A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion investigates how social groups use the elements of authoritative cultural traditions - including moral norms, myths, rituals, behavioral codes, and other practices (i.e., the elements of religious traditions) - in the creation, legitimation, and contestation of identity and social order. Distilling the work of functionalist sociologists, anthropologists, and critical theorists who have worked on the 'problem of religion' such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Mary Douglas, Pierre Bourdieu, and Bruce Lincoln, this introduction provides students and general readers with a tool-kit of critical concepts that have proved useful for the study of religious belief and behavior, such as: classification and essentialism, naturalization and mystification, legitimation and social reproduction, habitus and normalization, and repression and domination. The book strives to show how the elements of religious traditions are polyvocal and capable of being directed toward various social ends while paying close attention to how ahistorical authority and identity claims can be contextualized as rhetorical strategies designed to advance vested interests.