This book has not offered a comprehensive explanation of religion or how religious traditions work. Instead, it is an introduction to how religious traditions can be used to create, maintain, and contest social order. My purpose has been to introduce readers to what I find to be the most useful concepts for thinking critically about religions:

1. • a hermeneutic of suspicion,

2. • functionalism,

3. • classification,

4. • social constructions and social constructionism,

5. • group boundaries,

6. • social hierarchy and social positions,

7. • assigned behaviors such as social roles, moral norms, and behavioral codes,

8. • socialization,

9. • habitus,

10. • normalization,

11. • discrimination,

12. • privilege,

13. • reproduction/maintenance of social order or the status quo,

14. • contestation of the status quo,

15. • reification/naturalization/mystification,

16. • desire and repression,

17. • interests and domination,

18. • legitimation,

19. • cultural toolbox and cultural tools,

20. • authority and projection, and

21. • authenticity claims.

These concepts permit us to answer these sorts of critical questions:

• In general, how are religious traditions used to create, shape, or modify societies or social groups?

• How do cultural tools function to reflect and reinforce:

– group boundaries?

– social hierarchies?

– social roles, moral norms, etc.?

• For any given religious text or interpretation of a religious text, who is trying to convince whom of what? What would be the social implications or social consequences if the text or interpretation were received as persuasive?

• How does a shared habitus sustain social classes, social relations, social boundaries, “normal” practices, etc.?