Noi metodologii în sociologia religiilor
New methodologies in the sociology of religion

Summary/Abstract: The type of methodology that this article aims to present is a social history approach to the sociology of religion. More specifically, this methodology attempts to decrypt revolutionary social realities from contemporary religious social implementation. This is achieved by using middle-ranking social models to be used as heuristic models in the interpretation of historical data. Middle-ranking models are derived from field observation and research on aspects that are related to the social ethos of religion and, at the same time, are related to the historical identity matrix of the religion under study. The implicit risks of the method are ethnocentrism and anachronism, i.e. reading sources into the distinct categories of another cultural paradigm, or projecting contemporary values and interpretive models onto another historical period. The key point lies in the continuity of identity that religion has as a social function and maintains as a defining constant. The exemplification of this methodology will consist in its application to the moment of the emergence of Christianity as a new religion in the period of antiquity, but the methodology also has applicative potential in the socio-historical study of other religions. The use of models can be used to explain the sociological factors that may have led to the rapid conquest of the Empire by the new entrant in the religious market.

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