beliefs

process of secularisation through social groups

secularisation

  • 2020 4% adults attended

  • secularisation increase

  • weber

  • rationalisation in western society

  • bruce - technological worldview has replaced supernatural explanations.

woodhead

  • feminism

  • much of religion is patriarchal there are ways women use religion to gain greater freedom and respect

  • muslim women - hijab. seen as liberation compared to western view

  • gilliat ray - british women choose to wear the hijab to enter further education and employment without condemned as immodest

  • gain stauts and respect for roles within private sphere

  • brucso - increase power and influence. pentecostals - men should repsect women practice what they preach

ethnic minorities

  • growth of sects from ethnic minorities

  • bruce - cultural defence - due to discrimination religion defends hostility from wider society

  • sects are small and inclusive

  • sects are increasing - they are splits from existing organisations

  • claim to have monopoly of truth

  • give help to those suffering from economic/ethical deprivation as promising other-worldly benefits

explain two reasons for the growth of NRM

  1. relative deprivation

  • stark and bainbridge

  • break away from churches to form sects

  • mc seek to compromise to fit into society but deprived break away from safeguard original message

  • harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle

marginality

  • weber

  • groups who are marginalised - disprivileged

  • offers a solution by offering a theodicy of dispriviledge

  • justification for suffering and disadvantage

  • explains misfortune as a test fo faith

  • promise of rewards in the future

  • blakc muslims in 20th century - disadvantaged in usa. moonies (WR NMRs) taken on mc - wallis - mc were marginal to society as they were hippies and dropouts

social change

  • wilson - rapid change and disrupt established n+v producing anomie

  • uncertainty - those most affected to turn to sects as a solution

  • methodism in industrial revolution offered warmth, community, fellowship, clear n+v

  • bruce = as a response to modernisation and secularisation

religion acts a conservative force in society

  1. functionalism

  • durkheim

  • religion reinforces social solidarity

  • creates a collective conscience

  • sacred and profane

  • aboriginal australian tribe

  • cognitive functions - religion provides concepts and categories to understand the world

  • psychological functions = malinowski - outcome is uncontrollable eg lagoon fishing, life crises

  • ao3 ignores conflict

  1. feminism

  • gender inequality - patriarchy are powerful

  • male dominated catholicism forbids women to become priests

  • armstrong - women are marginalised

  • places of worship are segregated

  • menstruation

  • sacred texts - anti women

  • religions laws - rights to women are few

  1. marxism

  • religion maintains inequality -uc are in control

  • ideology - distorts peoples perception of realtiy

  • marx - religion and alienation - separated from or losing control over something. wc have no control over production, dehumanising

  • opium of the people - afterlife distracts from suffering from capitalism

  • ao3- althusser rejects idea of alienation

  1. social change

  • american civil rights movement used religious ideas to challenge inequality