Social Institutions: Religion

Chapter 15: Sociology, Schaefer, 1995-2012

Modern society and the process of secularization (Rate of attendance, see current)

Sociology: Not a question of truth, but of social aspects:

• Cultural Context
  • God of War
  • Male Gods
  • Festivals
• Electronic Church
• Resurgent Fundamentalism

Adherents.com: a growing collection of over 41,000 adherent statistics and religious geography citations

Pew U.S Religious Landscape Survey (local copy of full report)(2008)

Pew Global Religious Landscape Survey (local copy of full report)(2012)

Durkheim and Functionalism

• Sacred--Profane
• System of beliefs and practices-social
• Sustained through socialization
• Moral reality--collective consciousness
• Social Institution of Religion: The social organization of "Things that surpass the limits of our knowledge."

Marx and Conflict Theory

Weber and Interactionism

1. Ideas and Social Change
2. Protestantism and Capitalism: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (a review)
3. Weber's Sociology of Religion

Peter Berger: The Sacred Canopy

• Religion as a social construction--its patterns "act back" to define our world
• Through ritual we define the distinction between the sacred and the profane
• "By placing EDL in a 'cosmic frame of reference' people confer on the own fallible, transitory creations the semblance of ultimate security and permanence."
  1. Marriage: Legal contract versus "Holy Matrimony."
  2. Use of the 'sacred' to provide interpretive security to uncertainty.

Dimensions of Religious Experience

• Belief: values--norms of daily life linked to cosmology--sacred order (marriage, children, and good vs. evil)
• Rituals: norms, social control, defining the sacred through action.
• Experience: interpreting the individual and collective experience of "otherness"
  1. Direct contact with God: speaking in tongues-holy sign or psychosis
  2. "Born Again" (38% of Americans)
  3. Laying on of hands

Types of Religions

• Simple Supernaturalism: Another world, but no direct access.  Luck, Mana; neither necessarily harmful or beneficial.  Taboo--avoid polluting  self and others.
• Animism: Personalized Spirits.  Humans need to take spirits into account--but they are not "worshipped."  These spirits take an interest and play an active role in EDL.  Magic, Witchcraft, Shamanism.  May have a positive or negative influence. 
• Theism: Devine Being. Poly- and mono-theism.  Supreme being(s) shape human affairs.   Worship, appease, but can not control.
• Transcendent Idealism: Unity of worlds, Principles and Conduct.  Abstract Ideals versus Supernaturalism.  Achievement of Self-awareness, "higher consciousness."  'Correct way of thinking and acting' versus manipulation and worship of supernatural beings.  Buddhism: Middle path, meditation, nirvana.

Common Element: Theodicy- Emotionally satisfying explanation of problems, the meaning and purpose of life.

Religious Organizations

Cults (New Religious Movements) (and Wikipedia)

Religion in the USA

1. Pew U.S Religious Landscape Survey
2. Secular Religion
3. Strong value ("Not what, but if you believe")
4. Christian
5. Social Class
6. 84%-specific preference
7. Church attendance~44%
8. Many traditional--decline, Catholics--stable, Fundamentalist--dramatic growth (problems of change and secularization-not just here: Islam)
9. Shopping Market--lots of switching, fit in with lifestyle.
10. Power: Electronic church and political organization
11. Cults-"Radical departures"
12. Church and State

Educational Institutions

Political Economy

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/010/religion.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated: Thursday, April 18, 2013 8:46 AM