So Marxism says that religion passes on beliefs that oppress the working class. Religion is a conservative force which prevents revolution. The rich stay rich and the poor keep on working. It’s a neat social control.
There’s evidence that religion is a conservative and oppressive force. Hymns like ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ contain really clear ideologies like ‘’the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate.’’
But in some cases, there was evidence to suggest that religion can encourage social change. Engels thought that in some circumstances religion could actually be a revolutionary force. Sometimes religion is the only means of change because all other routes have been blocked. Neo-Marxist Otto Maduro (1982) claimed that religion isn’t always a conservative force. In the 1960s and 1970s, Catholic priests in Latin America criticised the bourgeoisie and preached Liberation Theology- using religion to free people from their oppression. This led to resistance and social change - in 1979 Catholic revolutionaries threw out the oppressive government in Nicaragua. Maduro said religion is often ‘one of the main available channels to bring about a social revolution.’
Functionalists on the other hand see religion as something that inhibits change and helps keep society as it is. They think this is a positive role which creates social order based on value consensus.
Durkheim studied Aboriginal society and found that the sacred worship of totems was equivalent to worshipping society itself. Durkheim said that sacred religious worship encourages shared values.
Maliniski (1954) looked at how religion deals with situations of emotional stress that threaten social order. Unpredictable or stressful events like births and deaths create disruption. Religion manages these tensions and recreates stability.
Parsons wrote in the 1930s and 1940s that religion provides guidelines for human action in terms of ‘core values’ Religion helps to integrate people into a value consensus and allows them to make sense of their lives.
There’s also a Functionalist idea of civil religion, which is when secular symbols and rituals create social cohesion in a similar way to religion. Flags, famous political figures and even royal deaths bring about some kind of collective feeling that generates order and stability.
Functionalism ignores dysfunctional aspects of religion. There are religious conflicts all over the world. Religion can be a source of oppression. Religion can also bring about social change which Functionalists ignore as well.
The sociologist Weber said that religion can indirectly cause social change. His book ‘The Protestant Work Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism’ looked at how the religious ideas of Calvinism brought about social change. Weber spotted two important things in Calvinism:
Predestination- Early Calvinists believed in predestination which says your life and whether you have a place in heaven is predetermined by God. Only a specific few were chosen for heaven. This created anxiety- you didn’t know if you’d been chosen.
Ascetic Ideal – Working hard in your job was a solution to this anxiety. Success might be a sign that you were chosen for heaven. Early Calvinists lived a strict and disciplined life of hard work and simple pleasures.
Weber claimed that the ascetic ideal created an ethic of disciplined hard work. This is the spirit of capitalism. Not only was there a build up of capital and business, there was the right work ethic for capitalism. Religion indirectly brought about change.
However Eisenstadt (1967) contradicts Weber’s theory by claiming that capitalism occurred in Catholic countries like Italy before Protestant Reformation happened and before the ideas of Calvin ever came out.
In conclusion, sociologists both have good arguments and evidence to suggest that religion is both a conservative force and an initiator of social change.