Religion in Society

A Sociology of Religion

Ronald L. Johnstone

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317344537
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

For junior/senior-level courses in Religion and Society in departments of Sociology and Religious Studies. Using an unbiased, balanced approach, the 8th edition of this text puts religion in its social context by discussing the impact of society on religion and helps students understand the role and function of religion in society that occur regardless of anyone's claims about the truth or falsity of religious systems.

The Sociological Perspective

DOI: 10.4324/9781315662916-1

Believers at worship.

Everyone knows at least a little about religion, even if they personally have no affiliation with any religious group. Religion is all around us. In the United States we are aware of the involvement of religion in the political process, particularly as observed in the recent two presidential election campaigns of George W. Bush. We have heard and learned much more about the religion of Islam than we ever did before 9/11. We cannot drive many blocks in any town or city, almost anywhere in the world, without passing a place of worship or monument to religion. In American public schools and Boy Scout troops, every child recites the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Eventhough some will say they are not religious, do not belong to any religious group, and do not believe in God, they might nonetheless send you on your way with the benediction “may the force by with you.” These same people might believe passionately in certain inalienable rights for all people. They will seek justice, equity, and freedom from oppression for all people, holding such beliefs and aspirations as something so universal and important, and worthy of as much passion and conviction, as the most committed Christian believer who strives to bring a friend to Jesus. Might such believers, though not traditionally religious, be “religious” in much the same way as a typical Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist believer? And so, not only does everyone know at least a few things about religion, but also might everyone actually “be religious” in one way or another?

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. We have not defined “religion” yet. We have relied on some common knowledge and awareness that we all have of what that pervasive phenomenon we call “religion” really is. So before we look at what sociology has to tell us about religion. We must consider what religion is and is not in a systematic way, to put us all “on the same page,” so to speak. But even before defining “religion” we need to look in an introductory way at what sociology is, in order to understand from the beginning the perspective on social reality (including “religion”) that sociology brings.

The Task of Sociology

Very briefly, sociology is the study of the interaction of people in groups and of the influence of those groups on human behavior generally, as well as on society’s other institutions and groups. Thus sociology has a twofold goal:

1. understanding the dynamics of group life—what groups are, how they function, how they change, how they differ from one another; and
2. understanding the influence of groups on individual and collective behavior. One fundamental assumption of sociology implied by this is that groups influence all human activity.

Throughout a person’s lifetime, groups impinge on his or her biological “raw material,” shaping it, modifying it, influencing it—socializing it, to use the sociologists’ term. This process begins with the family and proceeds through the hundreds of educational, associational, peer, and work groups that a person participates in and has contact with throughout his or her lifetime.

In both fundamental senses of the sociological enterprise—explaining group dynamics and explaining group influence—religion qualifies perfectly as a field of sociological study and analysis. Leaving aside for now the question of whether religion is also (or even primarily) an individual phenomenon, it is obviously at least a group phenomenon. Thus, to the extent that religions organize themselves into groups—congregations, denominations, dioceses, cells, fellowships, and so on—an important task for sociology is the study of the structure and functioning of these groups simply as groups. In other words, we want to determine how and to what extent religious groups follow sociological laws governing group life in general. In what ways does a congregation, for example, operate like any other voluntary association—like, say, the League of Women Voters? Or how and to what degree do major religious denominations function like large bureaucracies—like, say, General Motors or the United States Army?

Insofar as religion is organized into groups, it exerts influence not only on its members, but also on nonmembers, and on other groups and institutions. Thus the second dimension of our preliminary definition of sociology—as a study of group influence—suggests that religious groups have at least the potential for influencing people, just as do groups that center around one’s family, peers, or workplace. The question is not so much whether such influence exists but to what degree, in what ways, and how it can be measured.

Central Sociological Assumptions

Human Nature

A number of assumptions made in sociology center around the definition of human nature. Here we shall emphasize three of these assumptions.

First, and perhaps most obviously, a human being is a biological organism, a creature with physiological drives, needs, potentials, and limitations. Thus the socializing influence of groups is both directed at and limited by biological factors. Religion is, of course, among those socializing agents that attempt to influence or modify biological nature. For example, different religious groups have different approaches to, and provide different outlets for, sexual drives. And insofar as people in fact internalize these different emphases—whether they are permissive, compensatory, or restrictive—to that extent people will have different personalities and manifest different values and attitudes. In short, although the sociological perspective rejects notions of biological determinism, it recognizes as openly as possible that the human being has potentialities and limitations that are biologically provided.

Another sociological assumption regarding human nature, which is worth mentioning, is the apparently unique ability of people to symbol. By this we mean the ability arbitrarily to attach specific meanings to things, sounds, words, acts—meanings that are not intrinsic to the items themselves but that people have created. By establishing consensus on these meanings, groups are able to communicate and to accumulate knowledge. Using language as the prime symbolic mechanism, people can deal with abstract concepts and emotions, such as love, justice, and equality, as easily as they can ask someone to pass the potatoes at the dinner table.

The ability to express meanings symbolically is primarily responsible for the variety of groups, cultures, ideologies, and technologies throughout history. There is no activity in which people are engaged that does not involve acts of symbolizing—whether lecturing, voting, making love, or “being religious.” Religion, in fact, consists entirely of symbols and of activities that are interpreted and mediated by symbols. This is true, whether the symbols have empirical referents or not. God, hell, salvation, Star of David, nirvana, guru, and mana—all have meaning to those initiated into a particular symbolic system. The meaning of each of these is not inherent in the word itself or in the combination of sounds, but is supplied by the believer. Even if divine truths have been revealed to people by a supernatural being, those truths have been expressed in human language, or are immediately translated into human language—otherwise the message would have no meaning for people.

Yet another primary sociological assumption about human nature is that people become human only in groups—admittedly a dramatic way of stating that the influence of groups on the human organism through socialization is crucial and far-reaching. We do not propose to debate the academic question of whether the newborn baby is, in fact, human. The point is simply that the newborn infant is not yet very much of what it is going to become, and that what it does become will be largely attributable to socializing influences. One of those socializing influences is religion, which affects everyone, whether or not they are born into a “religious” family, attend Sunday school, or are married by a member of the clergy, and so on. For religion also exerts an indirect influence on people, if only in an inverse way as a negative reference group, or through its influence on secular institutions.

Human Action is Directed toward Problem Solving

A fundamental assumption of sociology is that every human action is in some form and to some degree a problem-solving act or mechanism. Whether working at a job, getting married, planning a party, or genuflecting, the human being is engaged in the process of solving or resolving some existing (present) or anticipated (future) problem. The problem may be how to satisfy a biological need for nourishment, how to achieve victory on the athletic field, or how to get God to help you pass an exam this afternoon. In any case, the person perceives a problem that he or she must solve, either now or, if he or she fails to take appropriate action, in the future.

Religious behavior is problem solving like any other social activity. Praying, attending church services, observing religious laws, and having and talking about “mountaintop experiences,” for example, are all religious activities that contribute in some way (at least from the perspective of the religious participant) toward solving a problem, either existing or anticipated. Note that we are not suggesting (or denying) that religion, in fact, either solves problems or creates them. Rather, our point is that people often engage in religious activities in the belief that such behavior can solve problems or avoid them. Lest there be any misunderstanding, we must emphasize that throughout this book no attempt will be made to determine or question the truth or falsity, the efficacy or inefficacy, of religion in general, of any specific religion in particular, or of anyone’s personal religious beliefs. Engaged as we are in sociological investigation, we are concerned solely with what can be observed, including what people believe exists and happens.

All Social Phenomena are Interrelated

The final sociological assumption we need to clarify, before delving in detail into the sociology of religion, is that all social phenomena within a given group or society are interrelated. That is, all social phenomena are continually interacting, and every part becomes linked with every other, at least in an indirect way. More specifically, part A may not be influenced directly by part F, but F may be having some indirect influence through a chain of other factors or social phenomena called B, C, D, and E. Most important for our purposes, religion interacts with—is in a dynamic reciprocal relationship with—every other social phenomenon and process. Religion both influences them and is influenced by them; religion both acts and reacts, is both an independent variable and dependent variable, both cause and effect. This principle of the continual dialectic, involving religion and other social phenomena, is a central theme of this book, for determining the nature and extent of these mutual influences are key tasks in the sociology of religion.

We have now identified, in at least an introductory way, what sociology is. Now, more specifically, what do we suggest when we say that we are going to study religion as a social phenomenon, that is, take part in an activity called the sociology of religion?

The Sociology of Religion

Asserting that religion is a social phenomenon suggests several things. In the first place, the statement has a nonevaluative intent. Thus we are not going to be able to, nor will we want to, speak about the truth or falsity of religion. Speaking of religion in terms of the good, the true, and the beautiful may be worthwhile and even stimulating for philosophers, theologians, and scientists, even sociologists, in some social situations; but such evaluative assertions take us beyond the scope of science. Sociology that claims to describe reality accurately demands that its practitioners approach their subjects—religion no less than any other (and perhaps more than most)—with all the neutrality and objectivity they can muster.

Of course, no sociologist can always (if ever) be perfectly neutral and objective with regard to his or her subject, let alone one so value-laden and emotionally charged as religion. Studies in the sociology of knowledge, as well as honest discussions that have punctured the myth of a truly “value-free” sociology, have been sufficient to discourage any such pretensions. Nonetheless, a conscious, deliberate striving for neutrality and objectivity must be present—indeed, it should be evident—in any sociological investigation.

The sociology of religion is also empirical—it can only study and reach conclusions about phenomena that are observable. In order to confirm or refute any particular theory, the sociologist must test that theory with relevant empirical observations or data. And since data are by their nature limited to the observable, the measurable, and the quantifiable, whatever elements of religion are spiritual or supernatural, in the sense that they cannot be seen with the eye or otherwise measured or recorded, are by definition beyond the purview of sociology.

Our characterization of the sociology of religion so far, as objective and empirical, can be summed up by stating that the sociology of religion is conducted according to the scientific method. By the scientific method we mean:

1. the systematic search for verifiable data (facts) firmly rooted in prior knowledge and theoretical formulations;
2. the production of evidence as opposed to hearsay, opinion, intuition, or common sense; and
3. the following of procedures that others can verify and replicate (reproduce under essentially identical conditions).

It is at this point that the sociologist of religion encounters probably the most strenuous objection from the religiously committed, which often runs something like:

Since religion is related at its base primarily to the spiritual, the sacred, and often supernatural beings and forces—that is, to forces that are usually unseen—and involves matters of faith and feelings as well, anything the sociologist can say about religion, limited as he or she is to describing the observable, will be at best superficial and unimportant, at worst false and misleading.

J. Milton Yinger has supplied some useful imagery in speaking on this issue. He frames the objection to the empirical study of religion with the question, “How is it possible to see a stained-glass window from the outside?”¹ That is, the beauty and the message or picture of a church’s stained glass window is visible only when one is inside and can see the sunlight shining through. Professor Yinger goes on to note, however, that the view from the inside constitutes only part of what can be learned about the window. Only from the outside, for example, can the viewer appreciate the exterior framework or context within which that window exists. Furthermore, there are, as Yinger suggests, pieces of information potentially important to understanding the significance of the window that have nothing to do with viewing it from the inside (or from the outside, for that matter): who built it, who installed it, who provides for its repair, who goes in to view it from the inside. We can also consider the reason why it was installed, what “outsiders” think of it, how it resembles or differs from other windows, whether the style of newer windows is the same or changing, and so on.

Rather than belaboring the obvious parallel that we are suggesting between this situation and the study of religion, it is enough to note that questions like these can be answered empirically, that they are important questions, and that the answers to them amplify our understanding. Granted, empirical data do not constitute the only information of any importance about religion. Nor can we claim that empirical or observable measures of religion reveal its “essence.” Studying religion empirically places a certain restriction on our ...