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Religion & Ritual
Religion
 A Western concept like
work/economy/politics/technology.

In western society, Religion is mostly seen as a clearly delineated
aspect of society, separate from the other terms above. Not the
case within all cultures.

Ex: Ancient Egypt
ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES
TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION
 DEFINITION OF RELIGION: Any set of
beliefs and practices involving the supernatural.
 Many cultures do not make a sharp distinction
between the “natural” and the “supernatural.”
ULURU,
SACRED
TO THE
ABORIGINAL
PEOPLES OF
AUSTRALIA
Uluru
Religious Perspectives in Anthropology
 Religious perspectives vary among Western and
“primitive” societies
 In Western societies:

Nature was ordained by heaven to be dominated and
exploited to human’s desires and needs.
 In “primitive” societies:
 “Religion is present in human’s view of his/her place in
the universe”
 “Human’s relatedness to the universe, nonhuman nature,
reality & circumstance”

Religion is evident in daily life, agriculture, hunting, health
measures, arts, and crafts.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 There are no “universal” standards by




which all social and cultural groups can
be evaluated.
No one religion is superior to another.
People’s religious beliefs and practices
must be studied within the framework
of their own culture and history.
All religions are equally meaningful to
their adherents.
This is in contrast to
ETHNOCENTRISM: The concept
that one’s own culture or religion is
superior to others and should be judged
from that perspective.
ANTHROPOLOGY
SEEKS TO UNDERSTAND
• The range and
diversity of human
beliefs and practices.
• What makes beliefs
and practices
meaningful to people.
• What the roles
religion plays in the
organization of
cultures and societies.
Defining Religion within a Society
3 good basic questions to start with:
1.
Functional: What function (or role) does religion
have in society?
–
Does it provide a moral code? Explanations for natural
events?
2. Analytic: How is religion manifested in society?
–
Through Narratives? Rituals? Ethics?
3. Essentialist: What is the relationship between
society and the supernatural?
INDIGENOUS
BELIEFS AND PRACTICES
• Many indigenous
groups have
distinct religious
systems of beliefs
and practices in
the same way that
they have their
own languages
and cultures.
Syncretism
 Combining of different beliefs, often while melding
practices of various schools of thought.
RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM
 Through time a culture’s
religious beliefs and
practices persist, but also
change through
incorporating new elements.
 Religions are adopted and
transformed.
 FOR EXAMPLE: Early
Christianity incorporated
European paganism so that
“Christ’s Mass” became
integrated with pre Christian
symbols and practices.
The Native American Church
Peyote as a sacrament
Combines Christian symbolism
with traditional Native American
symbolism
RELIGIONS FULFILL
SOCIAL NEEDS
 They provide meaning
in peoples’ lives.
 They help people
manage anxiety and
increase their sense of
personal order.
 They reinforce the
social order.
 They instigate social
and cultural change.
RELIGIONS PROVIDE A
“COSMOLOGY”
A COSMOLOGY is a set of principles and/or beliefs about:
 The nature of life and death.
 How the universe was created.
 The origin of society.
 The relationship of individuals and groups to one another.
 The relationship of humans to nature.
CHARACTERISTICS OF
RELIGION
 SACRED
NARRATIVES
 SYMBOLS
 SPIRITS
 SACRED POWERS
 RITUALS
 ADDRESSING THE
SUPERNATURAL
SACRED NARRATIVES
 “Myths” that recount historical events, heroes, gods, spirits, and the
origin of all things.
 Anthropology defines “myth” as realities lived and stories told.
 Sacred narratives are integral to a society’s rituals, moral code, and
organization.
RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS
SPIRITS
 Most religions assert the world is
filled with beings and powers
that have life and consciousness
separate from humans’, but
whose existence cannot be
scientifically validated.
 GOD: A spirit that is believed to
have created the world, or who
exerts control over the world.
SACRED POWERS
 MANA: A special kind of
sacred power or energy
that infuses the universe.
 Mana can be concentrated
in humans, other
creatures, spirits, and
objects.
 Integral to many different
religions across cultures.
Mana
 The idea of mana arises from the awe inspired by
strange, unusual, and powerful things.
Things filled with Mana
x
RITUALS
 Rituals are ceremonial
acts with repeated,
stylized gestures that
manipulate religious
symbols for specific
purposes.
 People enact and
reinforce their religious
beliefs through these
ritualized practices.
Diversity of Rituals
Symbols are Central to Rituals
 Dominant Symbols
 They are condensed, many different phenomena are given
common expression
 Dominant symbol amounts to a fusion of divergent meanings
 Dominant ritual symbols entail a polarization of meaning
COMMUNING WITH THE
SUPERNATURAL
• The majority of rituals
are designed to
commune with and/or
control supernatural
spirits and powers
through a combination
of:
– PRAYER
– SACRIFICE
– MAGIC
RELIGIOUS
PRACTITIONERS
 SHAMAN: An average
member of a community who
is socially recognized as
having the ability to mediate
between humans and spirits.
 PRIEST: A person who is
formally elected, appointed, or
hired to a full-time religious
office.
Characteristics of Priests
 Training (by other priests)
 Hold authority of office
 Conservators of Tradition
 Hold scheduled ceremonies




for congregations
Role-Models for congregants
Often full-time practitioners
Perform scheduled rituals
Organized into hierarchies
WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY
 Witchcraft and sorcery are very
common elements of religious beliefs
and practices in many cultures.
 Based in earlier anthropologists’
research among “non Western”
cultures: WITCHCRAFT is
 The ability to harm others by
harboring malevolent thoughts about
them.

SORCERY is the conscious and
intentional use of magic.
 Witchcraft based in “Western” cultures
is the intentional use of magic to aid or
harm others, society, and the
environment, and thus comparable to
sorcery.
AZANDE
OF AFRICA
Sorcery and Witchcraft
 Develop because of inadequacies and/or to support
the legal system
MAGIC
 Belief that supernatural
powers can be influenced
through the use of ritual
formulas.


Sympathetic magic uses
representational objects, such as
dolls.
Contagious magic is a direct
relationship between ritual and the
body, such as use of the subject’s
hair or fingernails.
Oral & Written Religions
 Written Religions
 Based on a sacred text
‘Religions of the Book’
 Believers expected to have
some knowledge of the texts


Since text bound, these
religions can be spread
throughout the world


Islam
 Nigeria, Java, Egypt, Iran
Religions of Conversion

One has to affirm one’s faith
 Oral Religions
 Locally confined and
locally relevant
 Gods tend to be associated
with revered places in the
tribal areas
 Tend to be embedded in
social practices of society
Religion and the Human Capacity for
Language
 Religion is made possible by our human ability to use
language.
 No other animal has language or religion.
Language:
A System of Symbolic Communication
 Symbol: An object or event that stands for some
other object or event, the relationship between them
being determined solely by consensus.
- Helen Keller’s insight that “everything has a name”
Language and Culture
 Culture itself is made possible by language.
 Religion is the purest example of culture as a system
of meaningful symbols.
 Religion provides a system of symbols which explain
how humans are related to the world around them.
 In this, religion contrasts with science.
Religion and Science
 Science and Religion are different approaches to
understanding our place in nature.
 Science is concerned with finding mundane, practical
solutions to problems.
 Scientific “truths” are always tentative and changeable.
They are simply our currently most useful explanations
of phenomena based on the information we have so far.
The Paradox of “Social Science”
 In order to be useful for solving problems, scientists create
mechanical models—models that help us understand how
things work in terms of lawful, mechanistic relationships
among the parts of the models.
 When applied to human social and cultural life, such
“objective” models fail to capture the meaningfulness that
life has for human groups.
 Science “thingifies” the universe—even when building
models of the human condition
- e.g., “The heart is a pump. The lungs are like bellows. The
brain is like a computer.” Such analogies may help us solve
practical problems such as how to repair a leaky heart
valve, but they may also be a source of alienation and
anomie for human subjects.
Anthropomorphic versus
Mechanomorphic Models
 Humans do more than solve practical problems. We are not
simply robots. Rather, we live in a world that is rife with
existential meaningfulness.


Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to
animals, non-living things, phenomena, objects, or abstract concepts,
such as organizations, governments, spirits, 0r deities.
Mechanomorphic is a doctrine that the universe if fully explicable in
mechanistic terms
 In addition to thinking in practical terms, humans also
“humanize” the world around them by projecting human
qualities into the non-human world. This is common in:
- Fantasy Play
- Art
- Courtship Love
- Mental Disorders
- Religion
Fantasy Play
 Children are born without language. Their normal mental
state is an “altered state of consciousness” in which they
perceive the external world as an extension of their own
egos.
 In fantasy play, children spontaneously “project” human
qualities into the world around them.
- A sheet becomes a ghost.
- A broom becomes an embodiment of their
concept of “horse.”
 Such fantasy play transforms an unknown and potentially
hostile environment into an extension of their own egos,
making it seem safer and more controllable.
 Engaging in fantasy play involves ritual-like behavior.
Art
 Artistic reverie is similar to fantasy play. It too is an altered
state of consciousness in which the external world is treated
as an extension of the human ego rather than as something
separate and independent.
 Artistic performance, like fantasy play, involves role playing
in which the boundaries between self and not-self are
dissolved.
- e.g., the dancer “becomes one with the music.”
 Like the rituals of religion, artistic performance can be
highly choreographed.
Courtship Love
 In courtship love, we do not perceive our partner
objectively either.
- e.g., our beloved’s face becomes an embodiment of
our concept of beauty.
 The rules of courtship also involve highly predictable
patterns of behavior—i.e., “rituals.”
Mental Disorders
 Mental Disorders also involve both trance states
(states in which the normal boundary between self
and not-self) is dissolved and ritual behavior (aka
“symptoms”).
 Like the trance states and rituals of fantasy play,
artistic reverie and performance, courtship love, and
religion, they provide short-term relief from stress.
Religion
 Religion too makes use of trance states and rituals
that reduce our subjective experience of stress.
 As the most highly socialized system for entering
trances and engaging in rituals, participants learn to
channel both into appropriate times and settings.
- In this, religion contrasts markedly with
mental disorders.
Religious Anthropomorphism: Perceiving a Connection
with the non-Human
 A chocolate Mary
Religion: A Definition
 Religion is a socially shared system of
anthropomorphic beliefs and attendant feelings,
both of which are expressed in words and in rituals
by means of which nonhuman parts of the universe
are thought to be influenced.
 No other animal can be described as “religious.”
Life Cycle
 Naming Ceremonies
Life Cycle
 Adulthood Rituals
Life Cycle
 Marriage Rituals
Life Cycle
 Old Age: Hindu and Jain Ascetic
Renunciates
Life Cycle
 Funerals
Theories of Religion
Evolutionary
 When/how religion began
 This theory was introduced in the 1800s and went hand in hand
with Modernism and the Enlightenment.

Logic, science and Monotheism were the pinnacles of human
achievement


Western Society represented this pinnacle
Positivism

The only real knowledge is scientific knowledge
 This approach generally carries a lot of negative baggage and is
seen as outdated.

All other societies were seen as “primitive” compared to Western
Society.
 The quest for Religion’s origins is still ongoing and many
elements of Evolutionary Theory are now combined under the
Psychosocial Approach…
SIR EDWARD B. TYLOR
1832-1917
 A social evolutionist.
 He asserted that the development of
religions from one stage to the next is
universal throughout the world’s cultures:
 ANIMISM: Belief in souls, and that all
things in the world are endowed with a
soul.
 TOTEMISM: Religious practices
centered around animals, plants, or other
aspects of the natural world held to be
ancestral or closely identified with a
group and its individuals.
 POLYTHEISM: Belief in more than
one, or many gods.
 MONOTHEISM: Belief in one god.
Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1871)
 Religion: the belief in spiritual beings
 Functions of religion: provides answers to perplexing
questions about such phenomena as sleep, dreams,
fainting, and death.
TYLOR’S MINIMALIST
DEFINITION OF RELIGION
“BELIEF IN SPIRITUAL BEINGS” – ANIMISM

Primitive people were rationalists and scientific
philosophers.

The notion of spirits was not the outcome of irrational
thought.

Preliterate religious beliefs and practices were not
“ridiculous” or a “rubbish heap of miscellaneous folly.”

They were essentially consistent and logical, based on
rational thinking and empirical knowledge.
SIR JAMES FRAZER
1854-1941
 A Scottish ethnologist.
 The Golden Bough (1890-1915):
compares the myths, magical
practices, and religions of the world’s
cultures throughout history.
 Frazer developed the social
evolutionary model of:
MAGIC > RELIGION > SCIENCE
 He asserted Australian Aborigines
were the most primitive of all because
they practiced only, what he defined
their spirituality as, magic.
Marxist
 Developed in the 1800s around same time as the
Evolutionary Approach
 Karl Marx

Religion as a construction of those in control of society



Obey this religion & “us” and you will be happy
A crutch for people too depressed by the miseries of
capitalism.
“Opiate of society”

Religion functioned as a drug and diverted interest from the real
political issues to silly fantasies about a happy afterlife and the
pious and obedient.
MARX’S CRITIQUE
 MID 1800s: The history of the
world is a history of class struggle
between the “haves” and “have
nots.”
 Every aspect of society is part of a
superstructure determined by its
economic base.
 Religion is part of the
superstructure, and a false
ideology that provides excuses for
the oppressors to maintain the
inequitable status quo.
 Belief in god or gods is an
oppressive by-product of class
struggle and should be dismissed.
Functional
 What role does religion serve in society?
 Émile Durkheim
 Collective Conscious: Religion serves to hinder selfish
tendencies of the individual and promote social
cooperation. Symbols are a manifestation of the
collective conscious and, when brought up during
religious rituals, help to reinforce social cooperation.
 Radcliffe-Brown
 Need group solidarity (Religion) in order for society to
survive
 Bronislaw Malinowski
 Magic and religion as emotional and mental support
Emile Durkheim
(1858)
 “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices
relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and
forbidden--beliefs and practices which unite in one
single moral community called a Church, all those
who adhere to them.”
—Émile Durkheim
Durkheim, cont.
 The primary function of religion is to inspire respect
for customs and institutions that must be respected
if society is to survive.
 Thus, religion reinforces the unity and integrity of
society.
EMILE DURKHEIM’S (1858-1917)
FUNCTIONALIST THEORY OF RELIGION
RELIGIONS GENERATE SOCIAL COHESION.
 BELIEFS: All religious beliefs presuppose a classification of all things, real and
ideal, into two opposed groups: the sacred and the profane. This distinction is
the foundation of religions, not sacred spirits.



The SACRED encompasses the social community.
The PROFANE encompasses the personal and private.
RITUALS: Rules of conduct that prescribe how people should behave in the
presence of sacred things, and that reinforce social behaviors:



POSITIVE: The individual renews her/his commitment to the community.
NEGATIVE: Reinforces taboos to maintain communal order.
PIACULAR: Performed during a crisis to repair and solidify the community.
The TOTEMIC PRINCIPLE: He focused on Australian aborigines in which each
clan has a sacred, totemic animal or plant. Totemism provides systems of order
and classification. The totem or “god” of the clan IS the CLAN itself.
THUS: For Durkheim, GOD and SOCIETY are the same:
 Both are superior to individuals
 Individuals depend on both
 All must submit to the rules
EARLY 20th CENTURY
ANTHROPOLOGY
 Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) and Franz Boas (1858-1942)
developed the method of “participant observation,” and lived among
other cultures for extended periods.
 They were both emphatically opposed to social evolution.
 Anthropology becomes more grounded in cultural relativism.
 Anthropologists stop focusing on the origins of religions to:


How religions spread through DIFFUSION, the mixing of cultural elements
from one society to another through contact over time.
What FUNCTIONS religions serve in society.
MALINOWSKI’S
FUNCTIONALIST THEORY OF RELIGION
 He set out to prove that “savages”




were rational and not the “living
fossils” of a social evolutionary
paradigm.
The Trobrianders hunted and
gardened with empirically-honed
skills.
They turned to magic when practical
knowledge had reached its limits.
Religion functions in conjunction
with practicality.
His model focuses on how social
institutions serve the biological and
psychological needs of individuals.
RADCLIFFE-BROWN’S (1881-1955)
STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM
 Through comparative methods, he
focused on how society functions at the
macro, structural level.
 A society’s “fixed” religious beliefs and
practices (those that remain over time)
maintain social order.
 This was a time when anthropology
was attempting to validate itself as a
science.
 Structural processes can be observed
and documented with greater scientific
validity then the psychologically
oriented processes of Malinowski’s
model of functionalism.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL USE OF
THEORIES OF FUNCTIONALISM
 Social institutions function to
support the structure of society and
social needs.
 Society functions to become
something greater than the sum
total of its institutional parts.
 Stratification and inequity function
to maintain social cohesion.
 CRITIQUE: Functionalism is a
macro approach that focuses on the
status quo, and cannot adequately
theorize social conflict or change.
Interpretive
 Developed in response to the Functional Approach.
 Clifford Geertz
 The goal of the anthropologist should be to discover meaning,
not to look for origins and laws!
 Based on the work of Max Weber, who was the first to propose
looking at culture through Emic Analysis.
CLIFFORD GEERTZ
(1926-2006)
 Geertz focused on interpreting
the symbols that give meaning to
peoples’ lives.
 He asserted that anthropologists
must deeply analyze and thickly
describe cultures and their
symbols through the interpretive
model in order to make
difference understandable.
 He argued that religions are too
particularistic with regard to
events, individuals, and groups to
be understood through
functionalist theories.
GEERTZ ON RELIGION AS A
CULTURAL SYSTEM
 Geertz’s definition of culture: "a historically transmitted pattern of meanings
embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms
by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge
about and attitudes toward life.”
 Geertz’s theory of religion as a cultural system:
 A symbolic system, religion is a social construct that--through social interaction-creates reality, and provides people with a blueprint for how to live.
 Generates powerful and lasting moods and motivations in people. The moods are
in and of themselves, and the motivations are directed towards goals.
 Infuses these moods and motivations with the sense that they are uniquely real.
 Provides an overall ordering for existence that gives life meaning, and provides
explanations for why problems and tragedies occur.
 Infuses the overall explanations and ordering for existence with the sense that it is
factual.
 Together, these dynamics seem so powerful to believers that religion becomes the
only sensible explanation for reality. Belief is fortified through ritual, and then
taken into the world to transform it to conform with religion.
POST-STRUCTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
 Post-structuralism emerged as a critique of structuralism, and the array
of post-structural theories are numerous and eclectic.
 The post-structural moment occurred when it was recognized that
people participate in the creation of knowledge and power, and are not
mere pawns of cultural and social structural practices and processes.
 Post-structuralism asserts that the study of underlying structures is itself
a product of culture, and therefore subject to biases and
misinterpretations.
 To understand culture, it is necessary to study the systems of knowledge
which produce culture.
THREE BASIC PRINCIPLES:
Meaning is always shifting.
Individuals’ perceptions of meaning is always shifting.
Power attempts to fix meaning, but this is impossible.
World Religions
Basic Concepts
 Theism: Belief in the existence of God(s).
Includes Mono and Poly.
 Atheism: Belief that God(s) does not exist.
 Agnosticism: View that nothing can be
conclusively or definitively known about the
existence or non-existence of God(s).
Characteristics of Religion
 The French sociologist Emile Durkheim stated that
religion involves “things that surpass the limits of our
knowledge”.
 Beliefs

Ideas, based upon faith, that people consider true
 The sacred and profane
 Sacred: that which has supernatural qualities
 Profane: that which is the ordinary
 Rituals
 Routines that reinforce the faith
 Moral communities
 People who share a religious belief
 Personal experience
 Grants meaning to life
Sects and Cults
 Sects:
 Loosely organized
religious group
 Non professional
leadership
 Actively rejects social
environment
 Breaks away from a larger
religious group
 Deny beliefs of others
 Cults
 Non-conventional religious
group
 Largely outside a society’s
cultural traditions
 Social conditions demand
separation
 Members required to
withdraw from normal life
 Full-time communal
obligation for members
 Many long standing
religions – Judaism, Islam,
Christianity – began as
cults
 Charismatic leader is
needed
 Word ‘cult’ is used by
sociologists with no
prejudice
Religion in Pre-Industrial Societies
 Animism- the belief that elements of the natural
world are conscious life forms that affect humans.
 Animistic people view forests, oceans, mountains,
and even wind as spiritual forces.

Many Native American and African societies are animistic.
 Hunters and gathers might have singled out
someone to be the Shaman with special religious
skills, but they have no full time religious leader.
 Among pastoral and horticultural people, there
arose a belief in a single divine power responsible
for creating the world.
 In agrarian societies, religion becomes more
important, with a specialized priesthood in charge
of religious organizations.
 Religions that are not tied to a particular culture or
location. Colonialism, trade, missionaries, migration,
etc., have spread world religions throughout the globe.
 There are many localized variations of the world
religions, and vernacular or folk beliefs and practices
that are closely connected to a specific culture or
location.





Buddhism
Hinduism
Islam
Judaism
Christianity
World Religions
 Christianity: 2 billion
 Judaism: 14 million
 Islam: 1.3 billion
 Baha'i: 6 million
 Hinduism: 900 million
 Jainism: 4 million
 Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/At
 Shinto: 4 million







heist: 850 million
Buddhism: 360 million
Chinese traditional religion: 225
million
Primal-indigenous: 150 million
African Traditional & Diasporic: 95
million
Sikhism: 23 million
Juche: 19 million
Spiritism: 14 million
 Cao Dai: 3 million
 Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
 Neo-Paganism: 1 million
 Unitarian-Universalism: 800
thousand
 Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
 Scientology: 600 thousand
 Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand
Christianity
 World’s largest religion
 Three main branches
 Roman Catholic
 Protestant


Luther breaks away from Roman Catholic Church in 16th
century
Orthodox Christian
Division of Christianity in 10th century
 Serves eastern Europe

Islam
 Second largest religion in world
 Significant beliefs and practices
 Only one god that all must recognize
 Daily prayer, share wealth, pilgrimage
 No centralized authority
 Local clerics rule often with close state ties
 Two major sects
Sunni
 Shiite

Judaism
 Numerically smallest of world religions
 Important beliefs:
 God’s chosen people
 Torah: first 5 books of the Bible; oldest truths from
God
 Major divisions
 Orthodox: strictly traditional
 Reform: liberal and worldly
 Conservative: middle ground between Orthodox and
Reform
Hinduism
 Largest of the Eastern religions
 Concentrated largely in India
 Important beliefs
 Dharma: special force makes daily demands and
sacred obligations
 Karma: spirit remains through life, death, rebirth
 Organization
 Caste membership
Buddhism
 Large religion throughout Asia
 Includes southeast Asian countries and China
 Based upon teachings of the Buddha, the
enlightened one

Monks and lay people spread his teachings
 Important beliefs
 To relieve human suffering one must follow a path
that ultimately leads to enlightenment
 “Right” thoughts and actions must be daily
performed and evaluated through meditation
Confucianism
 Originated with Confucius attempting to solve
practical problems of daily living

Wisdom summarized guides management of society


Jen: human sympathy that binds people in 5 basic relationships
 Sovereign and subject
 Parent and child
 Older brother and younger brother
 Husband and wife
 Friend and friend
Proper etiquette and ritual help these relationships
Religions of the World
American’s Religious Preferences
Importance of Religion Around the World
Religious Fundamentals
 Fundamentalism- a conservative religious
doctrine that opposes intellectualism and
worldly accommodation in favor of restoring
traditional otherworldly religion.
Religious Fundamentals
 Fundamentalists interpret sacred texts literally.

Fundamentalists insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible and
other sacred texts.
 Fundamentalists reject religious pluralism.

They maintain that their religious beliefs are true and other beliefs
are not.
 Fundamentalists pursue the personal experience of
God’s presence.
 Fundamentalism opposes “secular humanism.”

Secular humanism is a general term that refers to our society’s
tendency to look to scientific experts rather than God for guidance
about how to live.
 Many political fundamentalists endorse conservative
political goals.

Fundamentalists oppose the “liberal agenda”
Religion and Functionalism
 Religion, as a major social institution, provides
many important functions

Cohesion
Reduce social isolation
 Increase social solidarity

 Religion

unites people through shared symbolism, values, and
norms
Social control
Authority over significant events
 Social violations become moral offenses
 Religious ideas promote conformity


Purpose
Reduction of anxiety regarding the unknown
 Religious belief offers the comforting sense that our brief lives
serve some greater purpose

Secularization
 The declining influence of religion in daily life
 Transformation of a society from close
identification with religious values and
institutions towards non-religious values and
secular institutions.

Combines with increasing influence of science
The American Religious Economy
 More than 1,500 separate denominations exist in
the United States.
 22 American denominations enroll more than 1
million members each.
 In any given week, about 40% of Americans attend
services.

Some have questioned this number
 About 63% are official members of a local
congregation or parish.
American Denominations
and Literal Faith in the Bible
Percent who agree that “the Bible is the actual word of
God and is to be taken literally, word for word”
Unitarian-Universalist
7
United Church of Christ
12
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
22
Episcopal Church
22
United Presbyterian Church
25
United Methodist Church
31
Jehovah's Witnesses
51
Church of Christ
56
Southern Baptist Convention
57
American Denominations
and Literal Faith in the Bible
Percent who agree that “the Bible is the actual word of
God and is to be taken literally, word for word”
Church of the Nazarene
58
Assemblies of God
68
United Pentecostal Church
69
Church of God
81
All Protestants
43
Roman Catholics
20
Declining American Denominations
Members per 1,000 U.S. Population
Denomination
1960
2000
%
Change
Christian Church (Disciples)
10.0
2.7
–71
United Church of Christ
12.4
5.0
–60
Episcopal Church
18.1
8.2
–55
United Methodist Church
58.9
29.8
–49
Presbyterian Church (USA)
23.0
12.7
–45
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
29.3
18.2
–39
Unitarian-Universalist
1.0
0.8
–20
233.0
221.7
–5
Roman Catholic
Some Growing American Denominations
Members per 1,000 U.S. Population
Denomination
1960
2000
%
Change
Southern Baptist Convention
53.8
56.3
+5
Church of the Nazarene
1.7
2.2
+35
Seventh-day Adventist
1.8
3.1
+72
Foursquare Gospel
0.5
0.9
+80
Mormons
8.2
18.2
+122
Jehovah’s Witnesses
1.4
3.5
+150
Assemblies of God
2.8
9.1
+225
Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.)
0.9
3.1
+244
Church of God in Christ
2.2
19.5
+786
Why are women more religious?
 Gender trends essentially universal
 Women socialized to care for family/religious needs of
family
 Pascal’s wager: non-belief is risky behavior
 But belief does involve costs – deny oneself… look to
rewards in heaven
 Men engage in more risky behavior, less willing to delay
gratification
Gender and Religiousness in Selected Nations
Nation
Women
Men
Percent who attend church at least monthly.
United States
61
54
Canada
44
32
Mexico
70
57
Great Britain
30
17
Germany
36
23
Italy
62
42
Russia
9
3
Japan
16
11
Gender and Religiousness in Selected Nations
Nation
Women
Men
Percent who pray.
United States
94
87
Canada
88
75
Mexico
95
89
Great Britain
78
54
Germany
74
59
Italy
90
74
Russia
50
21
Japan
90
85
China
28
17
Gender and Religiousness in Selected Nations
Nation
Women
Men
Percent who say they are “a religious person”
United States
86
80
Canada
77
65
Mexico
80
71
Turkey
78
71
Great Britain
65
47
Germany
64
48
Italy
89
78
Russia
69
39
Japan
32
20