BELIEFS TOPIC 4 - RELIGION, RENEWAL AND CHOICE Flashcards
(9 cards)
Obligation to consumption
Davie argues that in today’s late modern society, we are now seeing a major trend in religion away from obligation and towards consumption or choice. Churches such as the C of E and the catholic church could once oblige poeple to go to church and behave in certain ways.
This is no longer the case. Religion is no longer inherited or imposed but a matter of personal choice.
Davie argues that religion is not declining but simply taking a different, more privatised form. People are increasingly reluctant to belong to organisations whether these are churches, political parties or trade unions. However, people still hold religious beliefs - Davie calls this believing without belonging.
Davie also notices a trend towards vicarious religion. She means religion practiced by an active minority on behalf of the great majority who experience religion second hand.
Secularisation theory assumes that modernisation affects every society in the same way causing the decline of religion. Davie questions this - there are MULTIPLE modernities.
Bruce - if people are not willing to invest time in going to church, this just reflects the declining strength of their beliefs.
Spiritual shopping
Hervieu-leger agrees that there has been a dramatic decline of institutional religion in Europe. This is due to cultural amnesia - nowadays, we have largely lost the religion that used to be handed down from generation to generation because few parents teach their children about religion.
Young people no longer have fixed religious identity imposed on them through socialisation and they are ignorant of traditional religion.
Individual consumerism has replaced collective tradition. People today now they have choice as consumers of religion - they have become spiritual shoppers. Religion has thus become a personal spiritual journey in which we choose the elements we want to explore and the groups we wish to join.
Pilgrims - those in the holistic milieu in the Kendal project. They follow a individual path in a search for self discovery. The demand is created by today’s emphasis on personal development.
Converts - join religious groups that offer a strong sense of belonging, usually based on a shared ethnic background or religious doctrine.
Globalisation, the media, and religion (PM)
Globalisation - refers to the growing interconnectedness of societies, which has led to greatly increased movements of ideas and beliefs across national boundaries.
Due to the central role played in postmodern societies by the media and information technology which saturate us with images and messages from around the globe, compressing time and space to give us instantaneous access to information.
Religious ideas have become disembedded - the media lift them out of physical existence and move them to a different place and time.
For example, televangelism disembeds religion from real, local churches and relocate it on the internet, allowing believers to express their faith without physically attending church.
As a result, religion has become de-institutionalised - detached from its place in religious institutions.
Online religion and religion online (PM)
Religion online - top-down communication where a religious organisation uses the internet to address members and political converts. Electronic version of the traditional, hierarchical commication of churches to their members.
Online religion - a form of cyber religion that may have no existence outside the internet. It is a many-to-many form of communication that allows individuals to create non-hierarchical relationships and a sense of community where they can visit virtual worship or meditation spaces.
Hoover et al - for most users, it is just a supplement to their church based activities rather than a substitute for it.
Religious consumerism (PM)
We no longer have to sign up to any specific religious tradition, we can pick and mix elements of different faiths.
Lyon - religion has relocated to the sphere of consumption. They have become religious consumers making conscious choices about which elements of religion they find useful.
One effect of this is a loss of faith in metanarratives - theories or worldviews who claim to have the absolute truth.
People now have access to a wide range of contradictory beliefs. Berger - weakens traditional religions who claim a monopoly of the truth.
Lyon - the decline of traditional churches does not spell the end of religion. Many religious movements are now spring up that the religious consumer can sample nd from which he or she can construct their own personal belief system.
Lyon criticises secularisation theory for assuming that religion is declining and being replaced by a rational, scientific worldview. Lyon argues that we are now in a period of re-enchantment with the growth of unconventional beliefs, practices and spirituality.
A spiritual revolution
Some sociologists argue that a spiritual revolution is taking place today, in which traditional christianity is giving way to holistic spirituality or new age spiritual beliefs emphasising personal development and subjective experience.
Increased interest in spirituality can be seen in the growth of the spiritual marking with an explosion in the number of books about self-help and spirituality.
In their study of kendal in cumbria, heelas and Woodhead investigate whether traditional religion has declined and if so how far the growth of spirituality is compensating for this. They distinguish between two groups:
Congregational domain of traditional and evangelical christianity
The holistic milieu of spirituality and the new age
They found that in 2000, in a typical week, 7.9% of the population attended church and 1.6% of the poplulation took part in the activities of the holistic milieu.
Within the congregational domain, the traditional churches were losing support while evangelical churches were holding their own and fairing relatively well.
New age spirituality has grown due to a massive subjective turn in today’s culture.
As a result, tradition religions which demand duty and obedience are declining. Religion tells you what to believe and how to behave is out of tune with a culture which believes it is up to us to seek answers for ourselves.
Evangelical churches are more successful than traditional churches. They both demand discipline and duty, but evangelicals emphasise the importance of spiritual healing and personal growth.
The weakness of the new age
Bruce:
The problem of scale - even if new age forms of individualised religion are springing up, this would have to be a much larger sale if it is to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional, institutionalised religious.
Socialisation of the next generation - for a belief system to survive, it must be passed down through generations. Parents in the holistic milieu are more likely to be childless and fathers often don’t share his wife’s beliefs.
Weak commitment - glendinning and bruce found that although many people dabbled in meditation, alternative medicine, astrology, horoscopes etc, serious commitment to new age practices and beliefs was rare.
Structural weakness - new age spirituality is itself a cause of secularisation because of its subjective, individualistic nature - it is based on the idea that there is no higher authority than the self. The new age lacks an external power to extract commitment, it cannot achieve consensus because everyone is free to believe what they wish and it cannot evangelise because it believes the enlightenment comes from within.
Religious market theory
Stark and bainbridge are critical of secularisation theory which they see as eurocentric. It focuses on the decline of religion in europe and fails to explain its continuing vitality in america.
They propose the religious market theory which is based on the assumptions that people are naturally religious as it meets human needs and it is human nature to seek rewards while avoiding costs.
Compensators - religion compensates for when real rewards are scarce or unobtainable by promising supernatural rewards instead. Stark and bainbridge put forward the concept of the cycle of renewal where there is a perpetual cycle throughout history where some religions decline while others grow and attract new members. They also argue that churches operate like companies selling goods in a market. Competition leads to improvements in the quality of religious goods on offer. The churches that make their product attractive will succeed in attracting more customers.
America vs europe - religion thrives in the Usa because there has never been a religious monopoly. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the separation of the church and state. However, most european countries have been dominated by an official state church such as the C of E. the main factor influencing the level of religious participation is not the demand for religion but the supply.
Criticisms
Bruce rejects the view that diversity and competition increase the demand for religion . Statistics show that diversity has been accompanied by religious decline in both europe and america.
Existential security theory
Norris and inglehart argue that the reason for variations in religiosity between societies is not different degrees of religious choice, but different degrees of existential security. ‘The feeling of survival is secure enough that it can be taken for granted.
Poor societies where people face life-threatening risks such as famine, disease and environmental disasters have a high level of insecurity and thus high levels of religiosity.
Rich societies - where people have a high standard of living and are at less risk have a greater sense of security and thus lower levels of religiosity.
The united states remains more religious because there is the more inequality and there is an inadequate welfare safety net.
