The Sociology of Religion

A Critical Agenda

Grace Davie

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781849205863
• eBook ISBN: 9781446291290
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Sociology of Religion

Why is religion still important? Can we be fully modern and fully religious?

In this new edition, Davie follows up her discussion of the meaning of religion in modern society and considers how best to research and understand this relationship. Exploring the rapid movements within the sociology of religion today, this revised and updated book:

• Describes the origins of the sociology of religion

• Demystifies secularization as a process and a theory

• Relates religion to modern social theory

• Unpacks the meaning of religion in relation to modernity and globalization

• Grasps the methodological challenges in the field

• Provides a comparative perspective for religions in the west

• Introduces questions of minorities and margins

• Sets out a critical agenda for debate and research

The Sociology of Religion has already proved itself as one of the most important titles within the field; this edition will ensure that it remains an indispensable resource for students and researchers alike.

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introduction: a critical agenda

Putting together a book about the sociology of religion at the start of the twenty-first century is a daunting task, given the increasing importance of religion as a factor in world affairs and as a powerful influence in the lives of countless individuals – the great majority of the world’s citizens. It is bound to raise controversial as well as strategic issues. My task, however, is to produce a book about the sociology of religion and the debates within this particular sub-discipline, not to write a book about religion in the modern world per se – a significantly different enterprise. The difference, moreover, is crucial; it will have implications not only for our understanding of the subject matter, but for the argument of this book as a whole. The tension between global realities and sociological understanding is continually changing and will surface in almost every chapter.

The essential point can be put quite simply: why is it that the debates about religion in the modern world are so different from those that, until very recently, have predominated in the sub-discipline? What has caused this mismatch and how will it be overcome? For overcome it must be if we are to appreciate fully the significance of religion in the modern world order. Hence the subtitle of this book and the title of this chapter – the agenda is critical in that it calls into question, at times quite sharply, dominant ways of thinking. It is critical in a different sense given the paramount importance of religion in global affairs at the start of the new millennium.

The task, moreover, is urgent: we need to understand the ways in which religion, or more accurately religions, not only influence but are influenced by the behaviour of both individuals and collectivities (of all sizes), working on the principle that this will be the case in late modernity just as it has been in previous generations. Assuming the centrality of religion to late-modern societies is the key to what follows. More precisely this book is premised on the fact that, in global terms, it is as modern to draw on the resources of religion to critique the secular as it is to draw on the resources of the secular to critique the religious. Religion is not something that can be safely or sensibly relegated either to the past or to the edge.

The phrase ‘in global terms’ offers an important clue in this respect. Sociology, and within this the sociology of religion, has developed from a particular historical context – a set of circumstances which coloured not only the subject matter of the discipline but the tools and concepts which emerged in order to understand that context better. Hence, in the early days of sociology, a preoccupation with the upheavals taking place in Europe at the time of the industrial revolution and, as part and parcel of this, a sensitivity to the impact that these were having on the nature and forms of religious life in this part of the world. A pervasive, but ultimately false assumption gradually began to assert itself: namely that the process of modernization was necessarily damaging to religion. Exactly what form the damage might take and its possible consequences for individual and social life were major topics of debate, but its inevitability was increasingly taken for granted – unsurprisingly given the evidence surrounding the early sociologists. The traditional structures of religious life, deeply embedded in the economic and political order of pre-modern Europe, were crumbling visibly under the mutually reinforcing pressures of industrialization and urbanization.

The process itself is significant for the development of sociology. Even more far-reaching, however, were the conceptual implications that came with it, as sociology looked for ways not only to describe but to explain the ‘damage’ being done. An overwhelming preoccupation with secularization as the dominant paradigm in the sociology of religion should be seen in this light; it emerged from the specificities of the European case in which it worked relatively well – an understanding of secularization was clearly important to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Europeans. The next stage in the argument is, however, more difficult. The empirical connections present in Europe gradually – but inexorably – turned into theoretical assumptions, with the strong implication that secularization would necessarily accompany modernization whenever and wherever the latter occurred. More than this, Europe became the case against which all other cases were measured and, it is often implied, found wanting. The connections between modern and secular became normative. With this in mind, it becomes easier to understand why European sociologists, just as much as European journalists, have considerable difficulty accepting the fact that religion is, and remains, a profoundly normal part of the lives of the huge majority of people in the late-modern world.

The following anecdote illustrates this process perfectly. From 1998–2003, I took part in a working group associated with the World Council of Churches. The group was charged with understanding better the nature and forms of religion in the modern world, paying careful attention to the implications of these changes for the future of the ecumenical movement.¹ About 10 of us met regularly over the five-year period, each individual representing a different part of the Christian world. The Europeans were in a minority. Two of our number (one from the Philippines and one from West Africa) each told the same story regarding the secularization paradigm. Both of them, educated in the late 1960s and 1970s, had been obliged to learn the ‘secularization thesis’ as part of their professional formation. Both of them knew from their own experience that the thesis was at best inappropriate, at worst simply wrong, a point of view overwhelmingly vindicated by subsequent events. But learn the thesis they had to – it was part of ‘proper’ education, necessary if they were to receive the qualifications essential for their respective careers. The empirical situation which they knew so well was simply put on one side: theory took precedence over data.

The anecdote raises many questions. Exactly what is meant by the secularization thesis is far from straightforward. Its various ramifications will form the substance of a key chapter in this book. So, too, the alternative perspectives that have emerged to replace this in different parts of the world. But the essence is clear enough: the sociology of religion has been dominated by a frame of reference which has its roots in a global region with a particular, as opposed to typical, experience of religion and religious change. A crucial part of the evolution of the sub-discipline lies (and will continue to lie) in its capacity to discern the implications of these beginnings for the formation of sociological thinking and to escape from them where necessary.

The last phrase is important. Not everything in or about the secularization thesis needs to be discarded. Important insights have emerged not only from the thesis itself, but also from the European context which need to be carried forward into the twenty-first century. One of these, paradoxically, is the aspect of secularization that the Europeans resisted for longest – the gradual separating out of different and more and more specialized institutions (political or educational, for example) as part of the modernizing process. Societal functions that were previously dominated by the church (education, healthcare, etc.) became increasingly autonomous. Once again, the detail of this discussion will be left until a later chapter. The key point to grasp at this stage is that institutional separation – a normal and ‘healthy’ part of modernization – need not bring with it either the marginalization of religion to the private sphere or the decline in religious activity (Casanova, 1994). Neither have occurred in most parts of the modern or modernizing world; nor are they likely to in the foreseeable future.

So much for the European context and its somewhat negative influence on the long-term development of the sociology of religion. Much more positive from this point of view was the centrality of religion to the work of the early sociologists, not least the founding fathers. All of them (Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel) took religion seriously in their attempts to account for the changes taking place in the societies of which they were part. The different ways in which they did this form the substance of the following chapter. The close attention to religion on the part of social scientists was not, however, to last. In this respect, an essentially promising start gave way to what Beckford has termed a growing ‘insulation and isolation’ of the sociology of religion from its parent discipline (Beckford, 1989, 2003), a move which has been damaging in two respects. On the one hand, mainstream sociology has been rather too inclined to ignore both religion itself and the sociological debate that surrounds this. And on the other, sociologists of religion have withdrawn from mainstream sociological discussion, concentrating instead on the specificities of their own subject matter, whether empirically or theoretically.

The over-preoccupation with secularization is part and parcel of this process. Why should mainstream sociology, or indeed any other discipline, take seriously a phenomenon which is reputedly disappearing as the modernization process takes its inevitable course? The residues and reactions to modernization that take a religious form may be of interest to the specialists in the field, but given their inevitably short-term nature they need not trouble the mainstream. Conversely a withdrawal by sociologists of religion from the central debates of sociology has meant a lack of engagement with the assumptions that accompany these discussions, not least the assumption that modernization necessarily implies secularization. The vicious circle intensifies – a chain of reactions that must be broken if progress is to be made.

The case for breaking the chain is, moreover, overwhelming if we are to respond adequately to the empirical realities of the modern world which, following Berger (1992), is ‘as furiously religious as ever’. The facts are undeniable – they cover the world’s press on a daily basis and will form the subject matter of the later chapters of this book. There is an equally urgent need to devise tools and concepts appropriate to the task. Both (facts and tools) will be easier to handle if contact with the parent discipline is encouraged. Much is to be gained, for example, from a better understanding of the modernization process in all its fullness, of which the complex and continuing relationships with religion are but one part. The same goes for globalization (see Chapter 10). A rather more domestic illustration can be found in the parallels between the religious field and other areas of society – a point that can be exemplified many times over in Britain. Institutional religion, at least in its traditional forms, is in trouble (a fact that is rarely disputed), but so are the corresponding institutions of political and economic life. That is the crucial point. Both political parties and trade unions are struggling to maintain members (and therefore income) in exactly the same way as the mainstream churches. The reasons for these shifts lie primarily in the changing nature of economic and social life, the subject matter of mainstream sociology. Religious indifference is less important; it is, in fact, more likely to be the result than the cause of the institutional changes that are so clearly occurring.²

How then can we understand the changing nature of religion in the modern world in ways that build on what has gone before, but avoid the pitfalls of generalizing from a particular, but not necessarily typical, case? Will we all do this in the same way? Bearing this challenge in mind, the following paragraphs set out both a central theme and a set of variations. The theme is concerned with sociological approaches to religion, as opposed to those of other disciplines. The variations relate to the very different ways that the sociological task can be achieved. Specifically they pay careful attention to the situation in which the work takes place, a point already exemplified (albeit negatively) in the limitations that have emerged from the European context.

Rather more creative understandings will emerge as we try to determine how the agenda of the sociology of religion has been shaped by a wide variety of factors. The political/religious context in which the debate occurs is indeed important, but it is not the only influence. Others include the language restrictions (or opportunities) of the sociologists in question, their access to data, the requirements of the institutions in which they work (including political constraints), and crucially the subtle and ongoing relationships between observer and observed: that is, between the sociological community and the constituencies that form the primary object of their study. The agenda is not simply given; it becomes in itself something to be scrutinized – not least its capacity to be proactive as well as reactive. The ambiguous relationship between the nature and development of religiousness in the modern world and the interests of those who study it will become, in fact, a fil conducteur for this book as a whole. It is a vitally important issue if the sociology of religion is to flourish in the twenty-first century.

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A THEME AND VARIATIONS: SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO RELIGION

the theme

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The discipline of sociology is about pattern; it is concerned both with the non-random ways that individuals, communities and societies order their lives and with finding explanations for these ways of behaving. It follows that the sociology of religion aims to discover the patterns of social living associated with religion in all its diverse forms, and to find explanations for the data that emerge. It is not, in contrast, concerned with the competing truth claims of the great variety of belief systems that are and always have been present in human societies. That is the sphere of theology, with the relatively modern discipline of religious studies hovering, at times uneasily, in between.

It is hardly surprising that sociological distancing from ‘truth’ causes difficulties for some adherents of religion. Truth for the believer is absolute rather than relative, and any attempt to explain that some individuals or groups are, or appear to be, closer to the truth because of their socioeconomic backgrounds (social class, age and gender, for example) is bound to provoke unease. The point is well taken, but it is important to grasp that the difficulty does not pertain only to the study of religion. Interestingly, it is equally problematic with respect to science – and the higher the view of ‘science’ or scientific knowledge, the worse the problem is likely to be. Or to put the same point in a different way, advocates of the superiority of science over religion have exactly the same problem as religious believers when it comes to sociology. Both resist a discipline which is concerned more with the context and institutional attachments of adherents than with the status of the knowledge or belief system as such. No one makes this point more forcefully than Mary Douglas:

When the scientist has a very serious message to convey he faces a problem of disbelief. How to be credible? This perennial problem of religious creed is now a worry for ecology. Roughly the same conditions that affect belief in a denominational God affect belief in any particular environment. Therefore in a series of lectures on ecology, it is right for the social anthropologist to address this particular question. We should be concerned to know how beliefs arise and how they gain support. (Douglas, 1982: 260)

A further point follows from this. To indicate that the many and varied aspects of religious life form patterns does not imply that they are caused by the different variables that appear to correlate with them. For example, to observe that in large parts of the Christian West women appear to be more religious than men implies neither that all women are necessarily religious, nor that no men are. Women, just like men, are free to choose their degree of religiousness. Even a limited scrutiny of the data reveals, however, that the choices of women with respect to religion in the Western world (whether in terms of belief or of practice) are markedly different from those of men. This is an obvious and pervasive example of pattern in Western societies. Why this should be so moves us inevitably to the level of explanation, and in more ways than one. We have indeed to consider why it is that women appear to be more religious than men; we also have to consider why the difference was ignored for so long in the sociological literature. Both points will be dealt with in Chapter 11.

An additional danger needs firm underlining before going further. Sociologists must resist the temptation to subsume the study of religion into alternative, and for some at least more congenial, areas of interest. This has happened in the past (all too often) and has impeded understanding. It is in fact a further, if indirect, consequence of a tendency to think primarily in terms of secularization. So doing implies that the presence, rather than the absence, of religion in the modern world requires an explanation. Why is it still there? One way round this ‘problem’ lies in arguing that what appears to be religion is ‘really something else’, the principal suspects being ethnicity and nationalism. These are the real issues to be tackled; religion is simply an epiphenomenon masking the realities of a world necessarily dominated, if the protagonists of secularization are correct, by forces other than religion.

The global situation is changing, however. It is becoming more and more difficult to ignore the presence of religion in the modern world or to claim that this is really something else. Two defining moments in this respect occurred towards the end of the twentieth century. The first, in 1979, brought religion centre stage in a particularly dramatic way. The date that the British remember as the beginning of the Thatcher era coincided, give or take a month of two, with the year in which Karol Wojtyla became Pope and the Shah of Iran fled before the Ayatollah. Across the globe, there was a conservative reaction in more ways than one (economic, political and religious), a change associated with the decline in secular confidence so dominant in the 1960s. The implications for the sociology of religion are immense and will be spelled out in detail in the chapters that follow. The second, precisely 10 years later, engendered a further shift...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• about the author
• preface to the second edition
• preface to the first edition
• Chapter 1 Introduction: a critical agenda
• Part I Theoretical perspectives
• Part II Substantive issues
• Bibliography
• Index