1. What is secularization? Why does secularization tend to take place in modern society (why do sociologists usually feel traditional religious concerns and institutions are in some sense incompatible with or challenged by the values and practices of modern industrial societies like our own)?
2. On a personal level, this question might be: what makes it difficult for a modern, educated person to have "real" religious faith? Has that been an issue for you--do you sometimes wish you had more faith than seems possible in the kind of society in which we live?
3. Who and what are fundamentalists? What do fundamentalists believe, and in what ways are they different from evangelicals? Why might it be important to understand fundamentalists? For example, how have their political concerns and values tended to shape society and politics for all of us over the past decade? How were they visible at recent Republican National Conventions, and how do they shape the rhetoric there?
4. Why is the continued presence (even growth!) of fundamentalist religion and church organizations probably more difficult for sociologists to explain or account for than the persistence of Amish communities? Why is fundamentalism found, not in pockets of tradition away from modern influence, but where tradition meets modernity?
5. Why does Nancy Ammerman choose participant observation as her research strategy? Would you say this is a good study, based on what you've read so far? What makes this a sociological study of religion, rather than something which, for example, a journalist or a theologian might have done?

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