sociology of religion Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods (survey ...

, religious capital is the investment an individual makes into their

religious faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people ...

. The investment is the time and physical work involved with the religious faith, as well as the personal investment in ideology, doctrine, and practice.

Rodney Stark Rodney William Stark (July 8, 1934 — July 21, 2022) was an American sociologist of religion who was a longtime professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington. At the time of his death he was the Distinguished ...

has defined it as "(the) degree of mastery of and attachment to a particular religious culture", and has used this theory to explain conversion experiences in a number of his books, notably ''The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success '' and ''The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force''. Within the realm of conversion, religious capital theory predicts that individuals will attempt to conserve their religious capital. Large doctrinal or behavioral changes lose more religious capital than small ones, thus an Episcopalian is more likely to become

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

than

Seventh-day Adventist The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, a ...

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

. More recent work is inclined to define the concept in terms of Bourdieu's conception of 'capital' in relation to a particular (religious) field.Verter, B. (2003). Spiritual capital: Theorizing religion with Bourdieu against Bourdieu. Sociological Theory, 21(2), 150-174.

References

Sociology of religion {{Reli-socio-stub