Sociologists Paper 2 - Religion

What did Weber argue?

Religion is a belief in a supernatural power such as God that lacks a scientific explanation.

Religion was one of the causes of the rise of capitalism. Religious people were concerned their fate in the afterlife was predetermined, and through Calvinism, they lived in asceticism and self discipline, not using the money they earn for their pleasures, benefitting capitalists as a result

New Religious Movements offer a solution to marginalisation by providing a ‘Theodicy of Deprivilege’, a religious explanation for their suffering, explaining suffering as a test of faith

What did Durkheim argue?

Religion helps social integration and bringing people together

Sacred symbols such as totems represent collective consciousness, worshipping the same norms and values that make society work

What did Aldridge argue?

The community doesn’t have to be in a particular area to thrive, with Muslim communities being all over the world.

What did Malinowski argue?

Religion can provide comfort, explanation and meaning during times of life crisis and during important yet uncontrollable and uncertain events

What did Parsons argue?

Sees religion as a way of life that answers life’s biggest questions.

Separate, specialised institutions are developed to carry out functions previously performed by a single institution, meaning that religion has now become a specialised institution

What did Bellah argue?

American society is unified by an overarching civil religion that is loyal to the USA, such as through children in school pledging allegiance to the flag and singing the national anthem

What did Marx argue?

Religion is used as an ideological weapon by the ruling class to justify the suffering of the poor, which:

Cushion the pain of oppression for the working class

Justifies the power of the middle class

Nationalism prevents capitalism being overthrown through dividing the international working class, encouraging workers to believe they have more in common with the capitalists in their country than with workers of other countries, enabling the ruling class to persuade the working class to fight wars on their behalf.

What did Lenin argue?

Religion is used as a spiritual gin, the ruling class use religion to manipulate the masses to keep them in a ‘mystical fog’ that obscures reality, not thinking for themselves in a battle against capitalism.

What did Hoverd and Sibley argue?

In New Zealand, religious people living in deprived areas have higher subjective well being than non religious people living in the same place

What did Maduro argue?

Priests in South America in the 60s and 70s played major roles in fighting military dictatorship, showing that religion can be used to fight oppression

What did De Beauvoir argue?

‘Man is master by divine right’ in most religions

What did Woodhead argue?

Catholic Churches oppose equality through banning contraception, abortion, women’s access to the priesthood and the traditional role of women being encouraged

The New Age allows women to create a third sphere, the individual sphere, which is concerned with individual growth and autonomy.

What did Armstrong argue?

Early forms of religion such as those found in the Middle East 6000 years ago placed women at the centre through female Gods and priestesses. It was the rise of monotheism and powerful male Gods that led to the patriarchal values we see in religion today

What did El Saadawi argue?

It is society, not religion, that is patriarchal. Religion is recontextualised to be patriarchal as a result of society

What did Bruce argue?

The black clergy was the backbone of the American Civil Rights movement, and it was successful in shaming whites into changing the law through appealing to their shared Christian values, seeing religion as an ideological source (e.g. Highlighting the hypocrisy of ‘Love thy Neighbour’ if black people won’t be treated with respect).

However, The New Christian Right did not bring social change due to campaigners not cooperating with others with different beliefs, lacking the widespread support from wider society and the democratic and liberal values of the American society.

Stable rate of self reporting has masked the decline of people going to church

Growth of technological worldview explains why things happen, such as a plane crash being due to a technological explanation and not due to God’s punishment.

If people are no longer willing to go to church, it reflects the declining strength of their beliefs.

Women are more likely to turn to sects due to Organismic Deprivation (Physical and Mental Health problems as women are more likely to fall ill), Ethical Deprivation (Women are more likely to be morally conservative, saying the world is in an ethical decline) and Social Deprivation (Women are more likely to be poor) as they want to find compensation

What did Lehmann argue?

Liberation Theology: Offers an option for the poor of community consciousness-raising and campaigning for social change

Pentecostalism: Offers an option of the poor for the individual to pull themselves out of poverty through hard work.

What did Wilson argue?

In 1962, 65% of Americans attended church on Sundays. Churchgoing in America was more of an expression of the ‘American way of life’. Argues America is becoming secular as religion there has become superficial just for the vibe of going to Church.

Move from preindustrial to industrial society means there’s less of a community, shared values once expected through collective religious rituals is now gone.

What did Lynd and Lynd argue?

94% of church going young people agreed Christianity is the one true religion and everyone should be converted into it in 1924.

In 1977, only 41% agreed.

What did Popper argue?

Science is an ‘open’ belief system, every scientist’s theory is open to scrutiny.

What did Horton argue?

Closed belief systems aim to have special, perfect knowledge of the absolute truth and can not be questioned.

What did Evans-Pritchard argue?

Witchcraft and curses actually promote social solidarity, as they encourage neighbours to be nice to eachother so that they don’t get accused of witchcraft.

What did Kuhn argue?

Scientific Revolutions question and undermine paradigm if the paradigm has accumulations of anomie

What did Knorr-Cenita argue?

Inventions of new instruments such as telescopes allow scientists to construct or fabricate new facts.

What did Woolgar argue?

Scientists must decide what evidence means, and must convince other scientists to believe their theory

What did Abercrombie et al argue?

Economic factors such as fear of unemployment keep workers from rebelling

What did Marks argue?

Ideas from science justify excluding women from science, quoting doctors, scientists and educationalists who say that if women went to science, it would ‘disqualify women from their true vocation’, which is nurturing the next generation

What did Gramsci argue?

Workers have dual consciousness - A mixture of ruling-class ideology and ideas that they develop from their own experiences of exploitation. This means that they can break free and overthrow capitalism

What did Mannheim argue?

Intellectuals have a one-sided partial view of the world. They should detach from social groups and create an overall worldview, piecing together ideological and utopian thought through becoming ‘free-floating intelligentsia’

What did Davie argue?

Religion isn’t declining but changing to promote individualism and choice, such as baptism in England and France now no longer being mandatory

Religion is also taking a more privatised form, where people are more reluctant to belong to organisations such as churches, which is called ‘believing without belonging’

Fundamentalism seeks to establish certainty against what they see as social and cultural chaos, feeling threatened by modernity

Religious Fundamentalists are now going against science and the ‘Enlightenment project’, arguing that technology has caused more problems than solved, such as climate change and antibiotic resistance

What did Voas and Crockett argue?

Evidence from 5750 respondents shows that both church attendance and belief in God is declining, showing that people are not believing nor belonging.

What did Day argue?

People are ‘believing in belonging’, they only describe themselves as Christian to say they belonged to the white english ethnic group.

What did Hervieu-Leger argue?

Religion is declining due to it no longer being passed down generation to generation by parents, allowing children more choice to decide what to believe in.

People are becoming spiritual shoppers, picking and choosing what to believe in.

What did Helland argue?

Religion has a strong presence online through

Religion online: Top down communication where religious institutions convert individuals online, featuring a hierarchy.

Online religion: ‘cyber religion’ with no hierarchy where the individual converts others.

What did Hoover et al argue?

For most users, online religion is just a supplement to their church-based activities rather than a substitute for them.

What did Berger argue?

Believability of beliefs is undermined by alternatives.

What did Lyon argue?

Religion is evolving from institutional spirituality to a new age of self discovery, individualism and ‘inner self’, as we now enter ‘re-enchantment’

What did Heelas and Woodhead argue?

The rise of the holistic milieu (New Age) is because of the subjective turn in today’s culture, involving a shift away from doing what you are told and exploring yourself by following a spiritual path.

In Kendal 1851 to now, churchgoers dropped from 14500 to 3000, which can’t be compensated for by the 270 people in the holistic milieu, meaning that The New Age needs to be equal in scale to traditional religion in order to replace it.

In Kendal, only 32% of parents in the holistic milieu said their child shared the same interest. Women in the holistic milieu are more likely to be childless and less likely to pass their beliefs onto the next generation as they want to give their children the choice to believe what they want.

What did Glendinning and Bruce argue?

People dabbled with New Age beliefs, but didn’t commit to it like other religions, leading to a lack of commitment.

What did Stark and Bainbridge argue?

People are religious because religion has compensators (life after death in Heaven, Blessings from God) when real-world rewards are unobtainable.

Most successful churches supply the most valuable compensators.

Sects promise otherworldly benefits such as heaven to those suffering economic deprivation. Cults offer this-worldly benefits such as good health to those suffering from psychic deprivation.

There are 3 types of cults, audience cults (little organisation and ideas are spread through the media, as individuals are focused on UFOs and astrology), client cults (more organised and offer services clients would pay for), and cult movements (more organised and involves a wider range of activities and commitment, such as Scientology)

What did Hadden and Shupe argue?

The growth of televangelism (preaching on TV) in America shows that the levels of religious participation is supply-led. When commercial funding of religious broadcasts began in the 1960s, it opened up competition in which evangelical churches thrived.

What did Beckford argue?

Religious markets assume people are naturally religious, failing to explain why people make the choices they do.

Giddens distinguished too sharply between cosmopolitanism and fundamentalism, ignoring ‘hybrid movements’

Fundamentalists are too fixated on fundamentalism and ignore other important developments such as Globalisation affecting Catholicism

Giddens ignores differences of different types of fundamentalism, lumping all fundamentalists together

Giddens description of fundamentalism ignores that reinventing tradition is also a modern, reflective activity

What did Norris and Inglehart argue?

There are high levels of religious participation where Churches have a near monopoly such as Ireland and Venezuela, whereas countries more equal in religion like Australia have low levels, showing that competition isn’t a factor for rising religiosity.

Rejects religious market theory as it only applies to USA and no other society.

Huntington was only half right, the cultural fault line that divides the West and the Muslim world is not about democracy but sex. Muslims and their Western counterparts want democracy but are worlds apart when it comes to attitudes towards divorce, abortion, gender equality and gay rights, which may not bode well for democracy’s future in the Middle East

What did Giddens argue?

Fundamentalism is contrasted with Cosmopolitanism, which embraces modernity, freedom and choice

What did Bauman argue?

With greater uncertainty, people stick with fundamentalism due to it’s claim of certainty and absolute truth during an era of post modernism and unpredictability.

What did Castells argue?

Resistance Identity - Defensive reaction of those who feel threatened and retreat into functionalist communities

Project Identity - Forward-looking, engaging with social movements such as feminism

What did Ansell argue?

France banning girls from wearing veils in public in 2010 and banning pork alternatives in school in 2015 is cultural racism disguised as freedom and promoting social solidarity and universal equality.

What did Huntington argue?

Religious differences between civilisations are a major source of conflict, known as the ‘Clash of Civilisations’. These religious differences are creating hostile relationships which are difficult to resolve, and sees the West as coming under threat from Islam, seeing history as the struggle of ‘progress against barbarism’

What did Casanova argue?

Criticises Huntington for ignoring divisions within civilisations such as Islam.

What did Jackson argue?

Sees Huntington’s work as orientalism, justifying exploitation of the west and seeing Muslims as untrustworthy

What did Horrie and Chippindale argue?

The clash of civilisations is a grossly misleading idea, portraying the whole of Islam as an ‘enemy’

What did Wallis argue?

Churches and Sects claim their interpretation of the faith is the only correct one. Denominations and cults accept that there can be many valid interpretations

Churches and denominations are seen as respectable and legitimate, whereas sects and cults are seen as deviant

Religious organisations can be world-rejecting (rejecting social norms), world-accommodating (accepts dominant norms), or world-affirming (offers self-improving)

Increased time in education led to more people joining NRMs, as it offered a more idealistic way of life.

What did Troeltsch argue?

Churches and Sects are opposite. Churches are large, bureaucratic, and universalistic, whereas Sects are small, exclusive, and world-rejecting, drawing members from poor and oppressed groups. The only similarity is that they both claim a monopoly of the truth.

What did Niebuhr argue?

Adds 2 more types of religious organisations:

Denominations (between Churches and Sects, not as exclusive but more demanding, do not claim a monopoly of truth but are respected by other societies due to their world-accommodating beliefs)

Cults (loose-knit, not very organised, and focused on the individual, led by therapists. They do not demand strong commitment or claim a monopoly of truth but are seen as deviant by wider society)

What did Heelas argue?

New Age provides individuals with an authentic identity in a late modern age where traditional sources of identity are fragmented

What did Drane argue?

In a post-modern world, people have lost faith in metanarratives such as science and religion, looking within themselves through New Age movements to find this truth.

What did Brierley argue?

Women are more likely than men to attend church

Black Christians were 2x more likely to attend Church than their white counterparts

There has been a significant growth of new Churches in London catering to specific languages and nationalities as a result of recent immigration

What did Miller and Hoffman argue?

There are 3 reasons why women are more likely to be religious:

Risks, Roles, and Socialisation (Men are more likely to not be religious if it means being condemned to hell, as well as women being more submissive to their parents’ wishes)

Women are closer to birth and death (Pregnancy makes women closer to the meaning of life)

Paid work (Religion has become more private and personal, giving women easier access)

What did Martin argue?

There exists a ‘Pentecostal Gender Paradox’, where women used Pentecostal ideas to combat patriarchal culture (men spending a large chunk on alcohol, tobacco and prostitution) despite it being used to oppress women.

What did Bird argue?

Religion amongst minorities can be a basis for community solidarity

What did Pryce argue?

African Caribbean Communities in Bristol show both cultural transition and defense are important through Pentecostalism (adaption to society) and Rastafarianism (rejection of society)

What did Herberg argue?

In the UK, there were high levels of religious participation among immigrants