Abstract
Religion did not attract the interest of many Brazilian sociologists until the 1970s. Before that, religion was regarded not only as decadent in modern society, but also as a source of alienation. As such, religion interested anthropologists more than sociologists. With the proliferation of liberation theology in Brazil, religion entered the public and political spheres as a progressive force and became an important problem to sociologists. This paper attempts to assess the situation of the Brazilian social scientific study of religion in the last 20 years. It will examine issues such as teaching, production of theses and dissertations, the creation of research centres, graduate programmes, and journals.