No 
sociological analysis of religion would be complete without looking at the role it plays in society and, as luck would have it, this particular chapter examines the role of religion from a number of different perspectives – both inclusive and exclusive – whose main ideas are outlined and briefly evaluated:
• Functionalist
• Neo-Functionalist
• Marxist
• Neo-Marxist
• Weberian
• Neo-Weberian
• Postmodern
Once again this chapter was written (a word I use loosely) for the OCR AS Sociology Specification-but-one, but since just about every other A-level(ish) Sociology Specification worth the name covers this particular area it should be applicable to them in some way.
As ever I can take no responsibility for either the pictures or their captions, for the deceptively-simple reason that They Were Nothing To Do With Me.