Regulation of minority faiths varies greatly around the globe, with some countries allowing them considerable freedom to exist, recruit new members, raise money, and use public facilities. Other societies are more closed to the presence of such groups, either native or foreign. The pattern of reactions to minority religious movements is not easily explained by reference to usual terms. Knowledge of historical factors in the various countries, coupled with a use of selected theories from sociology of religion and sociology of law, can assist understanding of the situation in various countries. Explicating these complex relationships is the challenge of this volume. Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe presents, through the inclusion of contributions by international scholars, a global examination of how a number of contemporary societies are regulating religious groups. It focuses on legal efforts to exert social control over such groups, especially through court cases, but also with selected major legislative attempts to regulate them.
As such, this analysis falls within the broad area of the sociology of social control and more specifically, legal social control, a topic of great interest when studying how contemporary societies attempt to maintain social order. The factual details about social and legal developments in societies where religion has been defined as problematic include Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in the sociology of religion, the sociology of law, social policy, and religious studies as well as policy makers.