Functionalist theories of religion

Religious institutions play a central part in creating and maintaining value consesus, order and solidarity.

The sacred and the profane

Key feature of religion was not a belief in gods, spirits or the supernatural, but a fundamental distinction between the scred and the profane in all religions.

Sacred - things set apart and forbidden, that inspire feelings of awe, fear and wonder, and are surrounded by taboos and prohibitions.

Profane - things that have no special significance - ordinary and mundane. 

Religion is never simply a set of beliefs. It also involves definite ritual or practices in relation to the sacred, these rituals are collectivee - social groups.

The fact that sacred things evoke such powerful feelings, Durkheim says that this is because they are symbols representing something of great power. To him this can only be society itself, since society is the only thing powerful enough to comman such feelings. when they worship sacred symbols people are worshipping society itself.

For Durkheim, although sacred symbols vary between religioms, they all perform the central function of unity belivers into a single moral community.

Durkheim believed that the essence of relgion could be found studying its simplest form, in the simplest type of society - clan society. He used studies for Arunta, an Aboriginal Australian tribe with a clan system.

Arunta clans consist of bands of kin who come together periodically to perform rituals involving worship of sacred totem.

Totem - the clan's emblem, such as an animal or plant that symbolises the clan's origins and identity. The shared totemic rituals venerating it serve to reinforce the groups solidarity and sense of belonging.

Durkheim believes that when clan members worship their totemic animal, they are in reality worshipping society - even though they are unaware of it. 

The totem inspires feelings of awe in the clan's memebers precisely because it represents the power of the grouop on which the indiviudal is 'utterly dependent'.

In Durkheim's view, the sacred symbols represent society's collective conscience or consciousness.

Collective conscience - the shared norms, values, beliefs and knowledge that make social life and cooperation between individuals possible - without these, society would disintegrate.

Regualr shared religious rituals reinforce the collective conscience and maintain social integration.

Participating in shared rituals binds individuals together, reminding them that they are part of a single moral community to which they owe their loyalty.

Such rituals also remind the individual of the power of society - without which they are nothing.

Religion also performs an important function for the individual.

By making us feel part something greater than outselves, religion reinvigoratesand strengthens us to face lief's trials and motivates us to overcome obstacles. 

Religion is not only the source of social solidarity, but also of our intellectual or cognitive capacities - our ability to reason and think conceptually. 

In order to think at all, we need categories such as time, space, cause, substances, number etc. And secondly, in order to share our thoughts, we need to use the same categories as others. 

Religion is the origin of the concepts and categories we need for reasoning, understanding the world and communication.

In their book Primitive Classification, Durkheim and Marcel Mauss argue that religion provides basic categories such as time, space and causation -

For example, with ideas about a creator bringing the world into being at the beginning of time.

Similarily, the division of tribes into clans gives humans their first notion of classification.

Religion is the origin of human thought, reason and science.  

The evidenece on totemism is unsound. Worsley (1956) notes that there is no sharp division between the sacred and profane, and that different clans share the same totems. And even if Durkheim is right about totemism, this does not prove that he has discovered the essence of all other religions.

Durkheim's theory may apply better to small-scale socities with a single religion. It is harder to apply it to large-scale socities, where two or more religious communities may be in conflict. His theory may explain social integration within communities, but not the conflicts between them.

Similarly, postmodernists such as Stjepan Mestrovic (2011) argue that Durkheim's ideas cannot be applied to contemporary society, because increasing diversity has fragmented the collective conscience, so there is no longer a single shared value system for religion to reinforce. 

Religion promotes social solidarity however, it does so by performing psychological functions for individuals, helping them cope with emotional stress that would undermine social solidarity.

He identifies two types of situation in which religion performs this role:

1) Where the outcome is important but is uncontrollable and thus uncertain

In his study of the Trobriand Islanders of the Western Pacific, he contrasts fishing in the lagoon and fishing in the ocean.

• Lagoon fishing is safe and uses the predictable and successful method of poisoning. There is no ritual.
• Ocean fishing is dangerous and uncertain, and is always accompanied by 'canoe magic' - rituals to ensure a safe and successful expedition. This gives people a sense of control, which eases tension, gives them confidence to undertake hazardous tasks and reinforces group solidarity. He sees ritual serving as a 'god of gaps' - it fills the gaps in human beings' control over the world, such as being unable to control the outcome of a fishing trip.

2) At times of life crises

Events such as birth, puberty, marriage and especially death mark major and disruptive changes in social groups. Religion helps to minimise disruption.

For exmaple, the funeral rituals reinforce a feeling of solidarity among the survivors, while the notion of immorality gives comfort to the bereaved by denying the fact of death.

Malinowski argues that death is the main reason for the existance of religious belief. 

Sees religion as helping individuals to cope with unforeseen events and uncomfortable outcomes. Parsons Identifies two other essential functions that religion performs in modern society:

• It creates and legitimates society's central values
• It is the primary source of meaning

Religion creates and legitimates society's basic norms and values by sacralising them. In the USA, Protestantism has sacralised the core American values of individualism, meritocracy and self-discipline. This serves to promote value consensus and thus social solidarity.

Religion also provides a source of meaning.

It answers 'ultimate' questions about the human condition, such as why the good suffer and why some die young. Such events defy our sense of justice and make life appear meaningless, and this may undermine our commitment to society's value.

Religion provides answers to such questions, for example by explaining suffering as a test of faith that will be rewarded in heaven. By, doing so religion enables people to adjust to adverse events or circumstances and helps maintain stability.

Bellah is interested in how religion unifies society, especially a multi-faith society.

What unifies American society is an overarching civil religion - a blief system that attaches sacred qualities to society itself. In the American case, civil religion is a faith in Americanism or 'the American way of life'.

Civil religion integrates society in a way that America's many different churches and denominations connot. While none of these can claim the loyalty of all Americans, civil religion can.

American civil religion involves loyalty to the nation-state and a belief in god, noth of which are equated with being a true American.

It is expressed in various rituals, symbols and beliefs, such as the pledge of allegiance to the flag, singing the national anthem and phrases such as 'One nation under God'. This is not a specifically Catholic, Protestant or Jewish God but an 'American' God.

It sacralises the American way of life and binds together Americans from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds. 

Functional alternatives/functional equivalents to religion are non-religious beliefs and practices that perfom functions similar to those of organised religion, such as reinforcing shared values or maintaining social cohesion.

Although in America civil religion involves a belief in god, Bellah argues that this doesn't have to be the case. Some other belief system could perform the same fucntions. 

For example, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had secular political beliefs and rituals around which they sought to unite society.

However, the problem witht the idea of functional alternaitves is the same as with functional definitions of religion that we saw earlier. that is, it ignores what makes religion distinctive and different - namely its belief in the supernatural

Functionalism emphasises the social nature of religion and the positive functions it performs, but it neglects negative aspects, such as religion as a source of oppression of the poor or women.

It ignores religion as source of division and conflict, especially in complex modern societies where there is more than one religion - e.g. Northern Ireland. Where there is relgious pluralism, it is hard to see how it can unite people and promote integration.

The idea of civil religion overcomes this problem to some extent, by arguing that societies may still have an overarching belief system shared by all, but is this really religion - especially if it is not based on belief in the supernatural?