108 Religion & Society

Functional Theories of Religion

Emile Durkheim

Social Solidarity

• “Elementary Forms of Religious Life”
• totemic rituals - Australian aborigines
  • group unity
• Collective worship $⟹$ collective conscience
• individuals feel part of moral community
• religion promotes integration, sustain social order

Bronisaw Maliwonski

“Magic, Science and Religion”

• religion as response to emotional stress during life crises
  • birth, death, illness
• rituals provide comfort, control anxiety; social cohesion
• psychological stabilizer
• individuals cope with uncertainty

Talcott Parsons

• religion gives general moral guidelines & ultimate meanings
  • to give legitimacy to social order
• value consensus
• guiding individual conduct
• aligning personal goals with collective norms
• help society adapt to change by providing framework of moral continuity

Criticism of functional theory

• neglect of conflict & division
  • sectarian violence
  • RK Merton: religion can be dysfunctional - confilct
• Marxist critique: ideological control
  • opium of people
  • illusory hope, prevents revolution by legitimizing authority
  • supports status quo by sanctifying interests of ruling class
• feminist: patriarchy
  • Simone de Beauvoir - women subordinated in most faiths despite being central to religious socialisation
  • men hold position of authority
• Weberian: religion as agent of change
  • PESC - religion can be source of transformation, not just stability
• Symbolic interactionist: religion as meaning making
  • Peter Berger: religion as socially constructed reality
  • religion thus operates more at micro level of personal identity rather than macro level of social order

Religious Fundamentalism

Gabriel Almond et al.

discernible pattern of religious militancy by which self style true believers attempt to arrest the erosion of religious identity and fortify the borders of religious community.

reactionary response to rapid social change

Steve Bruce: fundamentalism as reaction to modernism

3 interrelated processes of modernization that trigger fundamentalism

• differentiation
• rationalisation
• egalitarianism
  These processes perceived as threatening ability of religion believers to reproduce themselves and their traditions.

Fundamentalism emerges as effort to restore moral order, sacred authority.

Other factors:

• text based religions
• decentralized authority
• relative deprivation among social groups feeling excluded by modernization

Gabriel Almond: Modernization & Leadership

trace causes of fundamentalism at 2 levels

• Structural level
  • secularization
  • economic inequality
  • edu, media provides new tools for religious fundamentalists to spread their message
  • western imperialism (perceived cultural dominance)
• agency and leadership
  • ideological catalysts eg. Ayatollah Khomeini
  • Organizers and coalition builders
    Broader socialogical causes:
• globalization
• identity crises in pluralistic societies
• weak civil society
• political manipulation by elites to mobilize people on religious lines

Globalization

Definition

Increasing interconnectedness of societies, across economic, cultural, political and technological domains.

• transcends national boundaries
• high flow of info, capital, culture

Dimension	Impact	Scholar
Economic	transnational corpo, global markets, institutions eg. WTO, IMF	Kenichi Ohmae: Nations mere fragments of a borderless global economy
Political	Supranational orgs eg. UN, WTO, EU, dilute state authority, policy making, governance	Held & McGrew: states part of complex web of multilayered governance
Tech	ICT, SM, global commn erode territoriality; allow transnational mobilization, digital citizenship	Manual Castells: emergence of network society (power flows thru info rather than territory)
Cultural	global cultural exchange challenge trad basis of national sovereignty	Anthony Giddens: globalization transforms everyday life & extends local interdependence

Anthony McGrew: states are not disappearing, but restructuring and adapting to global inter dependence rather than yielding to it.

Impact on national identity

• weakening
  • cultural homogenization (western media, multinational)
  • standardization of lifestyle
  • Kenichi Ohame: borderless world
  • global citizenship, cosmopolitanism
• strengthening / reassertion
  • reactionary: reassert ethnic, linguistic, religious identities
  • Anthony D Smith: nationalism has shown remarkable adaptability eg. global forums to revive traditional symbols eg. Yoga day
• Hybrid / multiple identitiy
  • Andrew Pilkington: dual pressures of globalization:
  • centralization thru supranational bodies eg. EU, WTO
  • decentralization thru ethnic & local assertions

Stuart Hall: “new ethnicities”: hybrid identities - global-local fusion

Anthony Giddens: globalization is a runaway world

• transforms
• but doesn’t obliterate traditional structures

Religion vs Science

Secularism

Bryan Wilson

Secularization is process by which religious thinking, practices and institutions lose their social significance.

classical sociologist $\to$ secularization is natural consequence of modernization. It therefore reflects a broader transformation in the relationship b/w religion & modern social institutions

Dimensions

• decline in temple / church / mosque attendance
  • lower participation in institutional religion
• differentiation of institutions
  • reduced church’s authority (steve bruce)
• Increasing religious pluralism (rise of sects, denominations)
  • “religious values no longer represent the whole community”
• Secularization of religious institutions
  • secular / philanthropic activities - build school, hospital
  • focus on worldly concerns rather than purely spiritual salvation
  • Max weber: “Disenchantment of the World”
• privatization of faith / individualism in religion
  • Robert Bellah: Sheilaism - not a decline but only privatization
• Desacralisation: people act on rational / empirical motivation rather than religious ones.