Matthew S. Vos. Sociology. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, July 10th, 2014. 48 pp.
5 out of 5
Purchase: Westminster | Amazon
Does it benefit Christians to study human behavior in terms of groups? Can Christians gain insight from it for both their spiritual and daily life? The answer is yes! One would think so if one read Scripture and see the interactions between groups of people. This booklet is an introduction to the academic discipline of sociology that involves the study of human behavior in terms of prioritizing the dynamic of individuals within a group and interacting as a group with other groups. I’m glad that the editors and publishers for the Faithful Learning Series had this booklet that survey sociology as an academic discipline from a Christian perspective.
The author Matthew Vos is a Christian and a professor of sociology at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. As a professor who have written academically on his subject he is qualified to teach us an introduction to a Christian approach to sociology. But this is not intended to be a “freshman sociology textbook” but rather an exploration of a distinctively Christian use of the tools from sociology to help believers better understand God’s world. I appreciated the fact that Vos wrote this work in an easy to understand way where even if you don’t know about sociology prior to the book you can still get what he is saying. And he does this while having Scripture as his operating presupposition especially concerning the sinful nature of man and God’s saving grace with salvation.
One of the big take away I got from the book is the author’s point that sociology is very useful in unmasking our idols and the functional god of our hearts. I think he’s made his case well here. I like the author’s analogy of theories in sociology are like tools in a tool box and how certain theories are helpful for different situations. Three main tools or approaches that the book goes over are the functionalist perspective, the conflict perspective and symbolic interactionism.
I also enjoyed the section towards the end of the book called “A Few Christian Sociologists and their key works” which feature each name of a Christian sociologist and a paragraph describing their contribution. This is helpful to do further reading. I also appreciated the discussion questions at the end of the book as well.
Overall I recommend this book and also this series.
My order from Amazon for the Enjoy your Prayer Life by Michael Reeves came in. Yes it is simple and good. I ordered one for each of my sons too. Thanks. ( it was from you wasn’t it that I got the idea)
Wow nice and encouraging to hear you ordered it Beverly. I enjoyed how it was so simple, brief and yet very good and spiritually edifying. Thanks for ordering it. By the way if there’s ever a book from my book reviews you would like for me to order to ship to you let me know, I’m willing to pay for it =)
How nice. Thank you and will keep this in mind.
Thanks for this review. I really enjoyed the sociology classes I took in high school and college and I would like to see the discipline presented from a Christian perspective. You convinced me to order it to my kindle after I get home from work today!
Wow thanks! I didn’t noticed until you commented that there’s a Kindle version of this book, as when this series was first published I didn’t see the kindle version (I have been anticipating this series before it was published a few years ago). By the way I’m surprised they taught sociology in high school. At least in Southern California it isn’t offered for my generations and younger. Do you know roughly what grade you had sociology?
RE: Do you know roughly what grade you had sociology?
It was back in my senior year of high school in 1974. I had transferred from Catholic to public high school halfway through my senior year (long story) and it was offered at the public school.
Sociology as an academic is dominated with so many leftists. It is good seeing a Christian view of sociology being advocated. I myself think it is an interesting subject.
TY:)
You’re welcome! I hope you have a blessed and good climate day today! Hopefully not too humid!
TY, but humidity is 100
TY. To you also.:)
5
Sounds like an interesting read, Jim. I had to do a little reading on groups for the seminary class I am in now and it was fascinating.
Wow nice! I think sociology operating from a Christian worldview is quite insightful! By the way I saw apologist Jim Warner Wallace shared one of my Presuppositional apologetics’ round up this morning and also he clicked on your link about atheist saying one less God than the Christian…and he also tweeted and shared it on his facebook page too! I don’t know if you notice a spike in your blog’s traffic today, I know I did…
Jim Warner Wallace? Wow, that’s pretty cool. Haven’t checked stats but I will.
Just checked the stats and that post has 184 views already today which is highly unusual considering it is almost a year old. On an average day my blog gets around 300-400 clicks so this is a good bump.
I agree. Seems to me that an understanding of human interaction could benefit The Church greatly.
Glad we agree! Of course it is important to interpret the data not contrary to Scripture. Analogous to sociology is Behavioral economics and I like it more than psychology in studying individual and group behavior since sometimes psychology is too speculative for me. But I haven’t met many people who have heard of behavioral economics…
This is the first I’ve heard of it. Don’t know about sociologists, but it seems that a Christian psychologist is rare. Most seem to think that our Faith is just mental spackle we use to fill the gaps in the unknown which we fear. The fact that our Faith comes from a source other than ourselves seems to be a concept that they can’t deal with.
“One of the big take away I got from the book is the author’s point that sociology is very useful in unmasking our idols and the functional god of our hearts.”
Interesting point !
Thank you for this review
You’re welcome! I think an accurate study of human nature whether or individually reveal how our sin taints everything. Yet people today will go around saying they are basically good…
So true! … I used to think I was extra good .. of course I was comparing myself to the likes of Hitler ..😊
BUT one blessed day God revealed “sin” to me … my sin ! How good is He…
Thanks for sharing this book on sociology from a biblical perspective. I never thought of it this way before. The book appeared to be interesting. I will check it out.
22 comments on a book review of sociology? Incredible there’s that much Christian interests
I’m going to put this on my list, Pastor, thank you for this review!
You’re welcome! Hey for your homeschooling do you give your daughter a long summer break?
We don’t, but she gets two weeks off each time we travel to a new assignment so it probably balances out. I think it’s a little hard on kiddos to take big breaks though, they get out of the habit of learning. If we were going to stop traveling I would probably slow the lessons down, but keep going. Maybe incorporating more outdoor lessons.
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This looks great! Will definitely read!
[…] This was probably my second favorite work in this series, the author showed why sociology is practical and helpful for even the every day Christian! See my review here. […]