Bio: (1936-2021) American sociologist. Nicholas Demerath earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and at the University of Massachusetts.

Demerath made substantial contributions to various fields of sociology: the sociology of religion, the sociology of politics, social policy, sociological theory, and the sociology of science. Demerath's dissertation, published as Social Class in American Protestantism (1965), was an empirical study of religion based on survey research. Demerath's work in the sociology of religion focuses on five issues: why religiousness varies among individuals; how social class influences religious expression; religious organizations; the intersection of politics and religion; and the relationship between religion and the human condition. In Crossing the Gods: World Religions and Worldly Politics (2001), Demerath represents the results of his comparative study of religious politics in 14 secular states. He coined the term "sacralization," which he defined as "the process by which the secular becomes sacred or other new forms of the sacred emerge" (2007, p.66). He explored the American civil rights movement in the book Dynamics of Idealism: White Activists in a Black Movement (1971).

Main works

Social Class in American Protestantism (1965);

Power, Presidents, and Professors (1967);

Religion in Social Context (1968);

Dynamics of Idealism: White Activists in a Black Movement (1971);

A Tottering Transcendence: Civil vs. Cultic Aspects of the Sacred (1973); 

Birth control and foreign policy: The alternatives to family planning (1976);

A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City (1992);

Sacred Companies (1997);

Crossing the Gods: World Religions and Worldly Politics (2001);

“Secularization and sacralization deconstructed and reconstructed”, in Beckford, James (ed.)The SAGE handbook of the sociology of religion (2007);

Building Atlanta’s Future (2011).