Sociological Theories of Religion

12 Key excerpts on "Sociological Theories of Religion"

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  Invitation to the Sociology of Religion

  • Phil Zuckerman(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (2002 [1904]). In this classic study, Weber explores the ways in which specific Protestant/Calvinist religious beliefs played a decisive role in the development of modern western capitalism.

  4.  Sociologists study social patterns .

  Do women attend religious services more often than men? Are blacks more likely to believe in the existence of Satan than whites? Do Jews tend to vote more liberal than Christians? Do religious people divorce less frequently than the nonreligious? Sociologists of religion have their work cut out for them in exploring the plethora of patterns that emerge concerning religion in society. The most hotly debated topic within the sociology of religion during the past decade has revolved around a basic question of one particular social pattern: whether or not people are more or less religious today than they were in the past—the matter of secularization (Swatos and Olson 2000; Bruce 1992).

  5.  Sociologists understand that an individual can be truly understood only within his or her sociohistorical context .

  To put it simply, an individual can be a member of a particular religion only if that religion exists when he or she does. Furthermore, geography (where a person exists) is key (Park 1994). An individual born in Sri Lanka is much more likely to be Buddhist than an individual born in Honduras, who will most likely be Catholic (O’Brien and Palmer 1993). My friend Kent describes himself as “nothing” in terms of a religious identity. But he isn’t “nothing” in a sociohistorical vacuum. His parents were also “nothing”; they didn’t raise Kent with any particular religious education or involvement. Furthermore, Kent grew up in a largely secular enclave and attended school in west Los Angeles with few overtly religious kids or teachers. Additionally, Kent lives in a time in history and within a culture in which religion isn’t imperative, lack of religion isn’t illegal or suspect, and being “nothing” is considered quite normal. In short, an individual’s personal religious identity (or lack thereof) is greatly influenced by where, when, and among whom that individual lives.

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  Sociological Theory and the Question of Religion

  • Andrew McKinnon, Marta Trzebiatowska(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Introduction Thinking Theoretically in the Sociology of Religion

  Andrew McKinnon and Marta Trzebiatowska DOI: 10.4324/9781315609775-1

  In the classical sociological tradition, the analysis of religion lies – if not at the very heart of the entire enterprise, as it does in Weber and in the late Durkheim – then as the fundamental starting point, as it is in Marx. The recent ‘post-secular turn’ in social theory notwithstanding, religion no longer occupies the same privileged location within the sociological enterprise (though it is undoubtedly more marginal in Britain compared to North America). While this development is not entirely inexplicable, the gaps that have been left behind has left the discipline as a whole under-prepared for thinking about religion in the wake of new issues, movements and events that have reminded us that religion is far from a spent force in the world (Chapter 1 , this volume).

  If religion has been marginalised within the mainstream of the discipline, we have often found ourselves distressed by the limited engagement on the part of sociologists of religion with fundamental issues of sociological theory, many colleagues seeming to prefer studying religion as a phenomenon that demands attention, but which can be studied without being overly concerned about reflection on other aspects of social life or indeed with the social whole in which religion is located. In short, the sociology of religion often seems bereft of sociological theory. The increasing disengagement of sociology of religion from the ‘mainstream’ of the discipline (again, a phenomenon much more marked in the English-speaking world in Britain than in North America) seemed to us intellectually disastrous for the sub-discipline, and was the major impetus for both the conference from which these chapters stem, and the present volume in equal measure.

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  An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion

  Classical and Contemporary Perspectives

  • Inger Furseth, Pål Repstad(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  This book presents several Sociological Theories of Religion. Some theories complement each other and can be combined, whereas others are more or less mutually exclusive. Here, we will briefly introduce the most common schools found in contemporary sociology. We mentioned above that sociology tends primarily to be either actor-oriented or structure-oriented. Some sociologists emphasize the human actor’s ability to act and change social structures. These theorists focus on how individuals create society (sociology “from below”). Other theorists argue that society forms the individual (sociology “from above”). These two positions also appear in the sociology of religion. A current issue is, for example, how anchored or disembedded individuals are in relation to established religious traditions.

  Furthermore, a common distinction is found between an idealistic and a materialistic perspective. This debate centers on the question as to which social conditions are fundamental and determinate for individuals and society. Two classical sociologists represent relatively opposite views on this issue: in danger of becoming too schematic, we may say that Karl Marx saw the development of religion largely as a reflection of economic conditions, whereas Max Weber attempted to demonstrate that religion in itself could determine the economic development in a given historical context (see Chapter 3 ). We must add, however, that both of them also included the mutual interdependence of material and ideal factors in their analyses.

  Furthermore, a few sociological theories tend to be oriented towards a harmonic view of society, whereas other theories focus on social conflict. Several theories belong in the middle, as they attempt to combine the two perspectives. Karl Marx is often described as a theorist of social conflict, although he had an extensive interest in solidarity and community. Talcott Parsons (Section 3.7) is frequently characterized as a harmony-oriented classical sociologist. Indeed, Parsons argued that religion contributes to social integration. Yet he was far from blind to the possibility that religion also can represent a source of conflict. In spite of these modifications, the distinction between harmony- and conflict-oriented sociology continues to be meaningful, because sociologists tend to disagree on the fundamental nature of conflict in society. Conflict theorists will view order and harmony as superficial entities. They maintain that underneath a surface of apparent harmony, there is a form of balance of power or oppression of the weaker party. Whereas harmony theorists view conflict as undesirable, conflict theorists look at existing social conditions with suspicion.

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  Beyond Belief

  Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditionalist World

  • Robert N. Bellah(Author)
  • 1991(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  They have studied the relation between religion and other areas of social life, such as economics, politics, and social class. And finally, they have studied religious roles, organizations, and movements. This article is concerned primarily with the theoretical study of religion and secondarily with the relation between religion and the social struc-ture. Historical Background The sociological study of religion has grown out of and remains inextricably related to the much broader effort to understand the phenomenon of religion that has been made by scholars in many fields, especially since the eighteenth century in the West and more recently in other parts of the world. Theologians, philosophers, historians, philologists, literary critics, political scientists, anthro-pologists, and psychologists have all made contributions. In un-Thh chapter was written for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences during 1963, while I was at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, Calif., (Pull references for the initial publication of this and succeeding chapters can he found in the Bibliography to this book.) The rubric was given by the encyclopedia but the contents indicate considerable uneasiness with a narrowly disciplinary approach to religion. What I attempted was in fact a condensed statement of a general theory of religion, not one specifi-cally sociological. The immediate theoretical resources came from Karl Deutsch, a political scientist, as well as Talcott Parsons, a sociologist, and I cited a key definition from Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist. Among those I single out as especially promising theoretical innovators are Erik Erikson, a psychologist, and Kenneth Burke, a literary critic interested in symbolism, as well as Philip Slater, a sociologist of small groups. I

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  The Promise of Salvation

  A Theory of Religion

  • Martin Riesebrodt, Steven Rendall(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  71 8 c h a p t e r f o u r Religious Practice and the Promise of Salvation: Outline of a Theory of Religion I t is now time to draw conclusions from the preceding discussions and sketch the outlines of my theory of religion. To that end, I will discuss three elements in the construction of the theory: defining religion, under-standing it, and explaining it. I begin by formulating my position in the manner of a thesis, which I then proceed to explain in greater detail in the course of this chapter. First, I note that only a content-oriented definition based on the mean-ing of religious action allows us adequately to delimit religion as a universal social phenomenon. Like other social phenomena, religion cannot be satis-factorily explained without its meaning being understood. Reference to its actual or presumed effects on society does not represent a definition of re-ligion, since such reference infers the origin from the function and thus ar-gues metaphysically, as if everything were arranged by an “invisible hand.” Religion can be grasped theoretically only if its specific meaning clearly distinguishes it from other types of social action. This specific meaning lies in its relation to personal or impersonal superhuman powers, that is, to powers that control or influence what escapes human control. 1 Only an interpretive, that is, a meaning-oriented theory of action, is capable of bridging the gap between religious internal perspectives and sci-entific external perspectives. Explanations that ignore internal perspectives have to justify the outside point of view they adopt. In contrast, interpretive explanations arrive at their external perspective by abstracting and system-atizing internal perspectives, and thus claim no privileged or even objective status for themselves. Instead, they transform internal perspectives into an external perspective, which differs from the internal perspectives but does not contradict them.

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  Readings in the Sociology of Religion

  The Commonwealth and International Library: Readings in Sociology

  • Joan Brothers, A. H. Richmond(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  Religion and Sociological Theory P A R T III This page intentionally left blank The Theoretical Development of the Sociology of Religion A Chapter in the History of Modern Social Science' T . PARSONS T H E present p a p e r will a t t e m p t to present in b r o a d outline w h a t seems to the writer one of the most significant chapters in the recent history of sociological theory, t h a t dealing with the b r o a d e r structure of the conceptual scheme for the analysis of religious p h e n o m e n a as p a r t of a social system. Its principal significance w o u l d seem to lie on two levels. I n the first place, the development to be outlined represents a notable a d v a n c e in the a d e q u a c y of our theoretical e q u i p m e n t to deal with a critically i m p o r t a n t r a n g e of scientific problems. Secondly, however, it is at the s a m e time a particularly good illustration of the kind of process by which major theoretical developments in the field of social theory c a n be expected to take place. Every i m p o r t a n t tradition of scientific t h o u g h t involves a b r o a d framework of theoretical propositions at a n y given stage of its development. Generally speaking, differences will b e found only in the degree to which this framework is logically integrated a n d to which it is explicitly a n d self-consciously acknowledged a n d analyzed. A b o u t the m i d d l e of the last century or shortly there-after, it is p e r h a p s fair to say, generalized thinking a b o u t the 1 This paper was presented to the Conference on Methods in Philosophy and the Sciences at the New School for Social Research, New York, November 29, 1942. 71 72 T. PARSONS significance of religion to h u m a n life tended to fall into one of two m a i n categories. T h e first i- *Jie body of thought a n c h o r e d in the doctrinal positions of one or another specific religious group, p r e d o m i n a n t l y of course the various Christian denominations.

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  Readings in the Sociology of Religion

  The Commonwealth and International Library: Readings in Sociology

  • Joan Brothers, A. H. Richmond(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  P A R T III Religion and Sociological Theory This page intentionally left blank The Theoretical Development of the Sociology of Religion A Chapter in the History of Modern Social Science' T . PARSONS T H E present p a p e r will a t t e m p t to present in b r o a d outline w h a t seems to the writer one of the most significant chapters in the recent history of sociological theory, t h a t dealing with the b r o a d e r structure of the conceptual scheme for the analysis of religious p h e n o m e n a as p a r t of a social system. Its principal significance w o u l d seem to lie on two levels. I n the first place, the development to be outlined represents a notable a d v a n c e in the a d e q u a c y of our theoretical e q u i p m e n t to deal with a critically i m p o r t a n t range of scientific problems. Secondly, however, it is at the s a m e time a particularly good illustration of the kind of process by which major theoretical developments in the field of social theory c a n b e expected to take place. Every i m p o r t a n t tradition of scientific t h o u g h t involves a b r o a d framework of theoretical propositions at a n y given stage of its development. Generally speaking, differences will be found only in the degree to which this framework is logically integrated a n d to which it is explicitly a n d self-consciously acknowledged a n d analyzed. A b o u t the middle of the last century or shortly there-after, it is p e r h a p s fair to say, generalized thinking a b o u t the 1 This paper was presented to the Conference on Methods in Philosophy and the Sciences at the New School for Social Research, New York, November 29, 1942. 71 72 T. PARSONS significance of religion to h u m a n life tended to fall into one of two m a i n categories. T h e first is the body of thought anchored in the doctrinal positions of one or another specific religious group, p r e d o m i n a n t l y of course the various Christian denominations.

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  Theology and Religious Studies in Higher Education

  Global Perspectives

  • D.L. Bird, Simon G. Smith(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 7 Towards a Socio-cultural, Non-theological Definition of Religion James L. Cox Introduction This chapter contends that the academic study of religions is undertaken not to achieve any number of worthy or noble ends, such as fostering world peace, encouraging inter-religious dialogue, elevating dispossessed peoples to positions of power or to substantiate philosophical or theo-logical arguments. Rather, its aim is to provide a framework for identifying those human activities which can be called ‘religion’, and to make asser-tions about such activities that can be tested empirically. For this reason, a proper understanding of the relationship between the academic study of religions and theology depends on the way religion is defined. In this chapter, the author proposes a two-pronged definition. One part focuses on the beliefs and experiences which identifiable communities postulate about non-falsifiable alternate realities and the other, following the French sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger, examines religion as the authoritative transmission of tradition. The chapter concludes that by defining religion in these ways, notions of theological essentialism are uprooted from their longstanding association with the study of religions, thereby firmly situat-ing religious studies among the social sciences. I have chosen to present a religious studies perspective on the topic by proposing what I am calling a socio-cultural, non-essentialist definition of religion. I regard a definition as an appropriate starting place, because, in my view, much confusion has been generated by the so-called ‘object’ of the study of religions, which in turn has led to further confusion about methods appropriate to religious studies. By clarifying the meaning of reli-gion, I hope to decouple the category from its longstanding association with theology.

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  The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion

  • Richard K. Fenn(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Anthropologists, while still focus-ing more often on socioeconomically marginalized groups and cultures, are now increasingly doing their work in all parts of the world, not just in those geo-graphically separate from the dominant West. The difference between “here” and “elsewhere” is no longer clear. In effect, many social scientists have come to the realization that a world society has been emerging for quite some time, and that in this context cross-cultural work takes on a new and somewhat different importance: it is an unavoidable task if we are to understand how the obvious social and cultural differences that exist around the world can still be part of a single social unit; and vice versa, how we are to understand and, indeed, main-tain differences if there is now but one worldwide society. The new situation – or perhaps better, the new realization – does not mean that the social sciences have been entirely wrong in their approaches, including their approach to religion. What it does imply is that an adequate social theory for understanding religion in the contemporary world has to revisit and in many cases seriously revise some of the most basic assumptions of the past. The cross-cultural study of religion, like cross-cultural work more generally, will undergo a corresponding transformation. That said, we can now turn to a closer look at how this broad context has manifested itself in social theories of religion. Sociological and Anthropological Conceptions of Religion Most introductory textbooks in the sociology of religion begin with a discussion of definitions, noting the lack of agreement and the many definitions, and gen-RELIGION IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 421 erally dividing these into two types, substantive and functional. Briefly, substan-tive definitions focus on what religion is , whereas functional definitions try to say what religion does. Anthropologists and sociologists have each offered several of both varieties.

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  Religion in the Context of Globalization

  Essays on Concept, Form, and Political Implication

  • Peter Beyer(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  My purpose in beginning with this brief genealogy of theoretical development is not just to situate the present volume, but more importantly to underline that it represents elements of an ongoing project, one which had earlier phases and is on the way to subsequent ones. Such continuing development is not by any means just a matter of internal dynamics, a question of the theory generating its own transformation on the basis of its own structure and logic, like some intellectual fruit ripening to maturity (or dying on the vine). Theoretical research, like any research, responds to the emergence of new evidence, or new data, which not only “tests” the theory, but just as importantly brings about a reconsideration of all the existing evidence that the theory has attempted to interpret thus far. The theoretical observer imagines his or her efforts in a changing context of observation, and it is the changes in that context that are responsible for theoretical revisions and transformations as much as “further reflection”. That context, of course, includes the theoretical observations of others as well as new events in the world around us.

  The present collection ends with three chapters that address aspects of the relations between the religious and the political domains in the context of contemporary global society. One focuses on the “official conceptions” of religion, those understandings of the idea of religion that have become integral to public policy and how religion is regulated in different states. Another looks at how these conceptions almost always end up privileging one or a very few religions over others, or how one or two religions serve as implicit or explicit models for judging and regulating all religion. The third examines the way the term “fundamentalism” has come to be used primarily for religious movements that assert or seek a determinative role in the functioning of states. Together they point to the way that the relation between religions and states is a special one in global society, both intimate and problematic or controversial. Together they also point to the need to go beyond their arguments.

  A strong direction that has developed in the social-scientific observation of religion over the past two to three decades resonates with the emphasis of these chapters. Under headings like “desecularization” (Berger, 1999), “religious resurgence” (Antoun and Hegland, 1987; Robertson and Chirico, 1985; Sahliyeh, 1990; Westerlund, 1996; Zeidan, 2003), “revenge of God” (Kepel, 1994) or even the suggestion that we are living in an increasingly “post-secular” age (Habermas, 2010; Molendijk et al., 2010), an increasing number of observers have been asserting the renewed importance of religion, not just in a supposed increase in the presence of religion but also in the implication of that religion in the “public sphere”, meaning mostly the political domain and the state. My own work before the period covered by the pieces that make up this collection went much in the same direction, albeit quite cautiously (Beyer, 1994). Both in contrast and in resonance with these sorts of intervention, however, a parallel observational stream during the same period has been emphasizing a different kind of transformation of religion, one in which the authoritative and clearly institutionalized forms of “religions” that inform, for instance, virtually all so-called “fundamentalisms”, make room for and even give way to much more fluid, individualistic, “unofficial” (McGuire, 2002), and “spiritual” forms of religiousness (Batstone, 2001; Carrette and King, 2005; Siobhan Chandler, 2008; Flanagan and Jupp, 2007; Hanegraaff, 2001; Heelas et al

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  Supernatural as Natural

  A Biocultural Approach to Religion

  • Michael Winkelman, John R. Baker(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The structural–functional approach of Evans-Pritchard does not fully embrace Durkheim’s view that religion is defined by the sacred, nor does it completely reject the intellectualist view that religion is a belief in supernatural beings. His work shows how religious beliefs are related to the structures of society. He argues that this is the influence of social structure on religion, rather than a social determination of the beliefs and ideas regarding spirits.

  Religion as a Cultural System

  In his classic article “Religion as a Cultural System,” Clifford Geertz (1966) integrates the intellectualist concern over the explanatory role of religion with the functionalist perspective. In doing so, Geertz provides a broad and all-encompassing definition of religion that incorporated the intellectual, emotional, symbolic, and social aspects of religion as part of the total world-view of a culture. Geertz’s definition, which has resonated with many anthropologists, sees religion as “(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of actuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz 1966).

  A key aspect of Geertz’s conception of religion is its role as a symbol system—a system of interconnected meanings that function to express the essence of a culture’s worldview and ethos, encompassing such diverse domains as morals, character, values, aesthetics, and cosmology. The principal function of religion is to illustrate the conformance between everyday life and the ideal view of the Universe that is depicted in a culture’s cosmology. Religious rituals provide mechanisms to make this connection emotionally convincing, giving people a certainty that the general principles in which they believe actually operate in the Universe. Religion projects a cosmic order that serves as a general model of the Universe, and then socializes human beings to help to ensure that people’s morals, emotions, and judgments conform to these ideals.

  Symbol System

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  Perspectives on New Religious Movements

  • John A. Saliba(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Further, instead of concentrating largely on the psychological and personal aspects of involvement, many sociologists have drawn atten-tion to the grave social implications that might follow a legally sanctioned anti-cult stand. They have stressed the importance of religious freedom in a pluralistic society and have contended that any legal curtailment of the new religious movements threatens it. Their defense of religious freedom has regrettably been interpreted as a pro-cult stance. 57 THE RELEVANCE OF SOCIOLOGY FOR UNDERSTANDING THE NEW RELIGIONS The issues discussed above are expressive of a deep division between two incompatible approaches to, and interpretations of, the new religious movements. The debates have assumed a crusading spirit that has intensified the split between the two groups of scholars studying the new religions. Rarely do members of each camp partici-pate in joint conferences or discussions. Consequently, it would be unrealistic at this stage to hope for a quick and easy resolution to the problems discussed in this chapter. Sociological perspective 129 The sociological approach to the new religions is based on well-established academic principles and, in spite of some weaknesses, has many advantages. The impartial stance of sociologists and their refusal to pass theological judgments should, in fact, be recom-mended as a necessary initial step to understanding the new religions. The neglect of sociological studies by those who have embarked on an anti-cult campaign has contributed to the hysteria that so frequently characterizes the public responses to the new religious movements. The responsibility of making theological evalu-ations belongs to theologians, who are called upon to interpret and evaluate the beliefs and practices of the new religious movements in the context of their respective faiths.

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