36 Religion and Society

In Modern society, religious traditions are constantly challenged by social, moral and contemporary challenges. These challenges can affect the church both positively and negatively. Challenges can be positive by helping the religious tradition to reform, improving their position in modern society. Other positive effects on a religious tradition can come from a challenge; it can bring on an explanation and create better understanding of core beliefs and aspects of the religion. Challenges that religious traditions face usually result in a negative way, bringing about a bad reputation for the religious tradition causing it to lose power, its following and the faith of the people. If a challenge is not appropriately responded to it can ruin religious traditions, giving them a tarnished name and bringing them down. The immediate effect of a challenge is normally negative, but when given time to respond, most religious traditions are able to come back to their former name. This was experienced in the Reformation led by Martin Luther, this challenge on Christianity was negative in the way that the church lost a lot of power and following in Europe, but it was also positive because it brought around change and reform in the Church that allowed it to expand and eventually become what it is today.

37. Sociological theories of religion

The ideas of three early sociological theorists continue to strongly influence the sociology of religion: Durkheim, Weber, and Marx. Even though none of these three men was particularly religious, the power that religion holds over people and societies interested them all. They believed that religion is essentially an illusion; because culture and location influence religion to such a degree, the idea that religion presents a fundamental truth of existence seemed rather improbable to them. They also speculated that, in time, the appeal and influence of religion on the modern mind would lessen.

Karl Marx never studied religion in any detail. His ideas were mostly derived from the writings of several early 19th century theologists and philosophers. One of these was Ludwig Feuerbach who wrote The Essence of Christianity. According to Feuerbach, religion consists of ideas and values produced by human beings in the course of their cultural development but mistakenly projected on to divine forces or gods.Feuerbach uses the term alienation to refer to the establishment of Gods or divine forces as distinct from human beings. Marx accepts the view that religion represents human self-alienation. He declared in a famous phrase that religion has been the opium of the people. Religion defers happiness and rewards to the after life, teaching the resigned acceptance of existing conditions in this life. Attention is thus diverted from inequalities and injustices in this world by the promise of what is to come in the next. Religion has a strong ideological element, religious beliefs and values often provide justifications for inequalities of wealth and power. In Marx�s view religion in its traditional form will and should disappear. DURKHEIM - In contrast to Marx Durkheim spent a good part of his intellectual effort in studying religion concentrating particularly on religion in small scale traditional societies. His Elementary Forms of Religious Life first published in 1912 is perhaps the single most influential study in the sociology of religion. He based his work upon a study of totemism as practiced by Australian aboriginal societies and urged that totemism represents religion in its most elementary or simple form.A totem was originally an animal or plant considered to have a particular symbolic significance for a group. It is a sacred object regarded with veneration and surrounded by various ritual activities. Durkheim defines religion in terms of a distinction between the sacred and the profane. Sacred : According to Durkheim sacred is ideal and transcends everyday existence; it is extra-ordinary potentially dangerous, awe-inspiring, fear inducing. The sacred refers to things set apart by man including religious beliefs, rites, duties or anything socially defined as requiring special religious treatment. The sacred has extra-ordinary, supernatural and often dangerous qualities and can usually be approached only through some form of ritual such as prayer, incantation or ceremonial cleansing. Almost anything can be sacred: a god, a rock, a cross, the moon, the earth, a king, a tree, an animal or bird. These are sacred only because some community has marked them a sacred. Once established as sacred however they become symbols of religious beliefs, sentiments and pratices.Sacred objects are symbols and are treated apart from the routine aspects if existence or the realm of profane. Eating the totemic animal or plant is usually forbidden and as a sacred object the totem is believed to have divine properties which separate it completely from other animals that might be hunted or those crops that can be gathered and consumed. WEBER- Durkheim based his arguments on a very small range of examples even though he claimed that his ideas apply to religion in general.Max Weber by contrast embarked on a massive study of religions world wide. Weber made detailed studies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and ancient Judaism and in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism wrote extensively about the impact of Christianity on the history of the west. Weber concentrated on a connection between religion and social change something to which Durkheim gave little attention. Unlike Marx Weber argues that religion is not necessarily a conservative force on the contrary religiously inspired movements have produced dramatic social transformation. Protestantism particularly Puritanism was the source of capitalist outlook found in the modern west. The early entrepreneurs were mostly Calvinists. Their drive to succeed which helped initiate western economic development was originally prompted by a desire to serve God. Material success was for them a sign of divine favour. Analyzing the eastern religions Weber concludes that they provided inseparable barriers to the development of industrial capitalism of the kind that took place in the west. For example Hinduism is what Weber calls an �other-worldly� religion that is its highest value stress escape from the toils of the material world to a higher plane of spiritual existence.