The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

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of human motivations. These theories also have been criticized for their general disinterest in problematizing religious preferences, whose social constructedness is obviously of critical interest in explaining religiously motivated behavior; in particular Max Weber, and subsequent scholars working within the framework of his sociology of religion, have emphasized the ways in which religions can shape and change people’s preferences.

A related recent development within sociology of religion in the US is the appropriation of the economic metaphor, combined with a functionalist perspective, as the ground of a ‘new paradigm’ for the study of religion (Warner 1993). Scholars working within this perspective reject the idea that the US has undergone secularization over time, claiming instead that the disestablishment of religion in the US is causally related to high rates of church attendance and other forms of religious vitality. This new approach has fuelled a lively debate around the hypothesis that religious pluralism causes higher levels of religious practice than monopolistic situations – a debate that has rested in large part upon the technical evaluation of statistical evidence supporting the hypothesis (Land et al. 1991; Olson 1999; Voas et al. 2002). And in fact, empirical evidence from countries like Ireland, Poland, and Iran suggests that accounting for religious vitality requires a more complex explanation than internal religious pluralism.

Deprivatization and the resurgence of religion

Global evidence of religious resurgence has also been studied with particular attention to politics (Casanova 1994), ethnicity and nationalism (Juergensmeyer 2003; Zubrzycki 2006; Lybarger 2007), and the construction of gendered identities (Stacey 1990; Gallagher 2003; Chong 2008). This strand of research has yielded some interesting empirical studies and promising theoretical developments.

James Beckford has done important work directing attention to the re-emergence of religion in the public sphere, examining not longstanding churches, but rather the endurance of sects (Beckford 1975) and the emergence of new religious movements (Beckford 1985). His work is characterized by a careful evaluation of the limits of theories of religion. Beckford (1989) argues that the categories and distinctions used, the questions asked and the conclusions reached by Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and their descendants were profoundly shaped by the context of emergent industrial capitalism. The progression of industrial capitalism and the diminution of power and influence of old religious institutions are linked empirically in this historical period, and also are linked philosophically in the tradition of liberal thought. And while the present context of late industrial capitalism is both continuous with and distinguishable from that earlier variant, its discontinuous characteristics are critical for understanding religion in the present historical period. The analysis of religion in late industrial societies, therefore, must decisively move beyond conceptualizations of religion that emphasize its capacity to create values and socialize individuals and focus instead upon secularization and religion’s marginality.

Beckford pays particular attention to the social structural features of advanced industrial capitalism that differ from its earlier historical form, and to emergent forms of religion in the modern West. The new sociological significance of religion, according to Beckford, includes its capacity to present the perception of new social realities in symbolic forms, and the potential of religion as a tool of mobilization against political establishments. He predicts that, in late industrial societies, the use of religious symbols is likely to be contested and controversial, since religion is no longer exclusively the domain of long enduring social institutions. Religion, then, often will be put to work outside the framework of religious organizations and

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state relations. He argues that the analysis of religion in contemporary societies will be most fruitful when religion is conceptualized not as a social institution, but as a cultural form or resource. Beckford’s studies of new religious movements support and inform this perspective. Though new religious movements are very small in terms of the numbers of people who are shaped by them, and their ability to influence political actors is negligible, they have yet created a disproportionate amount of public controversy. Analysis of this public controversy draws attention to the way in which new religious forms in late industrial societies can serve as a barometer of issues of value and concern to broader segments of these societies.

Beckford has more recently explored related aspects of contemporary religion’s marginality and capacity for public controversy in a study of religion in UK prisons (Beckford and Gilliat 1998). Interestingly, this research examines the power and roles of Church of England chaplains as they broker chaplaincy for the growing numbers of Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs in these prisons. The study presents an extreme case of the more general problems of religious inequality in a society where swiftly increasing religious diversity exists alongside of a powerful but increasingly irrelevant established church.

José Casanova (1994) likewise examines the re-emergence of religion, concentrating not on marginalized religion but instead on the recent activities of churches in the public sphere. He interprets the re-emergence of religion in the public sphere as a reverse movement, or deprivatization, of the historical pattern of secularization in the modern West. Like David Martin and Karel Dobbelaere, Casanova problematizes the concept of secularization, but moves beyond other theories by rearticulating secularization in such a way as to account for the re-emergence of religion in the public sphere.

In his critical review of secularization theories, Casanova distinguishes between a central thesis – secularization as one instance of differentiation processes defining and driving modernization – and two subtheses – the decline of religion, and its privatization. He argues that, while secularization as differentiation is structurally bound to modernization, religious decline and privatization are historically contingent processes. Religious privatization is historically common because of religion’s internal workings, the influence of liberalism, and external constraints upon religion brought about through the process of differentiation. But religion also can be deprivatized, as he shows in case studies including the liberation theology movement in Brazil, Catholicism in Poland during the rise of Solidarity, the public pronouncements of American Catholic bishops in the 1980s, and US Protestant fundamentalist activities in the political sphere. Interrogating the public–private distinction through these cases, Casanova theorizes the deprivatization of modern religion and convincingly shows that secularization is not only not a structurally inevitable consequence of modernity, but also one whose reversibility can be theoretically understood.

Steve Bruce and Martin Riesebrodt also have studied religious resurgence, directing their attention mostly at conservative and fundamentalist forms of religious revival. In analyses of Ulster Protestantism, Bruce shows how religion was historically important in the creation of politically mobilized ethnic identities, and how religion continues to play a vigorous role in shaping the ways in which Protestants and Catholics perceive their positions within society. He elaborates the attraction of evangelical Protestantism and its agenda among nonevangelicals as an aspect of ethnic identity, and shows how these religio-ethnic identities are sustained through continued conflict in Northern Ireland (Bruce 1992, 1994). And Martin Riesebrodt (1993), in his cross-culturally comparative study of the emergence of Protestant fundamentalism in the US and Shi’ite fundamentalism in Iran, has conceptualized fundamentalism as a specific type of social movement. He argues that a central feature

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of fundamentalist movements across traditions consist in their emphasis on patriarchal structures of authority and social morality, with the strict control of the female body often perceived to be the solution to the problems of modernity. Riesebrodt claims that issues of patriarchal authority and morality are not just symbolizations of other, ‘real’ problems, but of central concern. However, because of their centrality, they also often come to symbolize the general protest against dramatic social change, marginalization, disappointed expectations of upward social mobility, and fears and experiences of downward mobility.

Explorations of religious resurgence have included a number of studies of the success of mostly charismatic forms of Christianity in non-Western countries. It is again David Martin who set the example, with his groundbreaking comparative study of the global spread of charismatic Protestantism (Martin 1990). In this work he also draws an interesting historical parallel to the rise of Methodism in England during the Industrial Revolution.

Recent work on the re-emergence of religion as a social force has also included a new emphasis on religion and gender. This body of work includes work both by sociologists and anthropologists and traverses a broad range of topics from women’s religious participation and the construction of gendered identities (Stacey 1990; Davidman 1991; Konieczny 2005), to the study of organizational processes surrounding denominations’ ordination of women ministers (Chaves 1997; Nesbitt 1997), to some very sophisticated theoretical work on Latin American men’s conversion to Evangelicalism (Smilde 2007).

Perhaps the most promising studies executed under this broad rubric investigate modern women’s adherence to conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist religious groups articulating patriarchal gender ideologies (Kaufman 1991; Griffith 1997; Gallagher 2003). Moving beyond explanations that view these women as passive victims of male domination or false consciousness, they explore women’s active roles in the appropriation and transformation of traditionalist forms of religion that, from a progressive Western point of view, are contrary to their real interests. They argue that participation in traditionalist religious associations often enables women to restructure and remoralize domestic social relations. These studies also make it clear that these women live under conditions in which gender equality does not present itself as a realistic option. However, not all studies agree with this rather benign view of religious traditionalism’s effect on women and argue that, in cases where patriarchal structures of authority have not yet broken down, they tend to reinforce female submission under patriarchal authority (Chong 2008).

Sociology of religion’s future

As we have seen, sociology’s founding fathers have written some of their most important studies on religion, and several generations of scholars have made their living off the classics’ theoretical capital. At the same time, the sociology of religion has become a rather marginal field within sociology. Since it predicted the decline of its object of study, scholars understandably doubted its significance. With the global resurgence of religion, however, the sociology of religion not only seems to have a future – it also has a responsibility to make attempts at cognitively ordering and explaining the role religion plays in our present world. In order to live up to this responsibility several steps seem advisable.

First of all, a thorough revision of its theoretical perspectives is urgently needed. On the one hand, the resurgence of religious movements and personal piety on a global scale has shed serious doubt on the secularization thesis, which has strongly shaped most previous sociological theories of religion. On the other hand one cannot deny that secularization, as

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a process of institutional differentiation, has actually taken place. Modern states are widely secular, and neither capitalism and bureaucracy, nor modern science and modern culture, are based on religious principles; at times they are not even compatible with them. At the same time, almost no society has consistently separated church and state, especially not European ones. Privileged churches still exist in many European countries; for example, state universities entertain Protestant and Catholic theology departments where appointments have to be approved by the churches, and the German state collects taxes for all large religious denominations. Obviously, even institutional differentiation is rather incomplete.

But the problem with secularization theories runs deeper. Secularization is an overly complex concept based on problematic assumptions about causal connections between three processes: institutional differentiation, disenchantment, and privatization. Secularization theorists have long assumed that these three processes are expressions of one underlying grand, linear historical process. However, it seems increasingly obvious that there is no one metaphysical process of ‘secularization;’ rather, there exist historical trends towards institutional differentiation and de-differentiation, disenchantment and re-enchantment, and privatization and de-privatization. The sociology of religion must come to grips with these seemingly contradictory trends and revise its theoretical frame to better explain whether and how these processes are interrelated (Riesebrodt 2003, 2008).

Although the secularization debate has long dominated theoretical debates in the sociology of religion, it is worth emphasizing that theories of religion are more than theories of secularization. Functional definitions and explanations of religion have not contributed much to the understanding of religion in the contemporary world, since they diffuse the object of study and lack specificity in their explanation; religions cannot be adequately understood or explained when seen as a reflection of other, ‘real’ interests, or studied only in terms of the unintended consequences they produce. Rather, their existence should be understood, first of all, for their own sake. And it is important to emphasize that religions’ actual effects often have been demonstrated to be by no means identical with the supposed functions that functionalist theories claim. Riesebrodt (2007, 2008) has therefore proposed an interpretative theory of religion which focuses on religious practices, and meanings institutionalized in ‘liturgies.’

The sociology of religion, moreover, should attempt to account for the subjective side of religion as well as its objective side, analyzing and theorizing the individual religious actor along with the institutional order. With regard to the subjective side of religion, sociology should resist utilitarian simplifications in the explanation of social action. In their intentions and effects, religious practices – like those in other spheres – are neither exclusively rationalÂand instrumental, nor exclusively irrational, but more often than not follow cultural patterns and social expectations. Therefore, the rational choice model, which assumes a rarely existing ideal market situation where individuals act consistently according to the results of cost-benefit analyses, turns out to be either tautological or empirically false. Moreover, since rational calculation is usually not a pleasurable task, but often a rather painful one, people should not even be expected to rationally calculate unless the possible gain outweighs the pain of calculating. Ultimately, the rational choice model might be most useful for religious market research where relatively exclusive voluntary associations actually compete for the same customers.

Second, the sociology of religion must overcome its rampant parochialism. It must move beyond theoretical paradigms that work just for one ‘exceptional’ country, or a particular group of Western nations or religious traditions. There is at present a pervasive tendency in

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the sociology of religion for scholars to limit their studies either to their country of citizenship or to the religious tradition of their own affiliation – except for Islam, ironically, in which case almost anybody seems to claim competency. This provincialism must be overcome.

And while the great majority of sociologists of religion have studied their own backyard, they have left the study of religion in non-Western countries mostly to scholars in disciplines outside sociology. With few exceptions, cross-culturally Âcomparative work is absent from the sociology of religion. For example, the roles played by religion in Âcolonial and post-colonial situations and in processes of globalization have become the domain of anthropologists and historians of religion, not sociologists. Sociology, whose founders’ legacies and contemporary subdisciplinary diversity includes ample theoretical resources for the study of religion’s relation to such processes and situations, should take its distinctive place in the development of knowledge in these areas.

The sociology of religion would be well advised to leave the tiring debate on secularization behind, and turn instead to contemporary issues of real concern. Religion and gender has been studied empirically, but there is still plenty of theoretical work to do. In addition, important new topics of study have emerged or reappeared, such as religion and the legitimation of violence against oneself and others (Hall 2000; Juergensmeyer 2000), the impact of new technologies on the forms and spread of religion, and the globalization of religion (Beyer 2006). Such investigations promise to contribute to realizing the foundational objectives and intellectual promise of the sociological study of religion. A good example is Peter Beyer’s theory of religion in a globalizing world (Beyer 2006). Drawing upon Niklas Luhmann (1984/1995), Beyer’s conceptualization of religion as a functional system of communication (one system among others including law, politics, science, art, and sport) is able to account for the diverse expressions and structures of religion in the contemporary world, as well as the very existence of this heterogeneity. His approach provides insight into the reasons for some of the enduring difficulties that have stymied previous debates concerning the nature and endurance of religion in modernity, and accounts for religion’s frequently contested and ambiguous nature in historical conditions of globalization. Beyer’s study is one example of how the sociological study of religion can be revitalized through the serious theoretical exploration of urgent contemporary questions.

In order to live up to its responsibility to cognitively order and explain the world we live in to the best of its abilities, the sociology of religion must eschew parochialism, broaden its perspective, and revisit its theories in light of these global historical processes and contemporary events. The sociology of religion needs to become once again a theoretically sophisticated, empirically grounded, universal social science; otherwise, it will be superfluous.

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Voas, David, Daniel V.A. Olson and Alasdair Crockett. 2002. ‘Religious Pluralism and Participation: Why Previous Research is Wrong.’ American Sociological Review 67: 212–30.

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Suggested reading

Beckford, James A. 1989. Religion and Advanced Industrial Society. London: Unwin Hyman.

In this book, Beckford argues that the significance of religion in advanced industrial society is conditioned by secularization and religion’s marginality. Among religion’s most distinctive features in the contemporary West are its status as a site of contest and controversy, its capacity to express people’s perceptions of new social realities symbolically, and its potential as a tool of mobilization against political establishments.

Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religion in Global Society. New York: Routledge.

Beyer elaborates a theory of religion and globalization. In describing religion in globalizing world as a functional system of communication existing along other systems, such as law, politics, and science, Beyer accounts for the multitude of practices and worldviews and the frequent ambiguity and conflict that comprise contemporary religion.

Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Casanova’s project is to theoretically account for both secularization and the resurgence of religion in modernity. He argues that although some aspects of secularization are a structural consequence of modernity, religious decline and privatization are historically contingent processes. Religion, therefore, can be deprivatized; Casanova explores this re-emergence of religion in the public sphere in cases including the liberation theology movement in Brazil and Catholicism in Poland during the rise of Solidarity.

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Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2000. Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Hervieu-Leger argues that although religion has declined in modernity because of science and the importance of personal autonomy, questions of meaning and desires for the experience of the sacred are common in modern societies. She theorizes religion in modern life as a way of believing whose appeal to authority is grounded in a tradition through a ‘chain of memory.’

Martin, David. 1978. A General Theory of Secularization. Oxford: Blackwell.

Martin presents a comparative-historical and institutional theory of secularization, locating the occurrence of secularization at three levels of analysis: at the social institutional level, at the level of religious belief, and in a people’s ethos. Through a comparative analysis of nations, Martin shows how secularization is conditioned by the character of religious institutions and their relation to the state.

Riesebrodt, Martin. 2008. ‘Theses on a Theory of Religion.’ International Political Anthropology 1 (no.1): 25–41.

In this short version of his book Cultus und Heilsversprechen (2007), Martin Riesebrodt proposes an interpretative theory of religion which focuses on religious practices and their meanings as institutionalized in ‘liturgies.’ He also argues that the concept of secularization needs to be disaggregated and analyzed in terms of three relatively independent and contradictory processes of institutional differentiation (and de-differentiation), disenchantment (and re-enchantment), and privatization (and de-privatization) of religion.

Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge. 1979. A Theory of Religion. New York: P. Lang.

Stark and Bainbridge present a deductive theory of religion constructed on rational choice principles, beginning with the utilitarian assumption that people’s actions can be understood as choices made by weighing their options in terms of costs and benefits. Religion in this theory is presented as a system of ‘compensators’ for benefits that, for social or other reasons, are unattainable to individuals.

Chapter 10

Anthropology of religion

Rosalind I. J. Hackett

The (sub-)field of enquiry known as anthropology of religion has been enjoying some long overdue renewal and recognition over the last decade or so, with the development of new texts and research areas, and new communities of scholars.1 This renewal of interest is related in part to the growing salience of religion on the world stage, not least as a marker of identity and source of conflict at the local, translocal, and transnational levels. This in turn has generated a greater need for those with specialized knowledge of religious actors and formations in diverse and changing contexts.

The scholarship of today, whether conducted by anthropologists who specialize in religion (e.g. Glazier 1999; Lambek 1993; Coleman 2000), or scholars of religion who employ anthropological theory and method (e.g. Brown 1991; Johnson 2002b; Geertz 2003), has come a long way from those early landmark texts of E. E. Evans-Pritchard on Witchcraft, Magic and Oracles among the Azande (1937) and Nuer Religion (1974 [1956]), and Émile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912). The new look anthropology of religion can be traced to three general factors: first, the changing nature and location of the subject matter (e.g. movement of peoples, influence of mass-mediated religion, and market forces); second, greater inter -disciplinarity among academic disciplines; and third, the critical insights derived from post-colonialism, post-structuralism, and postmodernism.2 In particular, the once discernible distinction between ethnography (empirical research on particular cultures/peoples/regions conducted through fieldwork and participant observation), and more generalized, theoretical reflection (anthropology or ethnology), is now blurred. Some would attribute this merging of the empirical, and cross-cultural, comparative approaches to the work of Clifford Geertz whose body of writings has been influential far beyond the bounds of traditional anthropology.

As a way of offsetting the current difficulties of delineating academic boundaries due to the shared body of social and cultural theory, and the growing diversification of ‘topics’ or ‘sub-fields,’ Henrietta Moore argues that it is to the history of a discipline that we should look for its defining characteristics, rather than specific objects of inquiry (1999: 2). Similarly, many scholars consider that it is now more appropriate to treat ‘religion,’ ‘politics,’ and ‘economics’ as pervasive rather than bounded categories (see, e.g. Herzfeld 2001: xi). Thus, it will behove us to trace briefly some of the roads traveled by anthropologists since the nineteenth century, in their quest to identify and interpret religious ideas, symbols, and practice. This will provide the backdrop needed to consider some of the more promising current and future developments in anthropological approaches to religion. A comprehensive, representative synthesis of the ‘master narratives,’ (Moore 1999: 10) as