Religion

Davie coined believing without belonging to describe a pattern of religious institutions losing membership while private religious belief persisted.

The gurukul system was fundamentally a religious institution, transmitting Vedic scripture, ritual and philosophy from guru to disciple in a residential setting.

Casanova Public Religions in the Modern World revised secularization theory, showing organized religion re-entering public political life rather than simply declining.

The madrasa is an Islamic institution of religious learning, teaching Quranic study, jurisprudence and theology alongside other subjects.

Monasticism is a religious institution found across multiple traditions, organizing communities of practitioners around vows, discipline and shared religious life.

The parish system is the local territorial and administrative structure through which religious institutions, especially the Christian church, organize congregational life.

Wuthnow studies of American religious change tracked how religion as a social institution restructured after the 1960s toward looser, more voluntary forms of belonging.

Stark rational choice theory of religion modeled religious participation as a market in which people weigh costs and rewards much like other institutional choices.

Robertson early sociology of religion examined organized religion role in defining meaning systems before he extended that analysis into his later theory of globalization.

The sangha, the Buddhist monastic community, is a foundational religious institution of Buddhism alongside the Buddha and the dharma.

The seminary is the institution through which religious traditions, especially Christian denominations, formally train and ordain clergy.

Asad genealogical anthropology of religion and secularism reframed how the discipline studies religion as an institutionalized category rather than a timeless universal.

The yeshiva is the traditional Jewish institution of religious learning, dedicated to the study of the Torah and Talmud.

Zakat is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, a religiously mandated institution of almsgiving administered as part of the broader structure of Islamic religious practice.

Durkheim's functionalist account treats religion's essential role as social cohesion, uniting believers into a moral community.