Anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with religion is dependent on the open-ended research on the religiousness of a population. This is acknowledged in the church and in society. There is a wide-ranging discussion on this subject, the methods and the cognitive interests. In order to place this in its context, it is essential to remember the history of the precursors of empirical religious research. The writings of Paul Drews (1858-1912), a practical theologian, triggered a wave of research in religious and church studies which however were not continued due to the theological upheavals after the First World War. Andreas Kubik provides new access to this important theoretical tradition. In addition to the programmatic essays in this volume, he has edited a great many of Drews' research results on the religion of the educated, the peasantry, on the belief in demons and the psychology of church attendance. They also show how empirically oriented theology is rooted in the "social question."