Beliefs in Society- Social Change and Conservative Force
Conservative Force
Religion can be seen as a conservative force in two senses:
It is often “traditional”, defending traditional customs, institutions, moral views, roles etc. It can uphold traditional beliefs about how society should be organised.
It functions to conserve or preserve things as they are. It stabilises society and maintains the status quo.
Most religions have traditional conservative beliefs about moral issues and many of them oppose changes that would allow individuals more freedom in personal and sexual matters.
the Catholic church forbids divorce, abortion, and contraception. It opposes gay marriage and condemns homosexual behaviour.
Similarly most religions uphold “family values” and often favour a traditional patriarchal domestic division of labour.
For example, the belief that the man should be the head of the family was embedded in the traditional marriage ceremony of the Church of England dating from 1602. The bride vows to “love, honour and obey”, but the groom is only required to “love and honour”.
Functionalists- maintain social stability, psychological functions, preventing anomie all describes religion being a conservative force.
Social Change
Weber- Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Weber argues that the religious beliefs of Calvinism helped to bring about major social change- specifically, the emergence of modern capitalism in the Northern Europe in the 16th and 17th Century.
Notes that many past societies had capitalism in the sense of greed for wealth, which they often spent on luxury consumption.
However, modern capitalism is unique because it is based on the systematic, efficient, rational pursuit of profit for its own sake, rather than for consumption.- Spirit of Capitalism.
Predestination- Calvinism taught the God had already chosen the “elect” who would be saved.
Caused salvation panic.
Divine transcendence- God was utterly beyond the human world, so no person or institution, including the Church, could claim to know his will beyond what was revealed in the Bible.
This produced what Weber describes as an intense inner loneliness.
Asceticism- self-denial, discipline and abstaining from luxury.
Weber was not arguing that Calvinist beliefs were the cause of modern capitalism, but simply that they were one of its causes.
Evaluation
Kautsky- Weber overestimates the role of ideas and underestimates economic factors in bringing capitalism into being. He argues that the fact capitalism preceded rather than followed Calvinism.
Tawney- technological change, not religious ideas, causes the birth of capitalism.
Capitalism did not develop in every country where there were Calvinists e.g. Scotland had a large Calvinist population but was slow to develop capitalism.
Social protest
Bruce- used case studies and compares wo examples of the role of religiously inspired protest movements in America that have tried to change society: The Civil Rights Movement and the New Christian Right.
CRM- Bruce describes the struggle of the Black Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s to end racial segregation in America as an example of religiously motivated social change.
Although slavery had been abolished in 1865, Black people were denied legal and political rights in many Southern states where segregation was enforced. Segregation was outlawed in 1964.
Bruce describes the Black clergy as the backbone of the movement. Led by Dr Martin Luther King, they played a decisive role, giving support and moral legitimacy to civil rights activists.
Their churches provided meeting places and sanctuary from the threat of White violence, and ritual such as prayer meetings and hymn singing were a source of unity in the face of oppression.
Bruce argues that the Black clergy were able to shame White people into changing the law by appealing their shared Christian values of equality.
Although the impact on White clergy in the South was limited, their message reached a wide audience outside the Southern states and gained national support.
Bruce argues that religion can act as an ideological resource- offering beliefs, practices and moral authority that empower social protest.
Using the CRM, he shows how religious organisation support collective action and contribute to social change.
the movement succeeded because its aims aligned with wider societal values and those held by people in power.
Taking the moral high ground: The Black clergy pointed out the hypocrisy of White clergy who preached “love thy neighbour” but supported racial segregation.
Channelling dissent: Religion provides channels to express political dissent. E.g. the funeral of Martin Luther King was a rallying point for the civil rights cause.
Acting as a honest broker: Churches can provide a context for negotiating change because they are often respected by both sides in a conflict and seen as standing above “mere politics”.
Mobilising public opinion: Black churches in the South successfully campaigned for support across the whole of America.
NCR- Politically and morally conservative, Protestant fundamentalist movement. It has gained prominence since the 1960s because of its opposition to the liberalising of American society.
NCR aims to take America “back to God” and make abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, and divorce illegal, reverting to a time before the liberalisation of American culture and society.
NCR believes strongly in the traditional family and traditional gender roles. It campaigns for the teaching of “creationism” (the view that the Bible’s account of creation is literally true, not evolution) and to ban sex education in schools.
Has made effective use of the media and networking, notably televangelism, where church- owned television stations raise funds and broadcast programmes aimed at making converts and recruiting new members.
Right wing Christian pressure groups have also become the focus for political campaigning and for strengthening links with the Republican Party. E.g. Charlie Kirk.
However, NCR has been largely unsuccessful in achieving its aims.
Bruce suggests 2 reasons:
Its campaigners find it very difficult to cooperate with people for mother religious groups, even when campaigning in the same issue, such as abortion.
It lacks widespread support and has met with strong opposition from groups who stand for freedom and choice.
Numerous surveys that most Americans are comfortable with legalising activities that they personally believe are immoral, such as abortion, homosexuality, and pornography, and unwilling to accept other people’s definition of how they should live their lives.
This poses an enormous problem for the New Christian Right, which believes in the literal truth of the Bible and insists everyone should be made to conform to its teaching, which is an impossible demand to make in a mature democracy.
Comparisons wit the CRM are interesting- they suggest that to achieve success, the beliefs and demands of religiously motivated protest movements and pressure groups need to consistent and those of wider society.
They need to connect with mainstream beliefs about democracy, equality and religious freedom, which the civil rights movement did but the NCR gas failed to do.
Marxism, religion and change
Marxists recognise that ideas, including religious ideas, can have relative autonomy.
That is, they can be partly independent of the economic base of society. As a result, religion can have a dual character and can sometimes be a force for change as well as stability.
E.g., Marx himself does not see religion in entirely negative terms, describing it as “the soul of soulless conditions”, and the “heart of a heartless world”. He sees religion as capable of humanising a world made inhuman by exploitation, even if the comfort it offers is illusory.
The idea that religion has a dual character is taken up by Engels. Engels argues that although religion inhibits change by disguising inequality, it can also challenge the status quo and encourage social change.
For example, religion sometimes preaches liberation from slavery and misery.
Bloch- religion is an expression of “the principle of hope”- our dreams of a better life that contains images of utopia.
Liberation theology
Movement that emerged within the Catholic Church in Latin America at the end of the 1960s, with a strong commitment to the poor and opposition to the military dictatorship of the time.
Liberation theology was a major change of direction for the Catholic Church in Latin America.
For centuries, it had been an extremely conservative institutions, encouraging a fatalistic acceptance of poverty and supporting wealthy elites and military dictatorship.
Factors that led to liberation theology were:
Deepening rural poverty and the growth of urban slums throughout Latin America.
Human rights abuses following military take- overs, such as torture and death squads murdering political opponents, for example in Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
The growing commitment among Catholic priests to an ideology that supported the poor and opposed violations of human rights.
Gustavo Gutierrez- father of Liberation Theology.
Unlike traditional Catholicism, liberation theology set out to change society.
for example, priests helped the poor to establish support groups, called “base communities”, and helped workers and peasants to fight oppression under the protection of the church.
Priests took the lead in developing literacy programmes, educating the poor about their situation, raising awareness and mobilising support.
However, in the 1980s, Pope John Paul II condemned liberation theology for being too close to Marxism, and told priests to focus on pastoral work, not political activism.
Since then, the movement declined, but Casanova argues it helped resist state terror and contributed to democratisation.
The success of liberation theology has led some neo-Marxists to question the view that religion is always a conservative force.
Maduro and Lowy- liberation theology is evidence that religion can be a revolutionary force that challenges inequality, aligning with the working- class and support social justice. Religious beliefs can motivate political action, especially when clergy interpret serving the poor as a Christian duty.
However, its impact was limited because it did not challenge capitalism itself, and the Church later suppressed its radical elements, suggesting its revolutionary potential was temporary and institutionally constrained.
Millenarian movements
Take their name from the word “millennium”.
In Christian theology, this refers to the idea that Christ would come into the world for a second time and rule for a thousand years before to Day of Judgement and the end of the world.
According to Worsley- such movements expect the total and imminent transformation of this world by supernatural means. This will create a heaven on earth, a life free from pain, death, sin, corruption and imperfection.
The transformation will be collective- the group will be saved, not just individuals.
The appeal of millenarian movements is largely to the poor because they promise immediate improvement, and they often arise in colonial situations.
European colonialism led to economic exploitation and cultural and religious domination,
For example through the Christian missionaries and their schools. At the same time, it shattered the traditional tribal social structures and cultures of the colonised peoples.
Local leaders and local gods lose power credibility when their people are focused to work for colonist who live in luxury.
Worsley studied the millenarian movements in Melanesia (Western Pacific) known as cargo cults.
The islanders felt wrongfully deprived when their “cargo” (material goods) arrived in the island for the colonists.
A series of cargo cults sprang during the 19th and 20th centuries asserting that the cargo was meant for the islanders but had been diverted by the colonists form themselves, and that this unjust social order was about to be overturned.
These movements often led to widespread unrest that threatened colonial rule.
Worsley notes that the movements combined elements of traditional beliefs with elements of Christianity- such as ideas about a heaven where the suggesting of the righteous ideas and images, but they united indigenous populations in mass movements that spanned tribal divisions.
Many of the secular nationalists leaders and parties that were to overthrow colonial rule in the 1950s and 60s developed out of millenarian movements.
Similarly, form a Marxists perspective, Engels argues that they represent the first awakening of “proletarian self- consciousness”.
Gramsci
Hegemony in religion how the ruling class have ideological domination or leadership over society using ideas- such as religion- however can have a dual character, challenging as well as support the ruling class.