Religion
by
Charles Lamson
Religion in Society
Religion, one of the oldest human institutions, is also among the most changeable and complex. On the one hand, religion expresses our deepest yearning for spiritual enlightenment and understanding; on the other, conflicts over religious beliefs and practices have resulted in persecution, wars, and much human suffering, as can be seen or heard by viewing or listening to almost any form of media for more than thirty minutes. Little Wonder, therefore, that the founders of sociology including Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber all wrote extensively about the power of religion and the great changes religion has undergone as societies have evolved.
Defining Religion Religion is not easy to define. One could begin with a definition that has a concept of God at its core, but many religions do not have a clear concept of God. One could define religion in terms of the emotions of spirituality, oneness with nature, awe, mystery, and many other feelings, but that would not be a very helpful definition because emotions are extremely difficult to capture in words. Taking another tack, one might think in terms of organized religions---churches, congregations, ministers, rabbis, and so on---but clearly the organizational aspect of religion is just one of its many dimensions. It is frustrating to have to work so hard to find something that seems so common, yet without a good working definition of religion it is impossible to compare different religions or refer to particular aspects of religion. We can approach a working definition of religion by saying that religion is any set of coherent answers to the dilemmas of human existence that makes the world meaningful (Kornblum, 2003, p. 518). From this point of view, religion is how human beings express their feelings about such ultimate concerns as sickness or death or the meaning of human life. Almost all religions involve their adherents in a system of beliefs and practices that express devotion to the supernatural and foster deep feelings of spirituality. In this sense, we say that religion functions to meet the spiritual needs of individuals. But religion has also been defined in terms of its social function: It is a system of beliefs and rituals that helps band people together through shared worship, thereby creating a social group. Rituals are formal patterns of activity that express symbolically a set of shared meanings; in the case of religious rituals such as baptism or communion, the shared meanings are sacred. The term sacred refers to phenomena that are regarded as extraordinary, transcendent, and outside the everyday course of events---that is, supernatural. That which is sacred may be represented by a wide variety of symbols, such as a god or set of gods; a holy person, such as the Buddha; various revered writings, such as the Bible, the Torah, or the Quran; holy objects, such as the cross or the Star of David; holy cities, such as Jerusalem or Mecca; and much else. The term profane refers to all phenomena that are not sacred (Kurtz, 1995, Gods in the Global Village). Religion as an Institution Religion is a major social institution because it carries out important social functions and encompasses a great variety of organizations (e.g., churches, congregations, charities), each with its own statuses and roles (e.g., ministers, priests, rabbis, parishioners, fundraisers) and specific sets of norms and values (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Quranic rules). As an institution, religion helps people express their feelings of spirituality and faith. Religion is often said to be a cultural institution because it guides our society's mental life, especially its ideas about morality, goodness, and evil. Of course, religion is not alone in performing these functions, but it remains a powerful source of moral precepts (Dudley, 2002, (Ed.) Religion in America; Gilbert, 1997, Redeeming Culture). Religion also confers legitimacy on a society's norms and values. Families seek the "blessing of holy matrimony" in wedding ceremonies. Baptisms, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, and other religious ceremonies mark the passage of children through their development stages and are occasions for statements about proper behavior and good conduct. Swearing on a Bible is common in courtrooms and on other occasions when norms of truth and fairness are being enforced. The political institutions of society also often look to religion for legitimization. The monarchs of eighteenth-century Europe invoked the will of God in their activities and sometimes claimed to rule by divine right. The Pledge of Allegiance includes the phrase "under God" to reinforce the feeling that the destiny and unity of the nation and the values of liberty and justice are human efforts to carry out an even higher purpose.
Our society insists on separating the influence of religion from the laws of government. There is always controversy, however, over how much legitimacy religions can confer on political behavior (Swift, 1998, Religion and the American Experience). Fundamentalist Muslims may deny women rights that would be viewed as routine in our own culture (such as the right to drive a car); in the United States, Christian fundamentalists may claim that God does not favor political candidates who support abortion and homosexual rights. But these claims that religion legitimates particular norms and that God does not condone their transgression by political leaders usually clash with more secular interpretations of the society's norms. The debates over the role of religion and the political process can become extremely controversial. The Power of Faith Until comparatively recent times, religion dominated the cultural life of human societies. Activities that are now performed by other cultural institutions, particularly education, art, and the media, used to be the province of religious leaders and organizations. In hunting-and-gathering bands and in many a tribal societies, the holy person, or shaman, was always the teacher and communicator of the society's beliefs and values. In early agrarian societies the priesthood was a powerful force; only the priests were literate and, hence, able to interpret and preserve the society's sacred texts, which represented the culture's most strongly held values and norms. For example, in ancient Egypt, where the pharaoh was worshiped as a god, his organization of regional and local priests controlled the entire society. Today religion continues to play an important part in the lives of people throughout the world, even though the influence of organized religions is diminishing in many societies. In the United States, for example, a 2013 poll by UPI/Harris showed that three-quarters of U. S. adults say they believe in God, down from 82 percent in 2005, 2007, and 2009 (December 22, 2013. U. S., Belief in God down, Belief in Theory of Evolution Up., upi.com). The strength of religious attitudes and the influence of some religions can also be seen in the conflict over abortion, which plays such a prominent role in American politics, and in the controversies generated by Christian fundamentalists who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible and may therefore deny the validity of evolutionary theory. Outside the United States Religious violence is undergoing a revival. The past decade has witnessed a sharp increase in violent sectarian or religious tensions. These range from Islamic extremists waging global jihad and power struggles between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Middle East to the persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar and outbreaks of violence between Christians and Muslims across Africa. According to Pew, in 2018 more than a quarter of the world's countries experienced a high incidence of hostilities motivated by religious hatred, mob violence related to religion, terrorism, and harassment of women for violating religious codes (Katayun Kishi, June 21, 2018. Key Findings on the Global Rise in Religious Restrictions, Pew Research Center). At the same time that religion is a source of division and conflict, however, it can also be a force for healing social problems and moving masses of people toward greater insight into their common humanity. This occurs at the micro level of interaction, for example, in groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, in which spirituality is an essential part of the recovery program. At the macro level, the power of faith can be seen in impoverished rural and urban communities throughout Latin America. In these communities Catholic church leaders, Parish priests, and lay parishioners have embraced the ideals of a social gospel that seeks the liberation of believers from poverty and oppression. These base Christian commonalities, as they are often called, have become a powerful force in the movement for social justice and other far-reaching changes in their societies (Tabb, 1986, Chruches in Struggle).
Secularism and Its Limits Since medieval times the traditional dominance of religion in many spheres of life has been greatly reduced. The process by which this has occurred is termed secularization. This process, according to Robert Nisbet (1970, The Social Bond), "results in . . . respect for values of utility rather than of sacredness alone, control of the environment rather than passive submission to it, and, in some ways most importantly, concerned with man's present welfare in this earth rather than his supposed immortal relation to the gods" (p. 388). Secularization usually accompanies the increasing differentiation of cultural institutions---that is, the separation of other institutions from religion. In Europe during the Middle Ages, for example, there were no schools separate from the church. The state, too, was thought of as encompassed by the church or at least as legitimated by the official state religion and church organization. Laws and courts were guided by religious doctrine and clerical law could often be as important as civil law---indeed, to be tried as a heretic often meant torture and death. churches engaged in large-scale economic activity., owned much land and property, and often mounted their own armies. The Renaissance the Enlightenment, and the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries all speeded the process of differentiation in which schools, science, laws, courts, and other institutions gained independence from religious control. However, this process has not occurred at the same rate throughout the world. For example, the removal of education from the control of religious institutions has occurred more slowly in some societies than in others. In Eastern Europe all education was controlled by the state until recently. In most countries of Western Europe and the America's there are religious schools, but these are separate from and overshadowed by the state-run educational system (Kurt's, 1995, Gods in the Global Village). The emergence of cultural institutions like the secular public school and the weakening of the influence of religion on government do not result in complete secularization. People who are free to determine their own religious beliefs and practices may attend church less often or not at all, but total secularization does not occur (Finke and Stark, 1992, The Churching of America). Moreover, in almost every society that has experienced secularization one can find examples of religious revival. Indeed, modern communication technologies, especially television, have contributed immensely to the revival of interest in religion, as witnessed by the popularity of televangelists like Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson (Iannaccone, Keanu Coney, Starke, and Binky, 1998, Rationality and the Religious Mind. Economic Inquiry, 36, 373-390). Faith and Tolerance: Uneasy Together People who believe that there's is the "one true faith" are found in every religion. For such true believers it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to practice tolerance and accept other beliefs and religions.
Adherents of all the major religions have at times acted as if theirs were the "one true faith," and they have used this claim as a basis for persecuting those who deviated from their beliefs, both within their own religion and in other religions. In relatively recent history, the assassination of peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin by fanatical Jewish fundamentalists is an example of extreme intolerance within a religion. In Christianity, for centuries before the Enlightenment it was common practice to harass and kill people who practiced pagan religions and to attack believers in other monotheistic faiths particularly Judaism and Islam, who were called infidels or non-believers. During the same historical period, far more tolerance for other religions was practiced in the Islamic world. Jews expelled from Spain during the Catholic Inquisition in the 1490s, for example, were often given safe havens in Islamic societies. So from a historical perspective we see that all major religions pass through phases during which they are more or less tolerant of other religions (2003, 520-521). The separation of church and state, a hallmark of American culture and society as well as many other democracies, negates the idea that there is only one true faith. Instead, it promotes the idea that you may believe what you like, and so may I, and neither can impose belief on the other. Thus Thomas Cahill, a scholar of religion and an expert on religious tolerance writes:
*SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., 2003, WILLIAM KORNBLUM,* end |
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