In a recent article entitled 'The Limits of Sociology in the Work of David Martin '1 Jonathan D. Harrop has made a number of serious criticisms of Martin's theoretical and methodological approaches to the sociology of religion. Harrop focusses upon a somewhat obscure essay of Martin's ('Can The Church Survive '2) which, he claims, represents 'a cameo of Martin's sociology of religion'. 3 This seems to me to be a curious way of approaching the work of so seminal a thinker as David Martin; doubtless it is easier to evaluate a single essay rather than confront the challenge of Martin's major contributions to the analysis of contemporary culture, but such a procedure seems bound to lead to distortion and misrepresentation. Martin's work, like that of many other analysts of modern culture, is, to be sure, multifaceted and reflects various shifts of perspective over the years. These changes are doubtless the result of both the complexity of the subject matter dealt with and the altered perceptions that are a normal part of the pattern of reputable scholarship. This being so, how can a single essay devoted to such a narrowly defined subject as the survival of the institution of the Church possibly be a distillation of Martin's entire sociology of religion? This sense of unease concerning Harrop's methodology is soon shown to be more than justified when his critique is seen to rest upon a series of fundamental misrepresentations of Martin's work.
According to Harrop, Martin's definition of religion excludes its manifestation outside ecclesiastical establishments and locates it as 'unambiguously centred in Canterbury or Rome . .,.4 This may or may not be a correct reading of the essay cited by Harrop, but it is certainly not an accurate statement of the view of religion found on the pages of Martin's major works. For example, there is no ambiguity about the definition of religion given in A General Theory of Secularization: religion, says Martin, involves 'acceptance of a world of reality beyond the observable world known to science, to which are ascribed meanings and purposes completing 0048-721X/88/010081 + 05 S02.00/0 (~) 1988 Academic Press Limited