The treatment of religion in academia and the media leaves something to be desired, so the approach I have outlined above can make a useful contribution. The problem comes at least in part from the fact that these are two institutions which, in their elite echelons, are staffed by what is the most secularized group in American society. Unlike many of their colleagues in Europe, these people are not particularly hostile to religion. But they don’t know too much about it, and its more passionate expressions make them uncomfortable. As a result they are tempted to explain religious phenomena as being “really” about something else—ethnicity, class, politics.  Sometimes, of course, this is indeed the case.  Thus there are processes of “religionization”, in which a conflict about political power (as in Northern Ireland) or about territory (as between Israelis and Palestinians) morphs into a religiously defined conflict (though even then many people may sincerely believe in and be motivated by the religious definitions of the situation). In any case, it is important to realize that religion is a phenomenon sui generis, which must be understood in its own terms and not right away be interpreted as being “really” something else.

Peter Berger ha dagli inizi di luglio un suo blog, Religion and Other Curiosities, che si occupa, per dirla veramente in poche parole, del posto della religione nella società contemporanea.

L'approccio di Berger -- che insieme a Luckmann è autore di un testo fondamentale per la sociologia fenomenologica (La realtà come costruzione sociale) -- è di particolare interesse in quanto riconosce al fenomeno religioso una sua specificità ed una sua autonomia. Nessun riduzionismo, dunque; nessun tentativo cioè di spiegare il fenomeno religioso nei termini di qualche altro ordine di cose o fenomeni (come la politica, la cultura, l'etnia ecc.), ma l'analisi acuta delle molte possibili interconnessioni fra le diverse dimensioni e sfere del "credere".