The study of religious beliefs, practices, and organizational structures through sociological methodologies and tools is known as sociology of religion. Both quantitative (surveys, polls, demographic and census analysis) and qualitative (participant observation, interviews, and analysis of archival, historical, and documentary materials) methodologies may be used in this objective investigation.[1]
Émile Durkheim’s 1897 study of suicide rates in Catholic and Protestant populations, a key piece of sociological research that helped set sociology apart from other academic fields like psychology, was the first to analyze religion as an academic topic.
The connection between religion and the societal economy or social structure was underlined in the writings of Karl Marx (1818–1833) and Max Weber (1864–1920).
Because it does not aim to judge the veracity of religious convictions, sociology of religion differs from philosophy of religion. It may be necessary to have what Peter L. Berger has called an inherent “methodological atheism” in order to compare numerous competing dogmas.[2]
Theorists frequently admit the socio-cultural reification of religious practice, despite the sociology of religion generally differing from theology in presuming indifference to the supernatural.
Classical sociology
Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim were among the early and classic sociological theorists who were very interested in religion and how it affected society. The theories put forth by these sociologists are still being investigated today, just like those of Plato and Aristotle from ancient Greece and those of Enlightenment intellectuals from the 17th through 19th centuries.
The nature and effects of religion were the subject of highly elaborate and developed ideas by Durkheim, Marx, and Weber. Because their major texts lack context and examples, Durkheim and Weber are frequently the hardest to comprehend of them. In the works of the three, religion was viewed as a crucial social variable.
Karl Marx
Marx was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment, adopting its appeal to replace faith with reason and religion with science, claim Kevin J. Christiano et al.
However, he “did not believe in science for science’s sake … he believed that he was also advancing a theory that would … be a useful tool … [in] effecting a revolutionary upheaval of the capitalist system in favor of socialism.”[3]
His main contention was that reason is the finest tool for guiding people. Marx believed that religion significantly impeded reason since it always hid the truth and led its adherents astray.[4]
According to Marx, alienation is at the root of social inequality. Freedom is the antithesis of this isolation. Therefore, spreading freedom entails informing people of the truth and providing them.
In addition to being exploited, workers were becoming increasingly removed from the goods they had contributed to making. “Workers simultaneously lose connection with the object of labor and become objects themselves” when they merely sell their job for pay. Workers are reduced to the status of a commodity or object.[6] Alienation results from this objectification.
The average worker is alienated to the point of great discontent because they are made to feel like interchangeable tools. Marx sees religion as entering at this point. In order to legitimize this alienation, capitalism uses our propensity for religion as a tool or intellectual state machinery. According to Christian doctrine, those who amass wealth and power in this world will likely not be rewarded in the afterlife.
Émile Durkheim
Émile Durkheim identified with the positivist school of thinking and regarded his research on society as objective and scientific. He had a keen interest in the issue of what united intricate modern communities. He claimed that religion was a manifestation of social solidarity.
A secular Frenchman named Durkheim examined anthropological information on Indigenous Australians during the fieldwork that resulted in his famous book, Elementary Forms of Religious Life. His overarching goal was to comprehend the fundamentals of religious life in all nations.
In Elementary Forms, Durkheim makes the case that the totems revered by the Aboriginal people represent their own ideas about society. He contends that all societies are affected by this, not only the Australian aborigines.
According to Durkheim, religion is not “imaginary”.
Therefore, less complex societies like the Australian Aborigines have less intricate religious structures that involve totems connected to certain clans. The religious system is more complicated the more complex a given civilization is.
Religious systems have a propensity to place an ever-increasing emphasis on universalism as cultures interact with other societies. However, religious systems increasingly place a premium on personal salvation and conscience as the division of labor elevates the individual (a topic Durkheim covers in great detail in his renowned The Division of Labour in Society).
The following is how Durkheim defined religion in Elementary Forms: “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things that are considered to be special or important.”
Max Weber
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (1915), The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism (1915), and Ancient Judaism (1920) are four of Max Weber’s major works on religion that were published in the context of economic sociology and his rationalization thesis.
Weber refers to his approach to interpreting the intention and context of human activity in his sociology as “Verstehen” in German. Weber is not a positivist; he does not think that sociology can yield “facts” that can be causally connected.
Although he thinks it is possible to make some generalizations about social life, he is less concerned in hard positivist claims than he is in links and sequences, historical narratives.
He claims that theodicy, or the dilemma of how a supernatural god’s great might can be reconciled with the imperfection of the world he created and controls over, troubles people. For instance, it is important for people to understand why there is unjustified happiness and pain in the world.
Religion provides soteriological explanations, or explanations that offer chances for redemption, as well as purpose and comfort in the midst of suffering. Similar to the pursuit of wealth, the desire for salvation develops into a driving force for people.
Because religion helps define motivation, Weber contended in his most well-known and contentious work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit, that religion (and notably Calvinism) really contributed to the development of contemporary capitalism.
Theoretical perspectives
Symbolic anthropology and phenomenology
All people, according to symbolic anthropology and some phenomenological schools, have a desire for ontological security, or assurance that the universe is secure and orderly.[13] As a result, all civilizations have knowledge forms that carry out this psychological function.
The existence and impact of non-scientific knowledge in human life, even in a rational environment, is explained by science’s incapacity to provide psychological and emotional solace.
Functionalism
Functionalism, as opposed to symbolic anthropology and phenomenology, emphasizes the advantages for social organization offered by non-scientific belief systems and the shortcomings of scientific knowledge.
Belief systems are thought to provide social stability and order in ways that knowledge based on reason cannot. According to this viewpoint, the advantages that non-rational interpretations of reality have for society can account for their existence.
The goal of religion, according to functionalists, “is to provide answers to spiritual mysteries, emotional comfort, and a space for social interaction and social control. According to a functionalist viewpoint, one of religion’s most significant roles is the chances for social contact and group formation it fosters. It offers a venue for social networking and provides social support.
Rationalism
The phenomenological and functionalist approaches are opposed by rationalists who contend that these techniques fall short of explaining why adherents to non-scientific belief systems persist in holding onto their beliefs despite scientific evidence to the contrary.[15]
The point of view of persons who hold certain beliefs is crucial, according to rationalists, because one cannot adequately explain forms of knowledge in terms of the positive psychological or societal benefits that an objective observer may perceive them as having.[16]
Because they feel it will give them psychological reassurance or help their social groupings become more cohesive, people do not believe in God, perform magic, or believe that witches bring bad luck.[17]
Rationalist authors of the nineteenth century, who reflected the evolutionist ideologies of the day.
Typology of religious groups
Religious organizations are categorized as ecclesias, denominations, sects, or cults (today more frequently referred to in study as new religious movements), according to a typology used by sociologists.[19] The work of Max Weber is where the church-sect typology first emerged.
Religions can be categorized along a basic premise continuum, from the protest-oriented sects to the churches that uphold the status quo. There are several further categories on this continuum. Keep in mind that sociologists provide precise definitions for these terms that are different from how they are typically used.
In particular, sociologists employ terms like “cult” and “sect” without giving them a negative connotation, despite the fact that these terms are frequently used negatively in popular culture.[20]
Churches are the religious institutions that live with society with a minimal amount of strain.
Sects are high-tension groups that don’t blend in well with the current social scene. They typically appeal to those in society who are least privileged—outcasts, people of color, or the poor—because they discount earthly pleasures while emphasizing promises from other worlds.[22]
Sects begin to break away from the established church when church leaders become overly concerned in worldly affairs.
They might wind up starting their own sect, which, if it gains a sizable following over time, would very certainly develop into its own church and eventually join the mainstream.
A religious movement that makes a novel supernatural claim is referred to as a cult and does not simply fit into the sect-church cycle. All faiths started as cults, and their leaders claim to have fresh understandings.
Religiosity
Some religious sociologists investigate the theoretical evaluation of the social aspects of religiosity. Charles Y. Glock, for instance, is most recognized for his five-dimensional model of the characteristics of religious devotion.
His list includes the following elements: conviction, wisdom, wisdom gained through experience, practice (sometimes divided into private and public ritual), and results. The first four aspects of Glock have shown to be very helpful in research since, in general, survey research can easily quantify them.[24][25]
Similar to this, Mervin F. Verbit’s contribution was a twenty-four-dimensional religiosity measure that includes gauging religiosity along four dimensions—content, frequency, intensity, and centrality—as well as through six different “components” of religiosity, including ritual, doctrine, emotion, knowledge, ethics, and community.[26][27][28]
Secularization and civil religion
Secularism, which is a trend seen in both Christian and Muslim industrialized countries, is the broad shift away from religion and spirituality and toward a rational, scientific attitude. Many American politicians, judicial institutions, educational institutions, and commercial enterprises support secularism.[29]
Many classical sociologists projected that religion would disappear in light of the rationalization processes connected with the growth of modernity.[30] They asserted that religion would be kept separate from institutions like the state, the economy, and the family.[29]
Many modern theorists have criticized the secularization thesis, contending that religion has continued to play a crucial role in people’s lives all throughout the world, in contrast to the assertions made by many classical thinkers and sociologists shortly following World War II.
Another important trend is the growth of Islam as a significant world religion, particularly its recent influence in the West. American sociologist Peter Berger believes that pluralism is to blame for the greater sociostructural crisis in religion that has led to secularization.
The presence and active coexistence of many different groups in one community is known as pluralism.[29] The United States stands out among other industrialized and wealthy countries in this sense since it is both strongly religious and pluralistic.[32]
In other words, depending on how it is defined and what its scope is, the idea that presupposed secularization represents a reduction in religiosity may appear to be a fantasy.
As an illustration, some sociologists contend that consistent church attendance and individual religious belief may coexist with a fall in the power of religious leaders.