Ranging through sectarianism, monotheism, religious exclusivity, and the moral dimensions of religious commitment, the author traces new and exciting lines of sociological inquiry in the field of religion.

In this book, based on lectures that the author was invited to deliver in Japan, Bryan Wilson traces the dominant contours of religion as perceived by the sociologist. His themes range from the study of sectarianism, on which he is one of the relationship between religion and culture in modern societies of the West and the East.