armed citizenship, what I call "Gun Culture 2.0," the current iteration of the country's historic gun culture. I conclude by suggesting important avenues for future research.

What is the relationship between the official teachings of religious bodies and the beliefs of individual adherents in the United States today? At first glance, this question appears rather straightforward. One simply needs to identify religious bodies, specify their teachings and empirically establish the connection between those teachings and adherents' beliefs. But establishing and of these elements is anything but simple. To begin to untangle this knotty subject, the author first uses a restrictive definition of religious bodies, teachings, and beliefs, focusing on the core doctrinal teachings of clearly identifiable religious denominations. He then steps back and takes a broader view of the situation using a less restrictive definition, exploring the influence of affiliation with religious "families" on individuals' moral beliefs. The author conclucdes with some thoughts about how both religion and the sociology of religion in America are moving beyond beliefs. French Quelle est aujourd'hui la relation entre les enseignements officiels des organes religieux et les croyances dles fidèles individuels aux États- Unis? Au premier abord, la réponse à cette question paraît plutôt claire. II suffirait simplement d'identifier les organes religieux, dle préciser leurs enseignements et d'établir empiriquement le lien entre ces enseignements et les croyances cles fidéles. Mais établir ces éléments est tout saufsimple. Afin dle démêler ce sujet epineux, I'auteur utilise d'abord une définition restrictive des organes religieux, des enseignements et cles croyances, en se focalisant sur les enseignements doctrinaux centraux de confessions religieuses clairement icdentifiables. II cdresse ensuite unie vue d'ensemble de la situation, en utilisant une definition moins restrictive et en explorant l'influence cle l'affiliation avec des 'familles" religieuses sur les croyances morales indivicluelles. L'auteur conclut avec quelques réflexions sur la manière dont à la fois la religion et la sociologie dle la religion aux États-Unis vont au-cdelà cles crovances.

Although many of us would like to get beyond lecturing, we often lack concrete strategies for doing so, particularly in our larger classes. This paper suggests one such strategy for creating a discussion-based course. The success of such a course is predicated on students reading and thinking about the course material (receiving "first exposure") prior to attending class so that class time can be devoted to more substantively engaging activities grounded in guided discussion. The vehicle I propose for achieving this first exposure to the course material is the "Course Preparation Assignment" (CPA). This article explains the rationale for discussion-based courses, describes the development and use of CPAs, and assesses a discussion-based course by comparing it to a traditional lecture course on several outcomes. The assessment reveals that the use of these assignments to create a discussion-based course has been a great success, allowing me to foster student engagement with the course material by spending the majority of class time coordinating, facilitating, and leading discussions, rather than constantly lecturing at the students.