Chapter 7: Religion and Society

The function of religions in a given society as social facts constitutes one of the fundamental parts of the sociological research. The sociological approaches towards religion vary just as the heterogeneity and plurality of religions. Consequently, the sociological perspective addresses religion similar to other social facts. It tends to explain and understand religion based on a social context just as it explains the social reality and social facts in their relations to other social facts and institutions.

Religion from Sociological Perspectives: How Sociology Deals With Religion

The sociologist is concerned with the myriad ways in which society and religion interact, and with profound consequences for the individual. Briefly speaking, when dealing with religion, sociologists mainly try to understand how religions shape society and conversely, how the historical and contemporary social conditions shape religions. Thus, according to sociological approach,religion should primarily be taken a socialrather than theological or psychologicalphenomenon. Sociological definitions of religion seek to identify the religious phenomenon in the most general terms. These definitions implicitly include assumptions about the relevance of social conditions to the understanding of religion.

Sociologists define religion as a cultural system of commonly shared beliefs and rituals that provide a sense of ultimate meaning and purpose by creating an idea of reality that is sacred, all-encompassing the supernatural. These are three key elements in this definition:

• Religion is a form of culture which consists of the shared beliefs, values, norms, and material conditions that create a common identity among a group of people.

• Religion involves beliefs that take the form of ritualized practices-special activities in which believers take part and that identify them as members of the religious community.

• Religion provides a feeling that life is ultimately meaningful.

All founding thinkers of the discipline of sociology, Marx, Weber, Comte, Durkheim, Spencer, Simmel, Luckmann focus on the changing role of religion in modern society. Contemporary sociologists such as Talcott Parsons, Robert N. Bellah, Peter Berger, Clifford Geertz, Mary Douglas, Niklas Luhmann, Thomas Luckmann and others have contributed to theoretical perspectives of the sociology of religion.

In the contemporary era, religion, contrary to the conventional understanding of modernization as secularization, continues to play a major role in politics, society and culture. Indeed, that role appears to be constantly increasing and hence in recent years has been a focus of academic activity around such ideas as political religion, religious nationalism, and post-secular society.

Functionalist Perspective: Religion as a Value Consensus

This perspective look at and evaluates religion in terms of society’s needs. From this perspective, society requires a certain degree of social solidarity, value consensus, and harmony and integration between its parts. The function of religion is the contribution it makes to meet such functional prerequisites, for example, its contribution to social solidarity.

Durkheim, who is the first pioneer of the functionalist approach in the history of sociology, is firstly concerned with what religion does: religion, as a unified systems of beliefs and practices, binds people together and develops social order by constructing rituals, celebrities, norms and symbols. According to Durkheim, all societies have a continuing need to reaffirm and uphold their basic sentiments and values. This is accomplished when people come together and communally proclaim their acceptance of the dominant belief system. In this way, people are bound to one another, and as a result, the stability of the society is strengthened. Not only does religion in itselfbring about social cohesion, but often, thehostility and prejudice directed at its membersby outsiders also helps strengthen bonds between those members.Religion in here is primarily considered as a collective activity based on a classification of things into the sacred (set apart and forbidden) and profane (part of the everyday world).Because religion is collective, it is experienced as obligatory in the life of the individual.

Durkheim claims that all religions divide the universe into two mutually exclusive categories: Profane and sacred. The profane consists of empirically observable things, or things knowable through common, everyday experiences. On the other hand, the sacred consists of things that are awe inspiring and knowable only through extraordinary experience.

Briefly saying, Durkheim pointed out three major functions of religion for the operation of society:

• Social cohesion

• Social control

• Providing means and purpose

Social-Conflict Perspective: Religion and Inequality

Unlike functionalist theory, conflict theory sees order and harmony as superficial entities.It claims that underneath a surface ofapparent harmony, there is a form of balance ofpower or oppression. As a result, conflict Theorylooks at existing social conditions and socialinstitutions with suspicion.Karl Marxstudied the social impact of religion. He believed religion reflects the social stratification of society and maintains inequality and perpetuates the status quo. For him, religion was just an extension of working-class’ (proletariat) economic suffering. He famously argued that religion “is the opium of people”. Marx considered religion inseparable from the economy and the worker. According to Marxists, religion could not be understood apart from the capitalist society that maintained inequality.

Karl Marx asserts that the dominant ideas of each age have always been the ideas of the ruling class, and from this it was a small step to his assertion that the dominant religion of a society is that of the ruling class, an observation that has been proven by historical evidence. Marxist scholars emphasize religion’s role in justifying the political status quo by cloaking political authority with sacred legitimacy, and thereby making opposition to it seem immoral.

Contrary to what is normally thought, Marx’s vision of religion is not unilateral. He wrote that “religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against the real distress.” The choice of religion as a “poor” solution is a result of material poverty, but it also shows the non-acceptance of the actual condition and this paves the way for revolt against any form of enslavement. In fact,“ religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation.

Marx suggests that religion often has ideological implications, serving to justify the interests of ruling classes at the expense of others. According to him, religious belief is an illusion attempting to justify existing arrangements in society and encouraging people to accept them. He saw religion doing this in two ways. First,religion justifies existing inequalities in incomeand power in society by explaining the positionon the rich and poor as “the will of God”. Second,Marx also considered that religion provided comfort for the poor, and drew their attention away from their present misery and the inequalities and injustices of this world with promises of a future, golden life after death.

Max Weber: Spirit of Calvinism and Capitalism

At the heart of Weber’s contribution to the sociology of religion is an argument about the extreme, personal and existential loneliness of the individual in Western societies who has come under the influence of ascetic Protestanism.According to Weber, religion responds to the basic human need to understand the purpose of life. In doing so, religion must give meaning to the social world within which life occurs.Weber theorized that Calvinism fostered the Protestant ethic of hard work and asceticism and that Protestantism was an important influence on the development of capitalism.

Durkheim saw religion as a source of social stability. On the other hand, German sociologist and political economist MaxWeber believed religion was a precipitator of socialchange. Unlike Marx, Weber rejected the view that religion is always shaped by economic factors. Weber argued that, in some circumstances, religion can lead to social change: Although shared religious beliefs might integrate a social group, those same beliefs may have reflections which in the long term can produce changes in society.

Weberexamined the effects of religion on economic activities and noticed that heavily Protestant societies were the most highly developed capitalist societies and that their most successful business leaders were Protestant (those in the Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Germany).In his writingThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905),he contends that the Protestant work ethicinfluenced the development of capitalism.

Today, Weber was considered as a major figure of classical sociology where he attempted to establish the importance of the comparative and historical study of religion.

Phenomenological Perspective: Religion and Meaning

Approaching to the religion from a phenomenological perspective takes us to the works of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann.Phenomenologists are interested in the ways in which we make sense of our world and the meanings that people attach to their actions.Meaning is arrived at through the use of concepts and categories of thought, and shared meanings link individuals to the wider social group and thus can be a source of social stability. Religion, then, can help to create order through a shared world view, including that of the pace of humans in the cosmic universe and understanding of the existential problems of life, joy, suffering and death. Religion can play an important part in our cultural identities as it affirms our place within a community. It also gives meaning to our life.

According to Berger and Luckmann, religion helps to build, maintain and legitimate universes of meaning.Throughout human history religion has played a decisive part in the construction and maintenance of universes. A universe of meaning requires constant legitimation: It needs repeated reinforcement and justification. Members of society must be told and re-told that their universe of meaning is real, true, correct, and “legitimate”. Without this support, a universe of meaning would tend to crumble, life would become meaningless, and the stability of society would be threatened.

According to Luckmann, the function of religion can be understood to reduce uncertainty and complexity, to determine which seems to be indeterminate, and to make accessible what seems to be inaccessible. The supernatural dimension of religion, therefore, comes in handy because it serves to reduce complexity.

Berger and Luckmann argue that religion is probably the most effective mechanism for the legitimation of universes of meaning.Unlike other sources of legitimation, only religionlinks meaning with ultimate reality. In other words,according to Berger and Luckmann, religion issocially constructed as a means of responding tolife’s uncertainties and disruptions.

For Luckmann, an important function of religion is that it helps us acquire a sense of“self”, knowing who we are, and where we fitin, a world view that endows everyday life withultimate significance. To the extent, with regard to Berger and Luckmann’s perspective, religion provides believers with crucial explanations and meanings that they use to make sense of their lives, not least during times of personal or social crisis.

Rational Choice Theory: Religion as Compensation of Human Needs

Roger Finke, Rodney Stark and Williams S. Bainbridge have attempted to develop a more comprehensive sociological perspective on religion. Their approach has heavily been influenced by the exchange Theory that is based on the principle that all human interactions can be treated as a form of exchange.

UnlikeDurkheim, Stark and Bainbridge see religionas meeting the needs of individuals ratherthan those of society as a whole. Unlike Marx, they see religion as meeting universal human needs rather than those which stem from class inequality and exploitation. Furthermore, theyreject the view, shared by classic sociologists ofreligion that the development of industrial capitalistsocieties would undermine religion.

Stark and Bainbridge, in their rational choice theory, suggest that religion answers universal questions and it offers compensators that meet universal human needs. According to them, religion can neither disappear nor seriously decline. They argue that religion is essentially an attempt to gratify desires or, as they put it, secure rewards. Rewards are defined asanything which human beings desire and arewilling to be subjected to some cost to obtain. Rewards include very specific and limited things as well as the most general things such as solutions to questions of ultimate meaning and even unreal or non-existent things, conditions or states. Costs are anything that people attempt to avoid. Thus, a cost will be accepted in order to secure a reward if the reward is valued more highly than the cost. Stark and Bainbridge see rewards and costs as complementary. If a reward is taken, it means to accept the due cost. However if a potential cost is avoided, the reward is avoided accordingly.

With their religious economy approach, Stark and Bainbridge argue that religions can be understood as organizations which are in competition with one another for followers. On the other hand, the classical theorists, Marx, Durkheim and Weber, assume that religion weakens when it is challenged by different religious or secular viewpoints whereas the religious economists argue that competition increases the overall level of religious involvement in modern society. Religious economists believe this to be true for two reasons. First, competition makes each religious group try that much harder to win followers. Second, the presence of numerous religions means that there is likely to be something for just about everyone.

Secularization Theory and Its Opponents: Revival or Demise of Religion?

The history of classical secularization theory can be traced back to the early nineteenth century and sociological writings of August Comte. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, secularization became one of the master motifs of the social sciences. It is widely believed that industrialization and the growth of scientific knowledge would lead to diminish the role of religion in society. Indeed, the idea that religion is, in the long term, incompatible with modernization process has a long history.

According to Webster, the term secular means “of or belonging to the world and worldly things as distinguished from the church and religious affairs.” Secularization, then, means to become worldly. More specifically, modern writers use the termsecularization to mean the erosion of belief in thesupernatural, namely, a loss of faith in the existenceof otherworldly forces.

August Comte,pioneering French sociologist as a founder of discipline of sociology, suggests that as a result of modernization, human society was going beyond the “theological stage” of social evolution and a new age was rising in which the science of sociology would replace religion as the basis for moral judgments.

Briefly, from the perspective of classical secularization theory, the decline in orthodox Christian beliefs and practices in most parts of the West is interpreted as a part of a more general decline in the power of religious institutions and ideas. This is explained with reference to various social processes (e.g., differentiation, rationalization, industrialization, and urbanization) which are loosely connected to “modernization”. As social institutions become more differentiated and social life becomes more rationalized, religious institutions and beliefs lose their power and legitimacy.

Many social scientists since 1960s have argued that modernization inevitably leads to secularization. Peter Berger is one the most influential sociologists to develop the secularization thesis. He argued that technology undermines religion because it gives better solution to specific problems and reduces the need for religious explanations and offices. Technology also gives us an increased sense of mastery over our own affairs. Indeed, Finke and Stark underlined that Peter Berger was entirely clear about the effects of secularization on individuals. Having outlined the aspects of secularization for social institutions, Berger went on to explain that the process of secularization has a subjective side as well. As there is a secularization of society and culture, so there is a secularization of consciousness.

To the extent, the secularization thesis involves three propositions:

• Differentiation of secular spheres from religious institutions and norms.

• General decline of religious beliefs and practices.

• Privatisation or marginalisation of religion to a private sphere.

Religion in the Twenty-First Century: Globalisation and Its Results

Using a global framework and a more organic model of religion would allow the sociology of religion to develop a more refined and sophisticated understanding and approach to religion in the contemporary world. Today, the de-objectification of religious knowledge and the teaching and practice of spirituality through the media and cyberspacehave reached an advanced stage, and tool kits for constructing both religions and spiritualties are readily available and plentiful.

Two contradictory processes are happening at the end of the twentieth century. On the one hand, the process of “secularization,” a growing disenchantment with the spiritual and the supernatural and a turn to rationality and science, has gained increasing support. Secularization has spread across much of Europe and other Western cultures, with the partial exception of the United States, but remains relatively weak in the rest of the world where traditional religion has a stronger control. On the other hand, the growth of religious fundamentalism, the continuing loyalty of millions to the mainstream religions, alongside the development of many new religious forms, ensure that religion will remain a central element of modern societies. The pace of social change is speeding. As the world become more complex, rapid change often seems to go beyond our capacity to make sense of it all. Whilst technological advances undermine religiosity in some people, for others, religious guidance and religious communities offer the key for coping with change.

Recent years have seen the rise of fundamentalist religious beliefs in different parts of the world. Giddens declare that religious fundamentalism is a relatively new phenomenon which has arisen largely in response to globalization. As the forces of modernization progressively undermine traditional elements of the social world (such as nuclear family and the domination of women by men), fundamentalism has arisen in defence of traditional beliefs. In a globalizing world, which demands rational reasons, fundamentalism insists on faith-based answers and references to ritual truth. Fundamentalism has more to do with how beliefs are defended and justified than with the content of the beliefs themselves.

Differences among fundamentalist movements are nevertheless divided into four dimensions of this form:

• Firstis the proclamation by the charismatic prophet or whatever visionary.

• Second,there must be the mythos of how things went unfavourable and led to the current undesirable state of things, such as amoral breakdown or value corruption, steeped in religious metaphors.

• Third, the fundamentalist movement must draw clearcontinuities between the tradition lost and itself as the solution for restoration.

• Fourth, and just as important,while the proposed changes are to be accomplished in the name of the noble tradition, they are to rely on modern means, from military to educational to mass media avenues.