Religion in a changing society mid term

Week 2: Religion/magic: religion binds the people that adhere, magic does not. Religion is a unified system of beliefs practices relative to sacred things, which unite into one single community/church. Functionalism: Religion performs a beneficial function within society • reaffirms society's legitimacy • binds members more closely Defining Religion: • Substantive definitions (Weber) -Try to identify the essence of religion. Weber Identified religion with the category of meaning - "religion gives meaning to life." • Functional Definitions (Durkheim)- what religion does for people Durkheim in the elementary forms of religious life: religion is eminently social. Phenomena can be organized into two categories • Beliefs-states of opinion and exist in representations • Rites- modes of actions, distinguished from other actions by the special nature of their object (possible to define the rite only after we have defined the belief since it is the belief that express the special nature of this object. Durkeim believed in something called collective effervescence, which are states of common consciousness that are reified periodically by rites around sacred objects.

All things can be divided into two groups: the scared which are beliefs, myths, dogmas, essentially systems that express the nature of sacred things, and the profane which is everything else. Marx: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence really has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly a fight against the world of which religion is the spiritual aroma. "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people" Berger and the sacred canopy: Dialectic character of social phenomenon: There is no social reality is a product of man, but man is also a product of society. Every society is engaged in the never ending attempt to create a humanly meaningful world. Three steps in dialectic process 1. Externalization-ongoing outpouring of human being into the world(in physical and mental ability) (society is a human product) 2. objectivation-attainment of a reality that confronts its producers as a fact external to themselves (society becomes real) 3. internalization - the reappropriation of this same reality, transforming it again into structures of the subjective consciousness (man becomes/is a product of society) Separation from society leads to multiplicity of dangers: Extinction, Unbearable psychological tension derived from inherent sociality, Ultimate danger-meaninglessness (madness) - anomy is unbearable-individual may prefer death to it, and belonging within the nomic world may be sought at the cost of sacrifice and suffering. Berger believed religion was the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos was established, he believed religious experience was divided into two spheres the sacred and profane. To be sacred was to be against chaos , religion provided a sacred canopy that protects those from anxiety from fear of chaos.

Hearn introduction chapter: Two main afro cuban religions the santeria and bablawos(IFA) As early as the sixteenth century mutual aid organizations called cabildos were set up in conjunction with the catholic churches that provided free services for free and enslaved black cubans. in many of the cabildos the religious traditions of Yoruba, Carabali, Arara and others became integrated with catholic practices.Catholic statutes were adopted by cabildos but were used as substitute representations of forbidden African entities. after cubas independence from spain in 1898 laws that were drafter fragmented cabildos into private temple-houses, these temple house emerged as the foundational basis of santeria, devoted to the veneration of Toruba dieties (orichas) and the practice of IFA. (another associated tradition is the Bata drums). The Oro Seko is an order of rhythms meant to salute/communicate with the orichas of santeria. The municipal government of Old Havana, supported by the United Nations Development Program had recently begun housing improvement initiative to combat structural colapse, they called them solars, architecture had been reinforced/electricity systems upgraded, but was on the waiting list and lacked a water pump. So the members of the solar would go out and socialize and fill up their buckets with water one by one, Mika (religious leader) requested 25 dollars from Hearn and said he could acquire the pump himself, and he did, which eliminated the need to meet up and fill buckets which had an antisocial effect, the water pump was then sabotaged one day, the culprit was not identified however the people showed a dislike for the pump and wanted a modification that still allowed them to meet and socialize. These solars were not new or unique, it was part of a broad expansion of local initiative and social capital since the 90's, particularly in the more economically dynamic zones, the state attempted to harness this emerging human resource into official structures of governance, to facilitate neighborhood development projects and to bridge the growing rift between official institutions and unregistered community actors. This effort had evolved from the withdrawal of economic support from the soviet union in the late 1980's, and the removal of trade from the former Eastern Bloc countries, which equated to a 75% reduction in Cuba's import capacity. This caused Cuba to turn to tourism and foreign investment. Called "special period in time of peace". Grassroot initiatives: ordinary residents coming together of their own accord to protect the social and physical well-being of their neighborhoods through forms of associational life based as often on religious, ethnic, and professional connections as political allegiance.

Cohen and Arato put it from a linear perspective "all social movements move from forms of non-institutionalized, mass protest action to institutionalized, routine interest group or party politics" formal organization replaces loose networks, membership rules and leadership emerge. In Cuba they civic society/social capital does not conform to a linear fashion like the post socialist Eastern Europe and the neoliberal west, but rather a less formal often more spontaneous process of exchange and negotiation between state and nonstate actors. This has come about in response to a constrained public sphere in which political antagonistic publishing, broadcasting, and protest are generally not permitted, which weakens the ability of popular associations and movements to develop a civic agenda independently of the state. Alternative informal systems of prestige, hierarchy, and economic exchange have expanded, but the state responds by informed events in Eastern Europe to officially recognize the social influence of these emerging systems and attempt to engage them rather than force them underground. This has ceded political space to interest groups willing and able to work within the state's administrative structures, though their capacity to represent and advocate local needs depends largely on how creatively/diplomatically they use this space to generate new opportunities. Religious communities harbor high levels of internal solidarity, and in some cases significant financial resources. The resurgence of religious practice appears to be directly related to the strain of this special time, but it provides stable structures of community and identity, and financial assistance from overseas religious nongovernmental organizations(NGOs). Line states inter-group exchange like that seen between the Cuban state and religious communities is based on the relative value that each groups resources hold for the other, where the state gives official recognition to the religious communities, the communities provide income by displaying religious ceremonies to tourists. to sum it up the change in socioeconomic conditions has brought distinct forms of social capital into close proximity in Cuba. Recent attempts to integrate local circles of cooperation into a frame work that facilitates national development goals, commercial engagement with global tourism market, and cooperation with international development NGO's. this has provoked local concerns about the loss of community autonomy and substantive relevance as informal systems of mutual aid are scaled up through a process of formal rationalization, cooperation with the state requires community actors to weigh this loss against potential gains/opportunities resulting from formal registration. A useful linkage to describe the process in Cuba is provided by Michael Woolcock who writes about four dimensions of social capital that permit an integrated analysis of micro/macro level forms of cohesion. "Community integration/local solidarity" within close knit groups, "horizontal linkage" between such groups. "vertical synergy" between community representatives and state institutions. "organizational integrity" within the state. In the cuban case, strong solidarities between groups at the neighborhood scale (community integration) and the promotion of horizontal collaboration between such groups (linkage) has proven to be more effective for confronting emerging local development challenges than traditional top-down mechanisms, this has resulted in diminished centralized control and a modification of the state bureaucratic structure(organizational integrity). In turn this has provoked offical efforts to establish vertical relations with non state actors (synergy).

Yip, Andrew K. T. "Dare to Differ: Gay and Lesbian Catholics' Assessment of Official Catholic Positions on Sexuality" How do homosexual religious deal with the apparent role/identity conflict? They reject official Church teaching and create alternative theologies of sexuality. Members of Quest, a UK Catholic LGBT group, Demonstrated positive self-images despite being called "disordered" by the Church. Didn't want to leave the church, despite the lack of support. Both of these demonstrate their ability to construct alternative theologies that integrate their religion with their sexuality.

Cultural wars: James Davison Hunter - Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America Two definable polarities on an increasing number of "hot-button" issues Society had divided along essentially the same lines on each of these issues In this book, Hunter described what he saw as a dramatic re-alignment and polarization that had transformed American politics and culture Hunter argued that two definable poles were emerging on a number of "hot-button" issues such as abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, homosexuality, etc. Furthermore, he said that it was not just that there were a number of divisive issues, but that society had divided essentially along the same lines on each of these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by differing ideological world views

Chapter 2 pages 35-45: Functionalist perspective: 1950's-70's functionalism was the dominant theoretical perspective in the sociology of religion. "explains the existence of social institutions such as religion in terms of the needs that the institutions would meet in society" the main line approach derived from an attempt by harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons to synthesize the work of Durkheim and Weber. It was understood that religion was the glue that was holding society together; it provided the basis for social solidarity, sort of like the biological model or organismic analogy of the body where in all the parts work together to maintain equilibrium of the whole . Two reactions occurred, the first was the doom and gloom that saw the decline of religion influence, family instability, and increasing crime rate. and the second was a search for the real religion of society. functionalist theory spawned by directly/indirectly a number of middle range theories. Deprivation theory (though discredited by empirical evidence) claimed that relifion met needs economic, social, political, educational, of deprived people; religion in other words, was a way in which people who didnt have it all together adjusted to life, this harps back to Karl Marx's "opium of the people" A new paradigm by Stephen Warner: in this movement moved away from seeing religion as derivative of something else, it takes religion as something real or as an independent variable, rise of New religious movements such as the charismatic movement in Roman Catholicism sent small daggers into macro structural models, Stark and colleagues refer to this as the limits to secularization, this also proved the Durkeimian definition of religion simply did not work in contemporary society.

Dr. Martin E. Marty a preeminent historians of American religion, listed ten reasons for studying religion the firs being that religion motivates most killing in the world today. We need to understand what it is about religion that mixes with other humas emotional dynamics to produce results that are so at odds with the peaceful teachings that seem to be at the core of all the world's religions. Marty's second reason states that religion is repsonsible for most of the healing in the world Conflict theories:In sociology functionalism was dealt a hefty blow in the Vietnam era by a Marxist inspired conflict theory. Aspects may be seen in studies of liberation theology, particulary in Latin America, and in the feminist theory, at least one variant sees the female class as oppressed by the male, with religious institutions being no different. Conflict theory takes from physics, that is the dynamic tension created by forces in opposition to each other. Another variant by Anthropologist Victor Turner centered on social drama, which are units of aharmonic processes that arise in conflict situations and represent the time axes of fields, in other words people act out their disagreements. Breach is the first phase occurring in norm-governed social relationships between persons/groups within the same social system I.E. a falling out, this is important to religion because religious movements in history occurred due to a breach in opinions. Second step is a period of mounting crisis or escalation following the breach, the involvement of external factors is called the arena by Turner covering the field in which the field participants are. Rational Choice Theory: the human is a rational actor, making choices that he/she thinks are best, calculating costs/benefits. In the religious context, choices made by humans whether it be for buying a car or what to eat are made the same when choosing religious faith. There are no good or bad decisions, and no decision is still a decision. Stark and bainbridge list seven basic axioms, from which hundreds of propositions flow for understanding religion, for instance why are strict churches so strong? if more is required of someone the more likely they will be to stick too it just like a person buying a new car, taking extra good care of it. Edward bailey who was at the forefront of Implicit Religion, the concept is strongly interdisciplinary in character and that may be part of its appeal. at its core it says that there are a set of ultimate beliefs that are shared by most humans

Bryan Wilson: Believed secularization was taking place, wilson focused on the social/individual that is the shift from social to the individual. Social organization changes from a community base(relying on trust/loyalty/seniority/authority) to a impersonal role base(relying on role relationships/skills/contracts) where personal virtue, religious perception/goals had little meaning or little importance to the operation of the modern system. Roger Finke (rational choice theory): he believed that secularization was not taking place, his focus was on the vitality of religious institutions, how likely people are to commit time and effort to religious institutions, which churches remain popular? are their teachings more rational? do trends support traditional model of secularization? found that the most popular were the ones that had a literal interpretation of sacred texts not necessarily the most rational, rural areas were not more poplar, demanded the most commitment. He believed that diversity had a positive impact on religious growth.

Each of the world religions has increased in: Internal diversity (The farther a tradition travels, the more diverse it becomes in terms of beliefs, rituals and institutions) Structural differentiation (as societies become larger ad more complex, the division of labor increases so that specialized institutions carry out specific functions -Durkheim: Functions previously performed by religious organizations, such as education, are now carried out elsewhere. Religious institutions have taken on a specialized role, concentrating more on private than public life) Each has also had to struggle with the dilemma of modernism: the challenges of cultural pluralism and scientific criticism. (Modernism is the emergence of a global, scientific-technological culture since the scientific, technological, and industrial revolutions that began with the Enlightenment in Western Europe, Scientific and democratic revolutions led many European intellectuals to believe that religion was dying) Problem of Relativism: Some religions are more exclusivist in their formulations than others but virtually all of them assert that their own version of the world is true. This becomes problematic in a multicultural setting. According to critics of relativism, certain ethical standards are universally and unequivocally true because they come from God. George Simmel-the relativist position does not deny the possibility of the existence of an absolute, but merely insists that one cannot know the Absolute absolutely unless one is actually God. Ian Barbour 1960: Believed that science and religion were complementary forms of reality, each alone showed only a partial view.

christiano chapter 2: for the sociological study of religion what matters is not whether God exists or whether the soul is immortal or how evil comes to be defined, but the fact that people act on beliefs that God does or does not exist, that there is or is not life after death, that evil is or is not a real power operating in the world. participant observation: downfall especially with ethnographic studies aside from the lengthy time component, is the fact that it is usually restricted to one/two research sites and makes it impossible in some instances to know whether or how a study's results may be generalized. The benefit of course being that it allows the actor a larger role in shaping the meaning of the context of the data.

Theory in the study of religion: a theory is an explanation as peter berger pointed out "the interest of sociologist is primarily theoretical". the social science aspect comes after the research has been done and it is time to make sense/interpret the data. Survey research: Recent research by Kirk Hadaway, Penny Long Merler, and Mark Chaves ho have actually counted the people in churches over successive weekends, suggests that people overreport their religious participation in survey research. Issues to pay attention too:Role of the researcher in mobilizing/interpreting the questions/data, data being misinterpreted by lack of fit between the understanding of the researcher and the meaning of participants. Historical research: mine existing historical records for clues about social life at other times and places in order to learn more about human behavior in a comparative perspective. Can be misleading since the researcher is unable to control the situations under which data are gathered. Also it must be recognized that word meanings have changed over time.

Hearn chapter 1: What are the two arguements for and against the commercialization of religious ceremonies? many practitioners view folkloric performance as a logical way to protect their communities' economic interests and openly celebrate their spiritual heritage, while on the other hand some practitioners argue that the forces of commercial folklorization are blurring Santeria's social focus. They contend that the growing opportunities in hotel cabarets, the growth of an informal market for teaching foreigners the ways of Santeria has undermined the internal solidarity of religious communities and the efficacy of spiritual symbols/practices.

What is Cuba's largest industry? Tourism, generating an estimated 1.95 billion dollars. the Asociacion Cultural Yoruba De Cuba was founded in 1976 by O'Farril and Ibanez under the name Ifa yesterday, Ifa today, Ifa tomorrow, when marquez took over in the 92 election he succeeded in formally registering the organization with a license for official operation, it then changed its name to what it is today.

hearn introduction continued: Who is Mika? He is the priest of the Havana temple house, he is a babalawo, who was his bata drums teacher Hearn performed participant observations in two Santeria temple houses, in what cities were they located? Old Havana (13 months) , and Santiago de Cuba (11 months). What two officially recognized religious organizations are present in the two cities Hearn conducted his study? Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba, and the Asociacion Cultural Yoruba in Havana.

What is the main examination of Hearn's book regarding his participant observation in the Santeria temple houses? the book examines the formation of sustainable collaborative relationships between informal community actors, formal state institutions, and foreign development agencies in the post 1990 Cuba. What original interest led Hearn to want to study or have interest in Cuba? Involved in percussion at the University of Wisconsin Madison Dance program and worked closely with the leading Brazilian, Cuban, and West African percussionist which lead to a year of musicological research in Senegal, his experience with percussion was his original stimulus in cuba.

Christiano chapter 3: Secularization was given to us by Max Weber and then picked up by Ernst Troeltsch, both writing about it in the early decades of the twentieth century, however it did not appear significantly in U.S. sociology until the late 50's. Weber was interested in how methods of rational calculation had come to dominate modern life, he referred to this as the "spirit of capitalism". he was convinced that from the 16th century and on that outside occurrences could be explained through experience, this world view meant that outside forces were being laid aside, he termed it Entzauberung-"disenchantment" or "de-magi-fication", mystery and miracles could be explained through human reason. , the name secularization was given to this by Weber. secularization: the decline of religion, that is their previously accepted symbols, doctrines, and institutions lose their prestige, the culmination of this would be a religion-less society. While different authors peg the historical ground differently, the general view is that by the end of the 18th century, the set of dynamics collectively known as the enlightenment or great transformation had laid the groundwork for the demise of traditional religion and that this was measurably enhanced by the work of Charles Darwin on evolution and Sigmund Freud on the unconscious.

the separation of church and state can mean that the church loses tax support, or other church organizations that before had little access to the religious population now have an equal by in, now individuals are required to do societal norms like legally register their baby's' name instead of waiting for a religious ceremony to name the baby. Civil Religion: Robert Bellah wrote a seminal essay titled "Civil Religion in America" in 1967, he refers to a transcendent universal religion of the nation and reflects the functional sociology of both Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. In the 1920's the Institute of of Social and Religious Research sent Robert and Helen Lynd, to Muncie Indiana to the town called Middletown. they wrote two books by the same name, and them became classics in the field of sociology. They returned to Middletown in the mid 1930's to see how things had changed. In the first book they concluded that religious life as represented by the churches was less pervasive than it was a generation ago, even though they had not seen the conditions from a decade ago nor researched it. in the second book they concluded religious life had declined further, people were more older and passive, and the churches had no shot with the young. in the 1970's the National Science Foundation, funded a restudy of Middletownm and they wanted to see the religious activity 50 years from Robert and Helen's last study in the 1930's. Their results showed that there was greater religiosity in Middletown, and that it was on the rise. National survey data from the late 1940's to present support this finding. Jeffrey K. Hadden presented a comprehensive critique on the weakness of the secularization theory. the core of his argument stated " a doctrine more than a theory, based on presuppositions that represent a taken for granted ideology", essentially saying that the theory could not be backed up by evidence, and that the emergence of NRG's shows that religion is thriving. Peter Berger who was a supporter of the Secularization theory during the late 1960's, he was a European emigre to the united states.After witnessing the Islamic revolution in Iran along with visits to the middle east he changed his mind. pluralism:having various forms of religion, for example the U.S. accommodates all religions, and with each new religion, spawns another religion.