Download Sociology of Religion

Sociology of Religion
Sociology of religion is the study of the people, institutions, practices, and beliefs that are
associated with and shaped by religion in society. Core questions within the sociology of
religion – What do people believe? How is religion organized? What influence does religion
have upon other aspects of social life? – were once intimately connected with the study of
theological ethics. In fact, some of the earliest sociologists of religion – such as H. Richard
Niebuhr and Ernst Troeltsch – are rightfully remembered as both ethicists and sociologists. The
field as we find it today, however, is concentrated almost exclusively within the social science
departments of the secular university, and sociologists generally approach their work from the
standpoint of “methodological atheism” – in other words, without taking any official stance
regarding the theological veracity of the religions that they study. Yet theological beliefs are
always close to the center of sociological investigations, as the sociology of religion seeks to
uncover the dynamic interplay between claims of truth and morality, hermeneutics, and the
groups and institutions in which such practices of interpretation and meaning-making take shape.
Methodologically, sociologists of religion use varied approaches in the practice of
research, although identifying variables, observing and recording empirical facts, and developing
and testing generalizable social theories are all core components of social science research. How
scholars use these practices in their research is much more variable, however; sociologists of
religion are just as likely to analyze large-scale public datasets with statistical methodology as
they are to study a particular religious community as a participant observer. Yet throughout
these disparate approaches to research, a common focus upon the relationship between religion
and society animates both the earliest social theorists and current researchers alike. At its heart,
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
2
the sociology of religion maintains an abiding interest in how the properties of a meaningmaking system may influence – and be influenced by – the changing dynamics of social life.
Classic Foundations and Their Legacies
The discipline of sociology was born amidst the industrialization of Europe in the 19th
century and the changing forms of social organization produced in its wake. In particular, the
trio of social theorists generally credited as the founders of the discipline – Karl Marx, Max
Weber, and Emile Durkheim – were particularly interested in the dynamic relationship between
religious ideology and material reality. Marx famously argued in the Contribution to the
Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right that “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the
sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Influenced heavily by Feuerbach, Marx deemed religion a projection of the proletariat’s material
suffering– “Man makes religion, religion does not make man”– with religion a key source of
entrapment in workers’ oppressive material relations with the capitalist bourgeoisie.
Marx’s focus upon materialism is generally contrasted with Weber’s (perhaps more
enduring) emphasis upon meaning. For Weber, the ultimate question of social science is that of
the human creature’s ability to construct a meaningful totality – for example, to understand an
internal reality of suffering, or reconcile an external observation of theodicy. Of course, this is
not to suggest that Weber was uninterested in material relationships. Rather, in The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber was fascinated by the Calvinist doctrine of
predestination, arguing that the uncertainty surrounding salvation led early Calvinists in Europe
to seek material success as a sign of their eternal election. In fact, a central claim in Weber’s
writings is that various religions make the cosmos meaningful by legitimating their subjects’
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
3
material positions in the world – or alternatively, by compensating them for their corresponding
lack of prestige. Applying this perspective to the U.S. context in the early twentieth century, H.
Richard Niebuhr observed in The Social Sources of Denominationalism that the status system of
the American landscape had quite neatly reproduced itself in its churches – a hierarchy crowned
by the superior wealth and status of Episcopalians, for instance, and marked by the “disinherited”
Protestant sects at the bottom. Furthermore, the persistent color line of racial inequality rendered
the body of Christ broken in the enduring legacy of sin.
Present-day scholars question the degree to which the status divisions noted by Niebuhr
still persist in American denominationalism, although the most important recent argument about
the social structure of American denominationalism is the one articulated by Wuthnow in The
Restructuring of American Religion. Observing that the post-War dividing lines among
American Christians were not denominational, but ideological, Wuthnow concluded that modern
denominational structure were less important than the emerging cross-denominational
realignment along the theological axes of orthodoxy and liberalism. Moreover, increases in
religious switching, intermarriage, and status gains made by religious conservatives had all but
erased the enduring fault lines of status that had divided American Christians for much of the
nation’s history. While Wuthnow’s central arguments about cross-denominational alliances have
earned commonplace acceptance, his conclusions about the declining status differences among
American Christians remains debated. Enduring racial segregation and the continued
stratification within conservative Protestantism – in which members of conservative
denominations consistently experience lower educational outcomes than their mainline
Protestant peers – offer the chief challenges to this description of socioeconomic leveling within
the American religious landscape.
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
4
Other theoretical emphases in the field trace their roots to Durkheim’s writings about
collective meaning, practice, and ritual in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. While
Weber focused upon the experience of meaning among individuals, Durkheim was primarily
concerned with meaning as it was experienced in collective contexts of ritual, practice, and
feeling that elevate religion to the status of “social fact” – in other words, an experience that
shapes individuals through a power borne of its collective nature, which becomes something
greater than a sum of its individual manifestations. Religion, in this conception, is always
collective, and as such must be reinforced and reactivated by collective rituals that center around
shared forms of symbolic meaning-making.
Working largely within this paradigm in the mid-1960s, Peter Berger’s influential
argument about secularization alleged that the modern condition of pluralism, rationalization,
and scientific investigation would necessarily undermine the collective “plausibility structures”
that reinforced religious belief and made possible faith in the supernatural. Describing the long
arc of the “sacred canopy’s” dismemberment in Western history, Berger predicted that the
disenchantment, rationalization, and voluntarism that increasingly characterized modern
Christianity would ultimately render religion largely inconsequential in modern life. Carried
within the seeds of the Reformation itself, Berger argued, the rationalization and codification of
religious beliefs – a tendency noted and discussed by Weber as well – ultimately creates a
conception of the world that leaves little room for magic or belief in a transcendent God.
Moreover, a pluralistic environment creates denominations that “market” their religion to
discriminating consumers, and in which religion would increasingly inform only private
concerns that held little relevance for matters of larger public or collective importance. Although
this “secularization paradigm” was the status quo at its time (and remained so at least until the
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
5
early 1990s), most current work in the sociology of religion begins with the premise that Berger
was simply mistaken – at least, in terms of his predictions for the United States.
Current Issues in the Field
One challenge to the secularization paradigm appears in the resurgence of theologically
orthodox religions both within the United States and abroad; thus, the question of how orthodox
religions can co-exist with modernity frames most sociological analysis of conservative religion,
as in Hunter’s early study of evangelicalism. American evangelicals are the preeminent example
of a religious tradition that generally claims both orthodox and expressive religious beliefs while
also presenting itself as a religious movement to be reckoned with in the public sphere. More
recently, Christian Smith and colleagues have presented the most compelling challenge to the
secularization paradigm by arguing that pluralism does not diminish religious vitality, but
pradoxically invites certain religious groups to thrive through developing a “subcultural identity”
that finds meaning and energy in defining themselves against the status quo. Contrary to
Berger’s argument that pluralism weakens the ability of religions to make truth-claims, Smith’s
work contends that the strength of conservative Protestantism lies in evangelicals’ sense of being
both in the world and apart from it (an orientation toward public life that H. Richard Niebuhr
would call “Christ transforming culture.”) Evangelicals’ interest in public issues of family,
sexuality, and reproduction have further animated the subculture’s sense of being an embattled
outsider in American culture, and fostered engagement with public life rather than the retreat to
private life that Berger foretold.
Yet other claims inherent in Berger’s writings have proven to be remarkably prescient –
for instance, his prediction that religion in the modern world would not be imposed, but rather
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
6
“marketed” among denominations who would be compelled to expand their claim upon believers
in a pluralistic religious marketplace. This economistic metaphor for religious life proves an apt
– if perhaps disquieting – description of the social dynamics of religion in society, in which
religious pluralism can be understood as the theological equivalent of deregulation. Indeed, the
American experience of the disestablishment of religion suggests the existence of “religious
markets” as proposed by Finke and Stark. Building upon the description of church and sect
proposed by Troeltsch and the dynamic church-sect cycle observed by H. R. Niebuhr, Finke and
Stark also help to explain the resurgence of orthodox religions in modern life: religions that
“demand” more of their practitioners through theological orthodoxy turn out to be “stronger” in
their ability to attract and retain committed members – a conclusion affirmed by similar work
conducted by scholars such as Kelley and Iannaccone. Conversely, the more permissive, socially
integrated bureaucratic denominations (in other words, mainline Protestants) can expect to “lose”
market share in a religious economy because they offer potential members a less rewarding
religious experience – an argument generally recognized as being compatible with Smith’s
“subcultural identity” theory.
The fate of mainline Protestantism in a religious marketplace that rewards orthodoxy,
distinction, and a sense of embattlement remains debated. While few could question the
longevity of mainliners’ historical commitments to issues of social justice, advocacy, and higher
education, conservative religious groups – particularly those that are structured by conservative
denominational affiliations – do retain more of their young people as members when they reach
adulthood. Yet while anecdotal evidence may imply that mainline churches are losing members
to more conservative denominations, little empirical evidence exists to support this conclusion.
In fact, Hout, Greeley, and Wilde have demonstrated that the growing size of conservative
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
7
Protestant denominations relative to their mainline Protestant counterparts is largely explained
by the difference in birthrates between each group: conservative Protestants tend to marry
younger and have more children than their better-educated, later-marrying mainline Protestant
counterparts. This “demographic imperative” of religious change thus owes less to theology than
it does to demography. Switching from liberal traditions to conservative ones is negligible by
comparison, and mostly offset by the individuals who switch denominations in the opposite
direction.
Alongside this focus upon institutional affiliations and religious traditions, sociologists of
religion are increasingly interested in the expressions of religion that take place outside of these
traditional, fixed categories of theological experience. Influenced by recent trends in religious
studies by scholars such as Orsi and Hall, religious practice emerges as a legitimate source of
study in and of itself – either in addition to or regardless of theological belief. Within this
“Lived Religion” school of study, scholars focus upon the ways in which religious practitioners
adopt and adapt religious rituals and symbols in ways that serve highly contextualized needs for
identity-formation and self-expression.
A particularly compelling example of this perspective appears in Ammerman’s analysis
of “Golden Rule Christians.” Rather than developing a coherent theological system, Golden
Rule Christians emphasize practices – most importantly, being caregivers for others in their
ongoing relationships. After noting that these (mostly liberal Protestant) practitioners generally
have a low view of Scripture, Ammerman observes that Golden Rule Christians do indeed seek
out membership in churches, and describe spiritual experiences in which they wrestle with issues
of God’s presence and transcendence. Yet focusing on what they actually do – claim church
membership, seek religious education for their children, and prioritize caring and good deeds –
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
8
illuminates a set of findings that are profoundly misrepresented in a single-minded focus upon
professed belief. Similarly, studies of congregational life take care to emphasize the range
Christian practices that take shape in particular contexts and institutional settings, as well as the
complex ways in which different communities negotiate both orthodoxy and pluralism. A robust
literature also probes the relationship between religion and the practices of family life and
formation – and the often fluid and variable relationship between the two.
Finally, scholars of immigration have recently turned a special eye toward the range of
ways in which immigrants interact with religious traditions in both their host and sending
communities, as well as how new populations of immigrants, particularly those who practice
non-Christian religions, may alter the religious landscape of the United States. Similarly, a
related literature examines the relationship between religious ideals and economic advancement
in the developing world, in many ways suggesting a full-circle return to the very questions that
animated Weber’s examination of the relationships between theology, materialism, and the
modern world, but with a new expression of contemporary social life – one that is developing
outside of the West, and demonstrates new iterations of religious faith and practice – as its
starting point.
Suggested Further Reading
Ammerman, N. T. (1997). Golden Rule Christianity: Lived Religion in the American
Mainstream. Lived religion in America : toward a history of practice. D. D. Hall.
Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press: 196-216.
Berger, P. L. (1967). The sacred canopy; elements of a sociological theory of religion. Garden
City, N.Y., Doubleday.
R.P. Massengill
Sociology of Religion
9
Durkheim, Émile. (1965). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York, Free Press.
Finke, R. and R. Stark (1992). The churching of America, 1776-1990 : winners and losers in our
religious economy. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press.
Hall, David D., ed. Lived Religion in America : Toward a History of Practice. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1997.
Hout, M., A. Greeley, et al. (2001). "The demographic imperative in religious change in the
United States." The American Journal of Sociology 107(2): 468.
Hunter, J. D. (1983). American evangelicalism : conservative religion and the quandary of
modernity. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press.
Iannaccone, L. R. (1994). "Why Strict Churches Are Strong." American Journal of Sociology
99(5): 1180-1211.
Kelley, D. M. (1972). Why conservative churches are growing. New York, Harper & Row.
Niebuhr, H. R. (1954). The social sources of denominationalism. Hamden, Conn., Shoe String
Press.
Orsi, R. A. (1985). The Madonna of 115th Street : faith and community in Italian Harlem, 18801950. New Haven, Yale University Press.
Smith, C. (1998). American evangelicalism : embattled and thriving. Chicago, Ill., University of
Chicago Press.
Weber, M. (1950).. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York,: Scribner's.
Wuthnow, R. (1988). The restructuring of American religion : society and faith since World War
II. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.
Rebekah Peeeples Massengill