Bringing the Study of Religion and Social Movements Together

This chapter argues that while the fields of religion and social movements tend to keep to themselves, both fields would reap benefits with greater intersection. The chapter offers two main rationales for pursuing this intersection. First, broadening our contemporary conception of social movements to include religious movements allows for the inclusion of new cases – such as the battle over canonization of books of the New Testament – that would likely extend and/or refine extant theories of the dynamics of collective action and thus lead to a historically richer and more nuanced understanding of social movements. Second, greater intersection between religion and social movements provides a richer conceptual framework to explain the rise and fall of different episodes of religious enthusiasm throughout human history and the various strategies revivalist leaders and groups employ as they confront regimes and other systems of political power.