Beliefs in Society

Functionalism

Durkheim 

·         Collective conscience         

·         Totemism

·         Sacred

·         Profane

·         'one single moral community called a Church' to unite members

Parsons 

·         'Life crises'

·         Anomie

Evaluation

·         Marxism- religion can be dysfunctional- Northern Ireland (Catholics v Protestants)

·         Religion no longer influential to reinforce collective conscience- Western societies- secular

·         How can religion integrate people in modern multi-faith societies?

Bellah (neo-functionalist) 

·         Civil religion- US Americanism

·         Religious images/phrases promote and reinforce national identity

·         Promotes social solidarity

·         Evidence- e.g. coins inscribed 'God bless America'

·         American flag- sacred

·         Congress outlawed its 'desecration'- only sacred things can be desecrated

Marxism 

Marx

·         Including Engels- tool of social control- keep masses in their place

·         'Social opium' and 'Spiritual gin' (Lenin)

·         Deal with pain and suffering- belief in Heaven, blame God for lowly position and responsibility for 'ordering their estate'

Engels

·         'the people must be kept in order by moral means, and the first and foremost of all moral means of action upon the masses is and remains- religion' (quoted by Turner 1991: 75)

Althusser

·         Ideological apparatus

·         False consciousness

Neo-marxism

Gramsci

·         Didn't believe economic forces alone could maintain ruling classes' dominance

·         Have to persuade existing system is good and fair

·         Hegemony

·         Religious belief and ideas used for control aren't inevitable

·         If Church joined working-class forces- free selves from oppression by challenging status quo

Evaluation

·         Maxism ignores secularisation

·         How can ruling class impose its ideology on masses if majority doesn't attend church?

·         Church doesn't always support ruling class- 1980s Catholic church in Poland- brought about downfall of communist regime

·         No evidence to support false consciousness

·         Phenomenologists- people will always want comfort religion provides

·         Functionalists- social integration function- always essential

Feminism

 

•  
  • Women subordinate
  • Disagree cause of it

Liberal

•  
  • Differences between men and women- socialised differently, reinforced by sexist laws and rules
  • Solution: Non-gendered socialisation- ensuring sexual equality
  • Hold office in religious organisation- important step to gain total sexual equality

Radical

•  
  • Men- directly responsible for women's oppression
  • They benefit from women's low social status
• Daly
  • Religion infused with patriarchal ideology- specific rules women must follow
  • Catholic women- cover heads in church
  • Some muslims put greater restirctions on how women should appear in public
• Identified extensive ways religion helps men maintain dominance over women

Marxist-feminist

•  
  • Weight to role of capitalism- reinforces inferior social status
  • Capitalism benefits from free domestic labour
  • Church reinforces traditional gender roles- serves interests of capitalist class

Evaluation

• Situation has improved
• E.g. 1992+ women can ordain as Anlican ministers- 1st in Bristol March 1994
• Ethnocentric
• Hijab may liberate women- frees them from being objectified