SOC1100

Religion

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Inc.
Early Sociologists and Religion
• August Comte: transformed his science into a
religion
• Karl Marx: rejected all religions as tools used by
the capitalists to control the proletariat.
• Emile Durkheim saw religion as a form of social
interaction that produces social solidarity.
• Max Weber theorized about the relationship
between faith and the rationalization of the
modern world, epitomized by bureaucracy.

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What Is Religion?
• Many scholars see religion as difficult or
impossible to define.
• Religion is a social phenomenon that consists
of beliefs about the sacred, practices, and a
community that shares these beliefs and
practices.
• Sociologists begin the study of religion with
the assumption that if people believe
something is real, the consequences of their
beliefs are real.

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Components of Religion
• Beliefs
• Ideas that explain the world and identify what
should be sacred or held in awe and are thus
ultimate concerns in that society.
• Religion separates sacred beliefs from
profane
• All religions include an ideology about
creation and suffering, as well as ethnical
standards for judging proper behavior.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

Inc.
Components of Religion
• Beliefs
• Beliefs are both models of reality and models for
reality.
• Most religious belief systems include a
cosmogony – a story about how and why the
world was created.
• Religious traditions provide a theodicy – an
explanation for the presence of evil, suffering,
and death. Most identify the source of evil in the
world, which affects everything from individual
beliefs and decisions to a nation’s foreign policy.
Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
Components of Religion
• Ritual
• A set of regularly repeated, prescribed, and
traditional behaviors that serve to symbolize
some value or belief.
• Rites of Passage: rituals that surround major
transitions in life
• Rituals solve problems of personal and
collective life by providing time-tested actions,
words, and sentiments for every occasion.

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Components of Religion
• Rituals come in many forms. Some show
devotion to God (prayer); some help
believers organize their lives (meditations);
some celebrate cycles (holidays).

• Religious rituals often mark a liminal

period, or a special time set apart from
ordinary reality.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

Inc.
Components of Religion
• Experience
• The combination of beliefs and rituals forms
the variety of religious experience.
• Examples include prayer or attendance at
religious services.
• Civil religion refers to beliefs, practices, and
symbols that a national holds sacred, and
provides a sense of collective national identity
as “we the people.”

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

Inc.
Components of Religion
• Secularization is defined as the declining
significance of religion
• At the societal level it refers to the declining
power of organized religious institutions.
• At the individual level is means that religious
experience is less intense and important.
• Religion as a form of consumption
• Religious consumers have different tastes,
influenced by class, race, gender, educational
attainment, age, region, and other similar factors.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

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Types of Religious Organizations
• Religious traditions that persist become
institutionalized, and eventually
bureaucratized.
• Religious institutions tend to reflect the
organizational forms prominent in any given
society.
• There is always tension between the large
established, formalized religious institutions
and newer or less formal religious groups.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

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Types of Religious
Organizations
• Sect
• A small group of people who are seeking a
personal religious experience.
• Behavior of sect members tends to be
spontaneous.
• Leadership is usually composed of laypersons,
rather than those with specialized training.
• They tend to see themselves apart from the
larger society.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

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Types of Religious Organizations
• Church
• A large group of religious-oriented people into
which one is usually born
• Leadership is composed of professionals who
have specialized training.
• Has a highly bureaucratic structure
• Belief system is codified and rituals are
performed in a highly prescribed manner.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

Inc.
Types of Religious Organizations
Cults and New religious movements
• A cult is an innovative, small, voluntary and exclusive
religious tradition that was never associated with a
religious organization, whose members may be
viewed as religious radicals.
• Some sociologists use the term new religious
movements to encompass sects, cults and a wide
array of other innovative religious movements typified
by zealous religious converts, charismatic leaders, an
appeal to an atypical population, and a tendency
towards rapid fundamental changes.

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

Inc.
Types of Religious Organizations
• Denominations
• Are not linked to the state, and represent the
“variety” present in some dominant religious
practices. Examples include the Protestant
faith, which is composed of many
denominations such as Baptist, Presbyterian,
Lutheran and so on.
• They survive in the religious marketplace by
adopting a general spirit of tolerance and
acceptance of other religious bodies.
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Theorizing Religion: Structural/Functionalist

• Religion serves specific social purposes

• Becomes a “sacred canopy” that provides a
sense of security and answers questions about
the meaning of life
• Provides explanations for puzzling aspects of life,
in particular dealing with suffering and death
• Provides an ethos, or a set of ethical guidelines
for daily life
• Provides hope for the future
• Creates community and social solidarity

Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,

Inc.
Theorizing Religion:
Structural/Functionalist
• Dysfunctions of Religion
• Can lead to ethnocentrism involving intolerance,
conflict, and sometimes violence between
religious groups
• Can provide justification for the oppression of
certain groups, particularly out-groups
• The flip side of social solidarity is antipathy
towards the other
• Can promote violence and evil behavior by
providing a rationale for those behaviors
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Inc.
Theorizing Religion: Conflict/Critical
Theory
• The nature of the superstructure of any society,
including religion, arises out of its base; the base
of capitalist societies is the economy.
• It is the capitalist economy that controls religion,
leading religion to enhance and protect the
economic base.
• Karl Marx called religion the “opium of the people”
because he felt people are drugged by religion and do
not have an accurate view of the social problems
around them.
• Religion leads people to a false consciousness.

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Inc.
Religion and Globalization
• There are two aspects of the relationship of
religion to globalization:
• The importance of religion in transnational migration
• The spread of religious organizations and movements
through independent missions.
• The Globally Most Significant Religions
• Judaism
• Hinduism
• Buddhism
• Islam
• Christianity

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Inc.
Religion and Globalization
• Fundamentalism
• A strongly held belief in the fundamental or
foundational precepts of any religion
• A rejection of the secular world
• Is involved in globalization in 2 ways:
• Expansionistic – in seeking to extend power and
reach
• The globalization of one form of fundamentalism is
likely to lead to a counter-fundamentalism in
another group
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Inc.
Religion and Globalization
• Faith on the move
• The globalization of religion and the growing
diversity of religions around the globe are the
results of the movement of people.
• Some countries are important destinations for
immigrants, and are places where in-comers
often experience resistance and
discrimination when they attempt to practice
their religion or modify the environment to suit
their religious needs.
Copyright 2014, SAGE Publications,
Inc.