The Sociology of Religion

A Substantive and Transdisciplinary Approach

George Lundskow

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781506319605
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

Most Sociology of Religion texts are decidedly staid and uninteresting, covering "contemporary" developments which are only contemporary only from a disciplinary perspective. They are not contemporary if viewed from the perspective of the religion's practioners (in religious and non-religious settings). The textbooks that attempt to be interesting to undergraduate students often fall short because they either try to cover too much in an encyclopedic format, or sacrifice a sociological perspective for a personal one. Many use real-life examples only superficially to illustrate concepts.

Lundskow's approach is the opposite—students will learn the facts of religion in its great diversity, all the most interesting and compelling beliefs and practices, and then learn relevant concepts that can be used to explain empirical observations. The book thus follows the logic of actual research—investigate and then analyze—rather than approaching concepts with no real bearing on how religion is experienced in society. This approach, using provocative examples and with an eye toward the historical and theoretical, not to mention global experience of religion, will make this book a success in the classroom.

The author envisions a substantive approach that examines religion as it actually exists in all its forms, including belief, ritual, daily living, identity, institutions, social movements, social control, and social change. Within these broad categories, the book will devote particular chapters to important historical moments and movements, leaders, and various individual religions that have shaped the contemporary form and effect of religion in the world today.

CHAPTER 1

Theory

Introduction: Sociological Theory and Religion

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As a scientific discipline, sociology offers certain types of insight, and excludes others. One of the most common errors regarding science in general, both in the natural and the social sciences, is to align scientific theory with political orientations. This conflates two different things. Science attempts to understand the world, and while this always involves a bias of perspective, it is not the same as a political orientation that seeks to control social institutions and exert decision-making power. Although science can provide insight upon which political platforms may be based, science as a means of generating knowledge and insight, whether natural or social science, is not a political platform. It is an analytical system, not a system of management and political control. In our effort to understand religion, sociology studies religion critically, but at the same time cannot draw conclusions about the merit of particular religious belief or practice. As with any science, critical analysis, using logic and evidence, constitutes the basis of knowledge, not the political agenda that scientific knowledge may inform. In this sense, so-called conservative theories such as functionalism and rational choice are no less critical of conventional notions than leftist or so-called radical theories, such as Marxism or feminism.

Sociology as we know it today began as an attempt to apply scientific principles of logic and evidence to modern society. In particular, scholars sought to understand modern society in order to understand and hopefully alleviate its social problems. For sociologists, modern society begins with the rise of the industrial era, in the early 1800s. However, historians would point out that the basic elements of modernism emerged during the Renaissance, which we can date from the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Many scholars, artists, statesmen, and religious leaders—in essence, most of the intelligentsia and creative classes of the Byzantine civilization—fled to the West, mostly to Italy after 1453, and contributed their talents and energy to the Italian city-states, which rose as the founders of the Renaissance. From 1453 to the beginning of the Enlightenment around 1700, all the decisive elements of modernism emerged. Most importantly, science and math developed sufficiently to allow for rationalization—which means to make something systematic and predictable. This would eventually affect all spheres of life, including religion.

Thus, sociology has long held a Western focus, given its origins as a science devoted to understanding modernity as it arose first in the West. This differs from a Western bias, a prejudiced and ethnocentric notion that the West serves as the standard for all things, that the West is the best and everything else fails by comparison. The study of Western modernism defined much of sociology, its approach and concepts, and developed most extensively in Germany, France, and the United States. Still today, the vast majority of sociological research and theory comes from these three countries. However, nothing prevents sociology from expanding and adjusting concepts so they apply meaningfully to non-Western religion. The goal is to understand, not to judge, the essential quality of one religion over and against another.

Still, sociology does not just study social phenomena; it also organizes such phenomena conceptually and actively draws conclusions. These conclusions create an order to our understanding of reality, and in this way, sociology is not a neutral observer. We seek to create order using scientific research methods and conceptualization. We apply theoretical frameworks in order to interpret data.

However, we do not seek to make normative, that is, to make value judgments about, what is right or wrong, what is on the right path spiritually, or what is misguided. Nevertheless, a sociologist does argue about right and wrong in terms of logic, evidence, and analysis. As a science, sociology cannot discuss what is true or not true about the nature of God or what sorts of thoughts and behavior God may or may not approve of, but we can discuss and prove or disprove what any given religion or understanding of God represents in a social context. That is, given the time and place in which we observe particular practices or beliefs, we can discern what they reveal about the people and the society that uphold them. Sociological validity stands on observable evidence and the logic of theory.

This chapter examines sociological theory relevant to the study of religion. Later chapters will occasionally expand on theory, but focus more on empirical observations about religion.

Death and the Meaning of Life

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In order to understand religion today, one must also understand its counterpart—spirituality. While religious practitioners often view themselves as spiritual, it makes good sociological sense to distinguish between these concepts. Indeed, empirical research confirms that religion and spirituality are in actual practice two different things (see Table 1.1). Dictionaries are often not very useful in scientific endeavors, because they typically convey conventional, pedestrian usage, not scientific conceptualization. In sociology, religion is not simply a definition, but an analytical concept.

What is religion? In a recent book, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005) define religion as a more or less fixed institution that exists independently from the people who attend its services, volunteer for its projects, and serve in its administrative offices. As an institution, a religion teaches particular beliefs and practices, and expects new and continuing members to conform to its institutional requirements. Religion premises a common good and higher authority, both of which supersede the individual (p. 14). Furthermore, religions consist of congregations—groups of believers who assemble consistently to celebrate their faith and perform necessary rituals. Sometimes a central authority or organizational bureaucracy unites the various congregations, but just as often does not. Some religions are significantly centralized, such as Catholicism in Rome (Vatican City) or Southern Baptism (the Southern Baptist Convention). Others, such as Islam and Hinduism, have no formal centralized authority or organizational bureaucracy. Nevertheless, all of these religions and others evidence common-good ethics (at least for their own members) and devotion to a higher entity that possesses transcendent power, wisdom, love, and other attributes otherwise beyond human capacity.

A related and often confusing concept is spirituality. This concept refers to a much broader sense of connection between the individual and the surrounding world. It exists as a feeling, rather than as an observable pattern of behavior or set of beliefs. Decisively, spirituality emphasizes individual and subjective feeling and experience rather than devotion to external, collective, and superior beliefs, rites, and deities. Heelas and Woodhead (2005) identify this as a holistic approach that privileges personal and subjective emotions and experiences as more valid than formally established creeds or churches. In holistic spirituality, the individual is free to construct personal beliefs, and choose freely from any source material to invent a personal blend to suit individual needs and tastes. Moreover, spirituality of this sort and religion often compete against each other, and empirical research shows that “the congregational domain and holistic milieu constitute two largely separate and distinct worlds (Heelas and Woodhead 2005:32). This conflict occurs because religion consists of institutional structures that maintain consistency across generations. We could say that religions serve communities. In contrast, spirituality consists of individuals who, even when they join together in groups, retain a highly personalized set of beliefs and practices. We could say that spirituality serves individuals.

Does this mean that religious congregations neutralize individuality? In some ways, yes, particularly regarding the essential beliefs and practices of the religion. For example, it is difficult to be Catholic if one does not recognize the authority of the Pope in religious matters, or if one does not accept the Nicene Creed as valid. In other ways, however, religious congregants are free to maintain their individuality. For example, Catholics are free to dress as they want, hold divergent political views, and disagree about interpretations of the Bible. In Wahhabism, a strict version of Islam enforced by the government (an institution) in Saudi Arabia, religious beliefs dictate manner of dress, especially for women, who are forbidden to appear in public with their head uncovered. In any case, it is the institutional structure and collectively oriented beliefs that define religion, not the strictness or comprehensiveness of belief. Some religions govern most of life, others only certain aspects of life.

Similarly, the individualistic nature of spirituality usually includes some commonalities. For example, most spiritual systems, such as New Age, Theosophy, and Swedenborgianism, share beliefs of balance, that harmony arises from the proper balance of energy (Ellwood 1995; E. Taylor 1995). Individual innovation often draws from widely diverse sources, and people share ideas quite extensively. Just as religious congregants retain many personal characteristics, so spiritualists share certain ideas despite their personalized beliefs.

Table 1.1

Religion and Spirituality

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Religion	Spirituality
Common-Good Ethics—The needs of the community override the needs of the few, or the one	Individual Ethics—Beliefs and values serve the personal needs of the individual
Common-Good Morality—The institution decides right and wrong	Individual Morality—The individual decides right and wrong
Institutional Autonomy—Religion exists transgenerationally and independently of personal control	Personal Autonomy—Spirituality exists within and for each individual
Institutional Hegemony—Exists externally to and coercive of the individual; responds to historical change, not personal decisions	Personal Hegemony—Personal freedom of choice; responds to personal feeling and choices

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While both religion and spirituality have degrees of individuality and degrees of collectivity, religion is premised overall on collective continuance, whereas spirituality is premised on individual autonomy. In religion, the community is the measure of all things; in spirituality, the individual is the measure of all things. A religion requires collective commitment but may allow individuality. In spirituality, an individual may choose collective commitment or not. This book will use the term religion broadly and often encompass what technically should be called spirituality, unless otherwise noted. As with the issue of faith, much of the sociology of religion applies equally to spirituality.

Overall, both religion and spirituality share something in common—a leap of faith. In other words, both depend, at an essential level, on faith—that which cannot be proven or disproven but is accepted as true. The emphasis here is that faith cannot be proven, which differs from something that is not yet proven, but could possibly be proven through empirical means. To make this distinction, Max Weber often quoted Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, 155–230 CE), who in defense of early Christianity said, “Credo non quod, sed quia absurdum” or in translation, “I believe nothing except that which is absurd.” At some point, all religions define themselves through articles of faith, not proof. Although religion need not necessarily be in conflict with other ways of knowing, such as science, religion goes beyond the observable world to which science is limited. From Tertullian to Weber to present-day theorists and many in between, faith often contrasts with logic and reason, and thus in comparison appears “absurd” if a person privileges logic over faith. At the same time, some faith-based explanations appear absurd if applied to issues of observation and logic.

In the long-standing faith versus reason dichotomy, no resolution is possible, nor even any discourse as each side premises its knowledge on entirely different and contrary grounds. However, as Stephen Jay Gould (2002) (a biologist by training) argued throughout his career, each form of knowledge speaks to a different sphere of knowledge; faith and reason are both accurate because they address essentially different aspects of existence. While this view definitely makes progress, this textbook, as argued in the introduction, proceeds with the assumption that we have not yet learned either to decisively separate or combine faith and reason. While I agree that Gould’s position works effectively most of the time, students should consider the full range of human knowledge and use it to develop their own insight. The way in which pieces fit together may yet require a wholly new approach.

For now, let us remain in established theory.

The Place of Religion in Society

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The words at the end of this sentence, among the most famous in all of the English language, describe the existential conundrum of humanity—“to be or not to be. . . .” To live or not to live, and if to live, how and why? For what purpose? And what of death, that “undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveler returns”? We thus face an existential crisis that, as Hamlet realizes, has no automatic answer, no decisively true and certain solution. We have instead only feelings and intellect that, with effort, may produce a sense of conviction (a sense of faith) that we have discovered the meaning of life, and how to live it correctly. Throughout human history, religion has spoken to such existential uncertainties, and to the extent we hear its words and enact its rituals, religion successfully instills meaning where otherwise we would face only an infinite void of despair.

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To be, or not to be: that is the question . . .

To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life. . . .

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of.

—William Shakespeare, Hamlet

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We can embrace Shakespeare, and many others, who express the essence of human existence with great eloquence and passion. However, such is not our purpose as sociologists. There are other ways to understand the human condition, and through science, we may understand in ways that differ from the poet’s moving passages, but perhaps, by the end of this book, prove no less powerful.

In his now classic The Sacred Canopy ([1967] 1990), the sociologist Peter Berger identifies the vital existential questions—questions that define the meaning of life—that underlie all of human existence. Berger poses four great questions:

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Peter Berger’s Four Existential Imperatives

Who am I?

Why am I here?

How should I live?

What happens when I die?

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For Berger, these questions define the uncertainty of human existence, and religion serves to answer these questions at some collective level. To be effective, they must be shared answers acknowledged among a population of people yet which each individual accepts willingly; they cannot be forced onto people. Furthermore, the revealed religions face an additional pressing issue—the problem of theodicy. The revealed religions are those that hold that God has a revealed purpose for all people, and that we are moving inexorably toward some final moment, whether Armageddon—the final battle between good and evil—or salvation, or possibly both. Theodicy is the issue that arises thus: If God is good and cares about us, why does evil exist? Furthermore, if God is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful), then again, why does evil exist? In the earlier mystery religions, theodicy was not an issue, because God (or the gods) offered no particular plan, and no particular end point to history. The mysteries were revealed only to a select few, usually only after grueling initiation rituals or by the merit of one’s birth.

Finally, Berger concludes that in responding to the four great existential questions, and to the issue of theodicy, religion provides a nomos, a coherent system of meaning that connects the individual to society and to a sense of purpose above and beyond the empirical and temporal realm (see Figure 1.1). Meaning must be universal and eternal, but also relevant to real moments in life, especially the ...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Theory
• Chapter 2 A Sociological History of Religion
• Chapter 3 Superstition and the Supernatural
• Chapter 4 Religious Adaptation
• Chapter 5 Religious Intolerance and Aggression
• Chapter 6 Evil
• Chapter 7 Cults
• Chapter 8 Emergent Religion: The Examples of Neopaganism and New Evangelicalism
• Chapter 9 Religion and the Forces of Globalization
• Chapter 10 Religion Beyond Religion: Sacredness, Mystery, and Faith in Other Contexts
• References and Further Reading
• Index
• About the Author