Religon Theorists PG 296

to associate morality godliness with hard work thriftiness and the reinvestment of money. To be destined for salvation you have to be - moral hard working successful thrifty and modest

Bental 2004

involves creating a strong attachment to society as a means of guiding individual behavior

Bental 2004 people giving up their selfish side to society

Calvinists associated morality and godlessness with hard work thriftiness and reinvestment of money Given Western Europe and America served as home for these people should we be surprised Capitalism in the West

Bental Calvinism

fundamentalism religions appeal to supreme authorities moral codes or philosophies that cannot be questioned they exist to impose a sense of order and stability on the world that has to some become disorderly unstable and on confusing

Berer and Ravindran 1996

religon is an opressive social force that operated in hugley unequal capitialist socieites such as UK France and Germany in the 19th century role of religon was to make people the vast who lived in poverty and squalor to accept their situation they should question or challenge their relationship with the ruling class who kept the best things in life for themselves.

Marx 1844

is expressed through various individual preoccupations and concerns - peace of mind postive self image physical health personal empowerment and enlightenment/insight

Cowan this search for personal salvation he speaks about in spiritual consumption

describes it as no society whcih doesnt feel the need of upholding and reaffirming regular intervals the collective sentiments and the collective ideas which make its unity and personality. Moral remaking can only be achieved through renoiuns assemblies and meetings where individuals being closley untied to one another reaffirm in common their common sentiments.

Durhiem 1912 and collective conscience

by worshiping God people are worshiping society. Summing up the traditional functionalist perception of religion as a conservative social force that promotes social solidarity - this is necessary because individuals will instinctively act in their own best interests which isn't conducive to social living as a result people must be encouraged to give up aspects of their selfish side to society

Durkheim by worshiping God

reflect a siginificant distintion between the sacred and the profane although thier actual form is unimportant they could be objects or cerimonies function simply to develop shared vaules - fundemental things that people could agree drawing them together in society

Durkheim relgious symbols

The will of society is experienced as an external force that controls individual behavior

Durkhiem - collective conscience

religon fufils two necessary functions - social solidarity - it creates a feeling of belonging to a particular group by providing individauls with shared beliefs and vaules it acts also as a source of personal and social identity by specifing a moral code to follow. Social intergration - specfic ways in which social soilidarity is create through means like shared practices and experiences like ceromonies

Durkhiem 1912

its idealogical effect ' the power of society over the individual so transends individual exsitence that people collectively give it sacred significance' ' by worshiping God people are worshiping the power of the collective over all they are worshiping society'

Durkhiem what is the key to understanding religion

religon is a unique belief system because it explains the individuals place in the world provides a sense of moral and political order it explains why we are here and what happens after death

Luckmann 1967

in postmodern society relgious functions have evolved to focus on very specifc areas such as explaining that which is not currently known or understood.

Luhmann 1977

religion in late modernity is characterized by both a retreat from secular society and reinvention through process of structural differentiation cultural institutions like religion have lost many functions they performed in modernity they have differentiated and specilsied

Luhmann 1977 and Bettinger 1996

post modernity involves incredulity towards meta narratives - idea that no single set of beliefs can or has sustain the claim to the truth

Lyotard 1979

religon has a dual charecter it is both individual and social

McGuire (2002)

The sacred is that which is utterly and mysterouisly precoius in our experience and which is frequently represented through objects

Maguire 2001

religon provided explanations for the inexplicable such as what happens after death

Malinowski 1926

disputes Viner's interpretation especially in relation to Scotland he argues Calvinism provided an impetus for social change but it was held back by factors such as lack of capital available for investment

Marshall 1982

globalizing processes that cause people to lose faith in the pwoerr of meta-narratives also cause people to see religions as representing order and certainty in an increasingly confusing world. This situation is reflected in ideas such as privatization and de privatized of religion

McLeod

suggests the term new age refers to a wave of religious enthusiasm that emerged in the 1970s

Melton 2001 - New age movements

NAMs focused specifically on transformations of the self and society including astrology channeling (direct communications with sprits ) work with ones inner child a laundry list of unconventional healing techniques

Micheal Brown 2004

religous rituals surrounding death help manage this traumatic situation by providing a structure ( the funeral) that permits certain forms of social action such as public greiving

Parson 1937

Christianity - 2,100 Islam - 1,600 Hinduism - 900 Buddhism 450 million

Adherenets.com 2005 major world reglions by size

suggest brings about the psychological phenomenon of collective effervescence an emotional high and feeling we are part of something bigger than ourselves

Bental - participation in religious rituals

draws on the work of Parsons 1951 to see societies in terms of functional sub systems groups of institutions carrying out different but interrelated functions the cultural sub system e.g includes education the media and religion and is related to sub systems sch as work the family and the political process but cultural sub system has has a degree of autonomy from other parts of the system. Because it involves intuitions whose primary function is socialization and the creation/ propagation of cultural values so under certain conditions cultural institutions have the potential to promote change he suggest this is because any religions contain theories of past present and the future they arent just concerned with questions of order and stability but also change

Alexander 1995

religon serves 4 major functions - Discipline , Cohension Vitalisation and Euphony ( harmony)

Alpert 1939

Religous ceromonies bring people together in situations where they put into practice their shared norms vaules and experiences some cermonies also invovle symbols with shared meanings

Alpert 1939 - Cohension

sense of shared belief and vaules is created by following a set of religous moral rules and codes these common vaules create and connect people to a society

Alpert 1939 - Disapline

times of pain and crisis in life which require individual/ collective efforts to reestablish harmony this function is expressed through time managment and meaning

Alpert 1939 Euphony

shared religous beliefs and expereinces give life to shared vaules and allow people to use the ideas bringing them together as a source of identity - people understand who they are through membership of a religous group and revialisation - a common culture which is transmitted from one generation to the next providing social continuities e.g through religions tradtions

Alpert 1939 Vitalisation

Only after the Shah was deposed in the Iran Revolution 1979 did a power struggle emerge in which religious leaders proved stronger

Azad 1995

religion provides the ideological justification for things like social inequality that flow from a particular set of capitalist economic relationship

Balibar and Althusser 1970

these symbols become simlacra : things that simulate the meaning of something that may have once have had real meaning. These simulations aren't imitations they are just as real as the things they simulate. E.g televised religious services.

Baudrillard 1998

give the appearance of religiosity but they actually devalue the meaning and substance of religion in this respect religion no longer holds a central place in peoples everyday life or identity instead religious symbols and beliefs are now adornments to someone's identity

Baudrillard 1998 religious simulara

fundamentalism refers to forms of beliefs and organisation that advocate a strict observance of the fundamental beliefs of a religion Fundamentalist religions draw their strength form ability to provide certainties in an uncertain world

Bauman 1997

exclusive approaches to religon are restricting the term religon to a phenomenoa displaying define properties which don't occur together in other phenomena.

Beckford 1980

in such societies develop civil religions a set of fundamental beliefs shared by the majority of people in a society

Bellah 1967 Modern and culturally diverse societies

involves a range of collective presentations that hold society together which are expressed through a variety of norms and values

Bental - collective conscience

Defintions of religon develop through peoples own behavoiur not because of an artifical standard created by sociologists to measure religious behavouir.

Blasi 1998

Liberation theology -the invovlement of Roman Catholics oreviets in revolutionary politcal movements in parts of South America from 1960s onwards

Boff and Boff 1987

NAM followers are less inclined to accept the personal compromises needed to maintain a stable group which gives NAMs the appearance of consumerist movements

Brown

Socail scientests have long been aware of the role of religon as social cement and shared rituals and shared beliefs that bind people together whats not so often noted is the idea religon often divides one group from another

Bruce 1995

formal religions have traditionally tried to dominate all areas of society from how people dress to how they worship. In pre and early modernity Islam and Christianity had considerable political power though Church's secular power and influence has generally declined in modernity. Late modernity gradual separation between church and state resulted in churches turning away from trying to infleucne state and back to purely religious matter s

Bruce 1995

gradual distancing of the state churches from the state allocated churches to rediscover the prophetic role of religion but that freedom has been brought at the price of the government listening to them

Bruce separation between church and state

In Brazil the Catholic Church became a vehicle for working with the poor as a way of promoting social and economic changes

Bruneau and Hewitt 1992

mistake to see religion and its relationship to change as either conservative or radical he argues instead it may play a contradictory role

Canin 2001

Santo - Domingo fiesta in Nicaragua suggest that in recent years religious organisation have faced dilemma of pursing two roles - Conservative - Liberating -

Canin 2001 - research

n PM societies fundamentalist religions give believers a sense of identity and moral certainty expressed through close knot community of believers he calls this collective identity based on a set of fundamental and unchanging moral certainties shared by believers and imposed on non believers

Castells 1997

wheather soul shaking experiences and religous conversions are the true action of the Holy Spirt hyponotic trance states or some other psychological trick makes little diffeence they feel real they inspire people to change their lives and commit themsleves to another power whather its higher power outside themsleves or inner voice crying out from the depths of their souls

Cimino and Lattin

if your belief system plays some particular role in either your socail life in your society or in your psychological life then it is a religon and otherwise its somthing else

Cline 2005

in pre modern societies tradition custom and religion were the main ways of explaining the world and the individuals position in society they lacked the scientific knowledge to explain natural disaster as scientific knowledge developed need for religious explanations declined religion was just a necessary stage in human development

Comte 1830

1. NAMs represents new ways of doing religion and being religious with the focus on finding solutions to individual and social problems through personal transformations 2. spiritual consumption involves the idea that rather than being members of believers people are consumers who shop fr spirituality.

Cowan 2003 the new wave of enthusiasm that Melton 2001 talks about

religon provides important psychological support in times of personal crisis

Farley 1990

black churches were larley responsible for organizing the massive bus boycott that followed . Parks had discussed her plans and their possible consequences with church leaders and civil rights organisation

Farley on Rosa Parks and the bus boycott

capitalism developed in some areas of Europe where Calvinism wasn't a religious force

Franfani 2003

religious consumerism is one that offers a language for the divine that dispenses with all the off putting paraphernalia of the priests and church it's about not believing in anything too specific other than some nebulous sense of otherness or presence it offers God without dogma.

Fraser 2005

in culturally diverse socieites few phenomena are functional or dysfunctional for society as a whole and most recent in benefits to some groups and cost to others

Gans 1971

Weber differs from Durkheim in concentrating on the connection between religion and social change something to which Durkheim gave little attention. Weber argues though that religion isn't necessarily a conservative force and it has actually aspired dramatic social transformations

Giddens (2006)

in terms of globalization, Global economic and cultural processes expose people to different views and belief systems leading to moral relativism without moral certainties people see the world as more dangerous feel alone and unconnected to those around them in this situation fundamentalism taps into very real individual collective needs by proving moral certainties given by god

Giroux - contemporary development of fundamentalism religious movements - Christian, Islamic and Buddhist -

sees Christian fundamentalism in the USA as closely aligned to the religious right inclduing loose knit groups like the Moral Majority and Tea Party 2010

Giroux 2004

hegemony involes the idea that beliefs about the world that benifit the ruling class arent simply imposed by religous organisations rather ruling groups maintain their dominant postion through the consent of those lower down the socail scale the social scale itself in manufactured by cultural institutions such as religon education and the media

Gransci 1934

postmodernism represents a great range of viewpoints that are frequently difficult to group into coherent and unified perspective

Grassie 1997

Plausibility test - whereby religions are believed as long as they can plausibility explain something when they no longer do this they are replaced by other.

Luckmann

significance of different religous rituals and rites - rituals are sig in marking important life transitions in some forms like a bat mitzah symbolises a relgious rite of passage. intensifacation rites function to mark group occasions and invovle expression and affirmation of common vaules religous cemorimonies and festivals have an intergration function

Haviland et al 2005

Prevailing interpretation of the relationship between religion and modernity is that they are mutually exclusive modernity leads o the decline of religion she argues while this may have been a feature of early modernity in late modernity the various forms of religious renewal are in harmony with modernity especially in respect to the private and individualistic character of their beliefs and the fluidity of their organisational forms

Hervieu-Leger 1990

Ideological state apparatus

Ideological state apparatus

post modernity is a time of incessant choosing It's an era when no orthodoxy can be adopted without self consciousness and irony because all traditions seem to have some validity the outcome of greater and more opportunities meanings and behaviors is that religious symbols lose much of their original meaning and power as they are adopted into everyday (profane) world of fashion an display

Jencks (1996)

the functions of religon are now more closely related to questions of personal identity

Kung 1990

modernity produces 2 process Decline evidenced by - fewer people overtly engaging in religious practices, more people defining themselves as atheists and agnostics and general loss of secular political influence and Adaption and interpretation whereby religions adapt to changed position in modernity and reinterpret their role and function to carve out a new niche in different societies

Lambert 1999

Conservative reactions result in forms of religious fundamentalism as people struggle to come to term with demand of change invloivng reinvention of religion as a political and ideological force in single societies and Innovation where religious adapt to the new different challenges people face defining feature of religions is ability to reinvent themselves for variety of purposes

Lambert modernity produces two further effects

New age mysticism appeals to a wide range of consumer groups particularly those searching for meanings that traditional religions have failed to supply

Langone

4 main streams within NAMS involving different ways to transform the self through personal lifestyle changes -- Tranformational training, intellectualism lifestyle and occult

Langove 1993

Changing society through behavioral changes such as anti globalization or environment movement

Langove 1993 Lifestyle

Personal transformations achieved through beliefs and practices such as witchcraft and areas such as astrology palmistry and crystal hearing

Langove 1993 Occult

Learning how to changing your personal life through a range of techniques and practices for example this might involve asceticism where one adopts a lifestyle based on strict self discipline and austerity

Langove 1993 Transformational training

personal transformative through the exploration of alternative beliefs

Langove 1993 intellectualism

the benifits of religon of defining who people are promoting clear moral guidlines and satisfying psylogical social and spirtual needs are particulary important in times of rapid socail change in which problems of idenity are critical

Perry and Perry 1973

we shouldn't ignore or necessarily reject Weber's analysis something happened in the 16th century that saw an explosion of capitalist economic activity free thought and religious rebellion whether relationship among these is causal or coincidental will be grounds for conjecture for years to come

Pierotti 2003

ceromonies in religon like weddings are important becuase by expressing one meaning directly e.g wedding ring directly symbolises marriage and express another indirectly such as a wedding band symbolises a deep moral commitment to partner

Ricoeur 1974

six conditions that shape the likelihood of religion becoming a force of social change. - religious worldview shared by the oppressed class or group, religious teaching that challenge the beliefs and practices of the existing social order, clergy closely associated with oppressed groups, single religion shared by the oppressed groups differences between the religion of the oppressed and the religion of the ruling class and channels of legitimate political dissent blocked or denied

Robinson 2001

As basically political movements which have a religious imperative and seek in various ways to harness modern state and media powers to the service of their gospel

Sahgal and Yuval Davis how do they see fundamentalist movements

three common features of all fundamentalist religions - claim their version of religion ' to be only true one' all other forms are therefore heretical and must be opposed, movement feels threatened by alternative secular and religious views of the world and they exercise control over the individual and society across three main areas - ideological, internal and external

Sahgal and Yuval- Davis 1992

sees NAM as reflection of the individualistic tendencies of postmodern society; people want the feel good factor but not the cost of commitment putting it bluntly it is essentially selfish religion

Sedgewick 2004

the protestant church is characterized but substantial levels of internal pluriformity meaning it is made up of different groups with varying degrees of autonomy

Staples 1998

lower classes accept the ideas values and leadership of the dominant group not because they are physically or mentally induced to do so or because they are idealogically indoctrinated. They accept them because they are powerless to change or challenge them

Strinati (1995)

capitalism came into being through technological developments that revolutionised how good were produced and distributed

Tawney 1926

postmodernist approaches to religion include arguments that god is dead and religion is disappearing, we are witnessing a return of traditional faith ( resacrillsation) and religion evolves and takes new forms

Taylor 1987

religon offers an explanation of the events for which other framworks couldnt account

Thompson 1986

if we measure religous conviction in terms of things such as church attendence and membership of religous groups, the working classes have never been particulary religous

Turner 1983

where Calvinism was the dominant religion it acted a conservative force that prevented economic development and change for example Calvinism in Scotland developed capitalism a lot later than Protestant ( Calvinism is a form of Protestantism) England

Viner 1978

Calvinism provided the final push for England to go to a industrial modern wealthy society Calvinism provided the spirt of capitalism - a powerful set of beliefs ideas and practices that promoted a strong and lasting social transformation. The basis of this predestination

Weber 1905

provided the final push that allowed society with particular level technological development to break through the barrier dividing pre modern industrial capitalist societies it provided the spirt of capitalism

Weber and Calvinism

millenarain movements - notes 'expect an imminent transition to a collective salvation earthly and or heavenly'. followers expect to be rewarded by God for their religious beliefs and behavior this may occur in 1 of 2 ways --> catastrophic millenarianism and progressive millernairism

Wessinger 2012

important feature of modernity is how religion is increasingly marginalized as a social force religion doesn't disappear entirely he suggests it retreats from public to private sphere resulting in decline in religion's power and influence over people's perception of the world.

Wilson 1966

resulting from two main processes - ideological attacks from scientific rationalism promise of modernity to create more rational understandable and equal set of social relationships hasn't happened leaving many feeling confused and betrayed variety of sects cults and movements have filled ideological vacuum in increasingly cynical and exploitative ways

Wilson 1966 - relates to him move to public to private sphere and its effects results from two main processes

manipulation of psychologically fragile personalities who are promised the respect status and materiel rewards denied to them in modern societies through divine intervention and adherence to teachings of influential leaders

Wilson 1966 religious movements cults and sects

civil religion involves an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs. these beliefs may be overtly religious overtly secular or a combination of the two

Wimberley and Swatos 1998

Weberain theory ignores questions of how and why social conditions influence our beliefs ' when research finds religious friendships reinforce religious convictions the question remains why some people choose religious friends and others do not'

Wuthnow 1992