Understanding of Religion and the Role Played by Cultural Sociology in the Process

This paper assesses the contribution of cultural sociology to the understanding of religion from a critical perspective. First it examines and summarizes how three Weber, Durkheim and Marx see the nature of religion as a cultural form. It then looks at various recent theories of religion under globalization. The author then assesses the contribution that these cultural theories give to the understanding of real religious phenomena through examining whether they can help in an understanding of Islamic fundamentalism.