Review Essay Secularization and Social Theory- Swedish Experience in the Context of an International Theoretical Debate

one of the world’s leading secular authorities on the subject of the Chnstian faith. His knowledge and breadth of interests here is formidable, ranging through Ortho-doxy, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, and being concerned with their par-ticular orientations in USSR, Europe, United States and South Amenca. Dunng the past twenty-five years or so there has been an enormous international research effort devoted to empirical studies of religious forms and their complex interaction with secular affairs. In his book titled, A General Theory of Secularization, Prof. Martins undertakes the daunting task of drawing generalizations from this vast body of research as it applies to Christianity in the above mentioned regions. He would, however, suggest that the generalizations he reaches in this context will eventually prove to have relevance beyond the specifically Christian realm. The result is a book that moves beyond the limitations of established sociological specializations, presenting a broad and provokative thesis concerning general relations between modes of religious and secular (political) authority in the process of modernization, and in this providing an original contribution linking the sociolog