Religion, Culture & Society

A Global Approach

Andrew Singleton, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781446202913, 9781446202906
• eBook ISBN: 9781473904491
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology of Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

"The reader is taken on a global exploration of the forms and diversities of religions and their social and cultural contexts... It is up to the minute in research and theory, and comfortably grounded in the traditions of the social explanation of things religious and spiritual."
- Gary Bouma AM, Monash University

"Tells how sociology of religion originated in the work of key nineteenth and twentieth century theorists and then brings the story into the present era of globalization, hybrid spirituality, and the Internet. Students of religion will find this an engaging and informative survey of the field."
- Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University

"It considers the 'big questions' - What is religion? How is religion changing in a modern world? What is the future of religion? – and addresses them through tangible case studies and observations of contemporary life. Its global perspective reflects the breadth, diversity and vibrancy of this field."
- Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Kingston University

This is a rich and dynamic introduction to the varieties of religious life and the central issues in the sociology of religion today. It leads the reader through the key ideas and main debates within the field as well as offering in-depth descriptions and analysis of topics such as secularization, fundamentalism, Pentecostal Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, atheism, 'The spiritual marketplace', digital religion and new religions like Wicca.

Emphasising religion as a global phenomenon, examining especially the ways in which globalization has had an impact on everyday religious life, Singleton has created an illuminating text suitable for students in a wide range of courses looking at religion as a social and cultural phenomenon.

part one

making sense of
religion and religious
change: theoretical
and methodological
approaches

1

what is religion and spirituality?

After reading this chapter you will:

• be able to define religion and spirituality;

• know the seven substantive elements of religion; and

• understand how social scientists study religion.

This book examines religions, spiritualities and faiths in the contemporary world. Due consideration will be given to apparently diverse groups: Christians in Latin America who, during their exuberant services of worship, appear to speak in unknown languages; Buddhists in England who gather each week in someone’s house to meditate; teenage witches in Australia celebrating in spring an ancient, European pagan festival. What do these diverse groups have in common? What makes their activities religious? How would a social scientist study them? This chapter examines the fundamental features of religion and spirituality, and introduces the social scientific way of studying religions.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

Recently I was filling my car with fuel when I noticed that the cashier, whose car was parked out front, had a license plate with the word ‘F’BAHCE’ on it. I was pretty sure I knew what that meant. When I was paying for the fuel, I asked the cashier if he was a supporter of Fenerbahçe, the Turkish football team. He eyed me suspiciously and asked how I knew about this team, living here in Australia, so far away from Turkey. I mentioned that I was a keen student of the world game, and now, in this globalized era, it was easy to follow teams and leagues anywhere in the world. So, I asked him again. Was he a fan of Fenerbahçe? Tears almost welled in his eyes. ‘It’s my life’, he said. This made me wonder: is it his religion?

One of football’s most outstanding exponents, Diego Maradona, reputedly once said, ‘Football isn’t a game, nor a sport, it’s a religion.’ In like manner, a BBC journalist, Stephen Tomkins (2004) wrote: ‘We’re increasingly deserting the church in favour of the pitch. Players are gods, the stands are the pews, football is the new religion.’ Can football – in all its variations – reasonably be described as a religion? Many football fans will declare happily that football is their religion. Football teams have places of ‘worship’, devoted followers, heroes with glorious past deeds, creeds and supporting music. For the individual fan, following a team might give life meaning, purpose and fulfillment. But it seems wrong to declare that football is a religion. Isn’t religion about the transcendent? Believing that there is some being, power or force that is greater than humans?

Substantive and functional definitions of religion

It is important to distinguish between religious and nonreligious phenomena, behavior and meaning systems, otherwise a scholarly investigation of religion ought to treat the powerful social forces of football and, say, Islam equally. To my mind they are far from the same, and I can’t imagine writing a book that covered all the world’s religions and football.

So what makes football and Islam different from each other, and why is one a religion and the other not? Here we must look at definitions of religion. Some scholars feel that defining religion is inherently problematic (e.g. Asad 1993). For these scholars, definitions are either too exclusive or too broad, historically limited or culturally specific, a point I expand upon later. Others have attempted definitions of religion, and while there is considerable variation, they tend to fall into one of two camps: substantive definitions, which describe the ‘substance’ of religions, that is, their distinctive properties or attributes; and functional definitions, which focus on the ‘function’ religions perform in the lives of individuals and communities. Both these ways of defining and understanding religion are helpful for those interested in studying it.

Substantive definitions explained

Most substantive definitions emphasize that religion is about humanity’s relationship with the supernatural, the transcendent or the otherworldly. For example, Australian sociologist Gary Bouma (1992: 17) defines religion as ‘a shared meaning system which grounds its answers to questions of meaning in the postulated existence of a greater environing reality and its related sets of practices and social organization’. This definition draws attention to the fact that religion has a ‘beyond-this-world’ dimension to it. This sets religion apart from other worldly systems of beliefs, values and practices. Marxism, for example, a well-known political ideal and philosophy, is very much focused on the material world. For Marxists, there is no god. Humanity’s problems are caused by social forces and can be resolved through social action.

All religions posit the existence of some kind of transcendence, that is, something greater than the individual and beyond the earthly or natural world. Followers of the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – believe in the existence of a single invisible entity, called variously God, Yahweh or Allah. A belief in this entity is an irreducible part of these religions. The Hindu tradition posits the existence of many gods. Some Buddhist traditions do not believe in the existence of a god or gods; indeed Buddhism is often described as ‘a philosophy of life’. However, Buddhists believe that when humans die they are reborn, a process that occurs many times over. It is possible to break free of this cycle and pass into a state where consciousness ceases to exist. The belief that one can be reborn is a belief in a different order of existence, one that transcends the ‘here and now’. Other Buddhist traditions believe in a complex supernatural world with gods and demons. In contrast, the heroes of football are not gods, but mere mortal men and women. As such, and because it lacks a transcendent or otherworldly dimension, football cannot be counted as a religion.

The transcendent element posited by all religions may or may not exist – a question we can not ultimately answer – but all religions proceed as if this transcendent dimension is real. That said, religion involves more than just a belief in the transcendent; it has several other important elements as well. This will be discussed briefly.

The seven elements of religion

Most readers would be familiar with hip-hop or rap music. For the purists of this musical genre, music is only part of the equation. The culture of hip-hop has five distinct elements: rapping itself, dancing, graffiti, DJing and beat-boxing (drum noises made with mouth). To truly live the hip-hop life, or be immersed in its culture, a person must partake of all of these elements, and do so with other like-minded individuals. So it is with other kinds of social life, such as religion.

In his book Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (1996), renowned scholar Ninian Smart argues that religion has seven elements to it. These are: ritual; mythological; doctrinal; ethical; experiential; social and material. Each of the dimensions are explained below.

Ritual

Religious rituals are deliberate, traditional actions and activities which forge a link between a religious person or religious community and the ‘transcendent’ (that which is beyond). Performing a religious ritual can assist a person to feel some kind of connection – be it intellectual, emotional or physical – to the transcendent. Every religion has distinct rituals. Well-known examples include prayer, Holy Communion, pilgrimage and meditation. Some religious rituals, like the Catholic Mass, or the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Islam’s Holy City of Mecca) are governed by formal rules, while other rituals occur informally and spontaneously, such as the Pentecostal Christian practice of ‘speaking in tongues’. (All of these rituals are discussed later in this book.)

Mythological

Religious myths are the stories and teachings shared among members of a religious group. These stories address topics such as the origins of the universe, ways in which to live, the nature of the universe or a religious group’s history. Calling something a ‘myth’ doesn’t mean it is untrue. Rather, calling it a ‘myth’ signifies that it is a story or teaching that has great social significance. Mostly, religious myths are recorded in sacred or important texts. Latter Day Saints (Mormons), a Christian group, have two sacred texts, the Book of Mormon and the Christian Bible. The Hindu tradition has many important scriptures, including the Bhagavad-Gita. In some religious traditions, myths are shared by word of mouth.

Doctrinal

Religious doctrines are the formal or accepted teachings that govern a religion. Doctrines usually address matters of belief, practice or morality. If you attended a Catholic school you will recall reciting the Nicene Creed during Mass: ‘We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God …’. This statement of belief was first formulated in the fourth century CE. For Catholics, the sources of doctrine are scripture (the Bible) and tradition (the constant teaching of the Church). The same is true of most religions.

Ethical

Followers of a religion are expected to obey a code of ethics. These are the values and standards of behavior expected of the faithful (or even of all humans). For example, Muslims are required to refrain from consuming alcohol and to eat meat that has been prepared according to stringent guidelines (Halal meat). Many evangelical Christian teenagers in the United States will formally pledge not to have sex before marriage as part of the ‘True Love Waits’ program. Some Buddhist traditions insist that people should not eat meat. Following a code of ethics enables the believer to draw closer to the transcendent – in this life, or the next.

Experiential

Via rituals and other means, religions facilitate religious experiences, that is, ‘direct, subjective experiences of ultimate reality and supernatural agency’ (Yamane and Polzer 1994: 2). For Hindus, this might be achieved by walking in a circular fashion around the inside of a temple, a ritual that draws them closer to the particular deity that resides there. Among the snake-handling Pentecostal churches of the American South, a moment of transcendence might be achieved by holding a deadly copperhead snake, an act which, done successfully (i.e. no deadly bite), leads believers to consider themselves ‘anointed’ by God.

Social

Religion is a profoundly social enterprise – it is not something conceived of and practiced by just one person. One of the earliest sociologists, Frenchman Emile Durkheim, called the collective, shared component of religion the ‘Church’, not in the Christian sense, but more broadly: ‘A society whose members are united by the fact that they think in the same way in regard to the sacred world and its relations with the profane world, and by the fact that they translate these common ideas into common practices’ (Durkheim 1912/1995: 42–3). Humans practice religion together, agree on important beliefs together and have organizations and institutions (like churches or mosques) that assist individuals to encounter the transcendent.

Material

All religions have a material dimension: sacred spaces, objects and places, whether it be a temple, a place in a forest or a statue. In some religions, temples, places or statues are of utmost importance, as deities are thought to reside there. For other religions, buildings are simply a place to gather and worship. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show two very different kinds of worship places in contemporary Australia.

Figure 1.1 Example of a place of worship (I): a traditional Australian ‘bush’ church

Source: The author

Figure 1.2 Example of a place of worship (II): statue of Mazu the Heavenly Queen, a Chinese folk religion deity

Source: The author

These seven elements, along with the posited existence of the transcendent, represent the substance of any religion. People who partake in these dimensions are those we describe as religious (although the strength of this commitment can vary); the involvement and meaning it has for them in their everyday life is their religiosity. Drawing attention to the substantive features of religion is useful because it sensitizes us to some of things the social scientific study of religion typically examines: religious belief, ritual, experience, ethics and social organization.

Functional definitions explained

Functional definitions are helpful too, pointing to the various functions that religion performs for individuals, religious communities and the larger society. The prominent anthropologist of religion, Clifford Geertz (1966), offered this definition:

[Religion is] … (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men [sic] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. (Geertz 1966: 3)

Here, religion is something that establishes ‘long-lasting moods and motivations’ among people by relating aspects of everyday life to something transcendent. At the individual level studies have shown that religious faith can contribute to, and promote, wellbeing, personal security and social connectedness (for examples see Kinnvall 2004; McClain-Jacobson et al. 2004). Religion can also motivate people to be altruistic and civically minded (for examples see Smith and Denton 2005; Mason et al. 2007).

Religion has a broader impact beyond influencing individual lives. I noted above that a key element of religion is ritual. Durkheim (1912/1995) argued that ‘collective effervescence’ is generated in the midst of large religious ceremonies or during religious rituals. The experience of collective effervescence can unite members of the same religion and reinforce group solidarity and collective identity. One notable example of a massed religious ritual that has this effect is the yearly Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj.

Doctrines and beliefs can also function to consolidate and strengthen the identity of a religious community. For example, many religions have clearly defined concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Pentecostals, a modern Christian movement, believe that the forces of good and evil are engaged in a real spiritual war, fought in an unseen, spiritual realm populated by angels and demons, God and the devil. This spiritual war may manifest itself in the material world through demon possession or personal misfortune. Prayer from faithful believers can influence activity in both the spiritual and material realms. Pentecostals also believe that God has won this war for all time, even though small battles still rage. Because of this sense of victory many Pentecostal Christians believe that their worldview is right and that those who share their worldview – their community – are truly God’s people (see Singleton 2001a). This is just one example of how belief strengthens community.

Arguably, football can perform these different functions for both individuals and communities. Following one’s team each week can provide meaning, purpose and act as a comfort in times of trouble. If a team beats its fierce rivals in a closely fought match – be it Real Madrid vs. Barcelona or the Alabama Crimson Tide vs. the Auburn Tigers – the experience of the match and the ecstasy of victory might engender among supporters a profound sense of ‘collective effervescence’ that solidifies the belief that theirs is the greatest of clubs. But this is not religion: religions link the world of the everyday with some ‘truly transcendent being, force or principle’ (Bouma 1992: 15). Football doesn’t forge a link with some greater transcendent reality; it simply makes the everyday more worthwhile for those who love it.

T...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Advertisement
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Religion, Culture and Society
• PART I MAKING SENSE OF RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES
• PART II WINDS OF CHANGE: RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD
• References
• Index