{"id":1504,"date":"2016-05-20T19:24:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T19:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontosociology-waymaker\/?post_type=chapter&p=1504"},"modified":"2024-04-25T15:42:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T15:42:44","slug":"theoretical-perspectives-on-religion","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-introductiontosociology\/chapter\/theoretical-perspectives-on-religion\/","title":{"raw":"Theoretical Perspectives on Religion","rendered":"Theoretical Perspectives on Religion"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Outcomes<\/h3>\r\n
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  • Explain how the major sociological paradigms view religion<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Theoretical Perspectives on Religion<\/h2>\r\n
    \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"200\"]\"Numerous Figure 1.\u00a0<\/strong>Functionalists believe religion meets many important needs for people, including group cohesion and companionship. (Photo courtesy of James Emery\/flickr)[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n

    Modern-day sociologists often apply one of the major theoretical perspectives. These views offer different lenses through which to study and understand society: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Let\u2019s explore how scholars applying these paradigms understand religion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Functionalism<\/h3>\r\n

    Functionalists contend that religion serves several functions in society. Religion, in fact, depends on society for its existence, value, and significance, and vice versa. From this perspective, religion serves several purposes, like providing answers to spiritual mysteries, offering emotional comfort, and creating a place for social interaction and social control.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

    In providing answers, religion defines the spiritual world and spiritual forces, including divine beings. For example, it helps answer questions like, \u201cHow was the world created?\u201d \u201cWhy do we suffer?\u201d \u201cIs there a plan for our lives?\u201d and \u201cIs there an afterlife?\u201d As another function, religion provides emotional comfort in times of crisis. Religious rituals bring order, reassurance, and organization through shared familiar symbols and patterns of behavior.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

    One of the most important functions of religion, from a functionalist perspective, is the opportunities it creates for socializing and the formation of groups. It provides social support and offers a place to meet others who hold simila<\/span>r values, as well as a place to seek help (spiritual and material) in times of need. Moreover, it can foster group cohesion and integration. Because religion can be central to many people\u2019s concept of themselves, sometimes there is an \u201cin-group\u201d versus \u201cout-group\u201d feeling toward other religions in our society or within a particular practice.\u00a0Religion promotes social control: it reinforces social norms such as appropriate styles of dress, following the law, conforming to gender roles, and regulating sexual behavior.<\/p>\r\nOn an extreme level, the dysfunctions of this type of in-group\/ out-group mentality has resulted in violent episodes such as the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834) and\u00a0the Salem witch trials (1692-1693), as well as extremist acts by anti-Semitic groups, jihadists, Christian fundamentalists, and many more. Social control can be a function of religious groups but it can also be dysfunctional when prescriptive social norms produce inequality between men and women, between different castes or classes, and\/or when they diminish individual agency and choice within a religious group.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"250\"]\"About Figure 2.\u00a0<\/strong>Many religions, including the Catholic faith, have long prohibited women from becoming spiritual leaders. Feminist theorists focus on gender inequality and promote leadership roles for women in religion. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)<\/span>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<\/section>

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    Conflict Theory<\/span><\/h3>\r\n

    Conflict theorists view religion as an institution that helps maintain patterns of social inequality. For example, the Vatican has a tremendous amount of wealth, while the average income of Catholic parishioners is small. According to this perspective, religion has been used to support the \u201cdivine right\u201d of oppressive hereditary monarchies and to justify unequal social structures, like India\u2019s rigidly hierarchical caste system.<\/p>\r\n

    Conflict theorists are critical of the way many religions promote the idea that believers should be satisfied with existing circumstances because they are divinely ordained. This power dynamic has been used by Christian institutions for centuries to keep poor people poor and to teach them that they shouldn\u2019t be concerned with what they lack because their \u201ctrue\u201d reward (from a religious perspective) will come after death. Conflict theorists also point out that those in power in a religion are often able to dictate practices, rituals, and beliefs through their interpretation of religious texts or via proclaimed direct communication with the divine, perhaps through \"revelation\" or a process of \"divination.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    The feminist perspective is considered to be another\u00a0conflict theory view that focuses specifically on gender inequality. In terms of religion, feminist theorists assert that, although women are typically the ones to socialize children into a religion, they have traditionally held very few positions of power within religions. A few religions and religious denominations are more gender equal, but male dominance remains the norm of most. In addition to examining power relations within religious organizations, feminists also attend to the ways that religion justifies and sustains a belief in patriarchy, or the assumption that men should occupy positions of authority in society.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Rational Choice Theory: Can Economic Theory Be Applied to Religion?<\/h3>\r\n

    How do people decide which religion to follow, if any? How does one pick a church or decide which denomination \u201cfits\u201d best? Rational choice theory (RCT) is one way social scientists have attempted to explain these behaviors. The theory proposes that people are self-interested, though not necessarily selfish, and that people make rational choices\u2014choices that can reasonably be expected to maximize positive outcomes while minimizing negative outcomes. Sociologists Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (1988) first considered the use of RCT to explain some aspects of religious behavior, with the assumption that there is a basic human need for religion in terms of providing belief in a supernatural being, a sense of meaning in life, and belief in life after death. Religious explanations of these concepts are presumed to be more satisfactory than scientific explanations, which may help to account for the continuation of strong religious connectedness in countries such as the United States, despite predictions of some competing theories for a great decline in religious affiliation due to modernization and religious pluralism.<\/p>\r\n

    Another assumption of RCT is that religious organizations can be viewed in terms of \u201ccosts\u201d and \u201crewards.\u201d Costs are not only monetary requirements, but are also the time, effort, and commitment demands of any particular religious organization. Rewards are the intangible benefits in terms of belief and satisfactory explanations about life, death, and the supernatural, as well as social rewards from membership. RCT proposes that, in a pluralistic society with many religious options, religious organizations will compete for members, and people will choose between different churches or denominations in much the same way they select other consumer goods, balancing costs and rewards in a rational manner. In this framework, RCT also explains the development and decline of churches, denominations, sects, and even cults; this limited part of the very complex RCT theory is the only aspect well supported by research data.<\/p>\r\n

    Critics of RCT argue that it doesn\u2019t fit well with human spiritual needs, and many sociologists disagree that the costs and rewards of religion can even be meaningfully measured or that individuals use a rational balancing process regarding religious affiliation. The theory doesn\u2019t address many aspects of religion that individuals may consider essential (such as faith) and further fails to account for agnostics and atheists who don\u2019t seem to have a similar need for religious explanations. Critics also believe this theory overuses economic terminology and structure and point out that terms such as \u201crational\u201d and \u201creward\u201d are unacceptably defined by their use; they would argue that the theory is based on faulty logic and lacks external, empirical support. A scientific explanation for why<\/em> something occurs can\u2019t reasonably be supported by the fact that it does<\/em> occur. RCT is widely used in economics and to a lesser extent in criminal justice, but the application of RCT in explaining the religious beliefs and behaviors of people and societies is still being debated in sociology today.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>

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    Symbolic Interactionism<\/h3>\r\n

    Rising from the concept that our world is socially constructed, symbolic interactionism studies the symbols and interactions of everyday life. To interactionists, beliefs and experiences are not sacred unless individuals in a society regard them as sacred. The Star of David in Judaism, the cross in Christianity, and the crescent and star in Islam are examples of sacred symbols. Interactionists are interested in the negotiated meanings that different societies and groups attribute to these symbols.<\/p>\r\nBecause interactionists study one-on-one, everyday interactions between individuals, a scholar using this approach might ask questions focused on this dynamic. The interaction between religious leaders and practitioners, the role of religion in the ordinary components of everyday life, and the ways people express religious values in social interactions\u2014all might be topics of study to an interactionist.\r\n

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    Watch It<\/h3>\r\nWatch this video for a deeper look at each theoretical perspective on religion.\r\n\r\n