Religious organisationsQ 6. To what extent do sociological arguments & evidence support this view of the relationship between religious beliefs, religious organisations & social groups?
Q 6. To what extent do sociological arguments & evidence support this view of the relationship between religious beliefs, religious organisations & social groups?
Individual’s religiosity can emphasise different aspects of religion e.g. religious beliefs rather than religious commitment may be due to mobility issues as found in the cases of elderly people. Also in a rapidly changing postmodern society where there’s an increase in the demand of geographically mobile labour force and or due to other reasons religion can provide a sacred canopy for individuals as to protect them from life crises.
Weber argues that ethnic minorities turn to religion more because in an alien domain where their marginalised religion provides them with a theodicy of disprivilege, however this point has been criticised by contemporary sociologist who believe that because they migrate from developing countries that are not as exposed to rationalisation that greatly the individuals are not yet as disenchanted by religion. Some immigrants may come from a country governed under theocracy; Weber used the word ecclesia meaning the country is closely connected to the state, therefore their religiosity was enforced into their ideologies due to the cultural environment they came from. Durkheim evaluates these points and claims that the paramount role of religion is to create a community; this point is evidence for Durkheim’s claim that through worshipping a god (scared being) people are in fact worshipping society which is also unconsciously seen as sacred. All of these help to create a collective conscience which can aid us during crisis of life situations (Malinowski). However these points were criticised by Glock and Stark who believe that it ignores religious conflict and can’t be used to generalise to a pluralistic society. Bruce disagrees with these points and claims that the religious commitment of ethnic minorities isn’t evidence against secularisation and that these emphasise the importance of social group not individual convictions because it’s the ethnic identity that’s important not religiosity. Bruce used the term cultural defence to support his claims by stating that ethnic minorities through religion actually protect their cultural identity and attempt to provide a resistance against ‘westoxification’ for their children as suggested by religious scholar Ayatollah Khomeini. Bruce also suggested that ethnic minorities use religion to cope with the unheavel of migration (cultural transition) using it as a mechanism for support by quickly adopting the hosting communities culture e.g. Irish Catholics who don’t have an ethnicity issue however the second generation automatically lose their accent. Bruce uses these points to explain that once the ethnic minorities integrate into the community religion will lose its influence because cultural defence and transition may keep religion relevant but will not create a religious society out of a secular one. Some theorist such as new right argue that during the ‘golden age’ of religion and family such modern life crisis such as high levels of teenage pregnancy didn’t exist however brown argues that the ‘golden ages’, Victorian period, was a myth and they had their own social struggles. During the Victorian period people were more universally concerned and wanted to appear socially desirable so through impression management a ‘hidden culture’ was created (Adam). However now due to the increase in pluralism contemporary religion gets its strength from individualistic communities. Further evaluation of Bruce comes from Chryssides who also argues that religion remains strong within ethnic minorities and claims that when people migrate to a new country they have 3 paths: apostasy (where particular sets of religious beliefs are abandoned in a hostile environment), accommodation (religious practices adopted to take account change in situation) and renewed vigour (religion is reasserted more strongly as a response to actual or perceived hostility towards it). It’s found that accommodation and renewed vigour are the most commonly used approaches.
