As there are a large number of essay questions ask candidates to discuss the relationship between religion and social order, in this page I have listed different perspectives in general; in the following posts, I specifically provide some effective arguments with evidence and evaluations towards certain essay questions that could be easily adapted to different forms of essay questions.
Also, since it was myself who wrote these notes, there might be some mistakes throughout the notes, if there is any problem, please comment down below! Appreciate it!:)
Table of contents
Different perspectives towards religion
Functionalist perspective
Functionalist perspective examines religion in terms of society’s needs. The function of religion is the contribution it makes to meeting such functional prerequisites, such as contribution to social solidarity. (also prevent conflicts occurring at the first place). It help to bind people together in support for the existing social order and value system
Durkheim
- Societies divide the world into two parts: the sacred (must be symbols represent something) and the profane, which establishes the foundation of religion.
- Durkheim saw the religion of Australian Aborigines as totemism, the simplest and most basic form of religion.
- Society is divided into clans, and each clan has a totem. In worshipping God, people also worship society which strengthens the values and moral beliefs that form the basis of social life. It makes it easier for a person to visualise and direct his feelings of awe towards a symbol than towards so complex a thing as a clan. Religion thus strengthens unity and promotes social solidarity. Collective worship such as religious ceremonies allows individuals to express their faith in shared values and beliefs. In this highly charged atmosphere of collective worship, the integration of society is strengthened. Members of society understand the moral bonds unite them
- Paden argues that Durkheim’s observations about the importance of religion for social solidarity are valid in many areas today.
- Continuing symbolic importance can be shown in the Western Wall in Jerusalem for Jews.
- Identity markers in collective worship in holding communities together and producing social solidarity can be shown where Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims hold their arms when praying.
- [Evaluation] Durkheim studied only a small number of Aboriginal groups. Dawson found some of the fieldwork data which Durkheim relied upon was of doubtful validity.
- [Evaluation] Durkheim may overstate the degree how the collective conscience permeates and shapes the behavior of individuals. Hamilton argues that sometimes religious beliefs can be at odds with societal values.
Malinowski
- Malinowski used data from small-scale non-literate societies. Many are from the Trobriand Islands off the coast of New Guinea.
- Religion helps deal with crisis-of-life emotions, e.g. poverty, marriage, death, birth. For example, a funeral ceremony expresses the belief in immortality which denies the fact of death and provides comforts for people. These comforts and supports ensure that the degree of stress and anxiety does not exceed to disrupt the society, strengthening the social solidarity to constitute social reintegration.
- In the book ‘poor economics’, the authors(Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo) reflected that families spend even half of their annual income on religious celebrations in the poorest villages.
- Religion can also provide people with confidence and a feeling of control when encountering things that cannot be fully predicted or controlled. For example, fishing is a vital subsistence activity in the Trobriands. There is danger and uncertainty beyond the barrier reef in the open sea; a storm may result in loss of life, and the catch is dependent on the presence of fish, which cannot be predicted. Fishing in the open sea is preceded by rituals to ensure a good catch and protect the fisherman. Rituals reduce anxiety by providing confidence and a feeling of control. The group unites to deal with situations of stress, which strengthens the unity of the group.
- Therefore, religion promotes social solidarity by dealing with situations of emotional stress that threaten the stability of society.
- [Evaluation] Malinowski may exaggerate the importance of religious rituals in holding people to cope with situations of stress and uncertainty. Tambiah found that the rituals are simply related to the maintenance of prestige in the society and have little to do with cementing solidarity or dealing with uncertainty and danger.
Parsons
- Parsons argues that the religion as part of cultural system provides guidelines for human actions regarding beliefs and values.
- In a Christian society, the Ten Commandments “Thou shalt not kill” integrates diverse norms as the way to drive a car, settle an argument, and deal with the suffering of the aged. The norms that direct these areas of behaviour prohibit manslaughter and murder. By establishing general principles and moral beliefs, religion helps to provide the consensus that Parsons believes is necessary for order and stability in society.
- Religion aims to address certain issues that disrupt social life. Firstly, religion plays the role of adjusting people’s emotions during the events that destroy people’s normal pattern of life, such as death. Secondly, religion restores people’s confidence and endeavours for issues full of uncertainty, such as through rituals. Hence, religion maintains social stability by relieving the tension and frustration that could disrupt social order.
- Religion beliefs give meaning to life and answer questions of the universe. For example, religion provides answers for suffering: suffering is imposed by God to test a person’s faith; it is a punishment for sins. Suffering will bring its reward in heaven, thus being meaningful. Parsons argues that religion allows intellectual and emotional adjustment which adjustment promotes order and stability in society.
- [Evaluation] Glock et al. criticized functionalists that the history of Christianity manifests the great power of religion not merely to bind but to divide.
- [Evaluation] However, many sociologists argue that western societies are becoming more secular and as such it is unlikely that religion still acts as an agent of social control as it may well have done in the past. In today’s society. People are more likely to be dissuaded from committing deviant acts by either the media or the heavy use of surveillance technology in many towns and cities.
Marxist perspective
From Marxist’s perspective, religion is an illusion that eases the pain produced by exploitation and oppression.It is a series of myths that justify and legitimate the subordination of the subject class and the domination and privilege of the ruling class. It is a distortion of reality which provides many of the deceptions that form the basis of ruling-class ideology and false class consciousness.
Marx
- Marx argues that “the opium of the people” stupefies the adherents and dulls their pain from suffering rather than bringing them fulfilment and happiness.
- Religion can dull the pain of oppression: promises a paradise of eternal bliss in life after death; makes poverty more tolerable by offering a reward for suffering and promising compensation for injustice in the afterlife; offers the hope of supernatural intervention to solve problems on earth; justify the social order and hierarchical social structure such as from the Victoria hymn, ‘God made them highly and lowly’, which make stratification system to be accepted.
- Marx argues that religion acts as a mechanism of social control and helps produce ‘false class consciousness’ as religion distorts reality and diverts people’s attention away from the unfair capitalist system, so help to maintain ruling-class power. By making unsatisfactory lives bearable, religion discourages people from attempting to change their situation. Hence, it justifies social inequality and allows the ruling class to continue exploitation; thus, religion is an instrument of repression that avoids social change.
- For example, the caste system of traditional India was justified by Hindu religious beliefs, which protects the position of those in the highest castes. In the past, religion has justified the power of kings through the ‘divine right of kings, which suggested it was the will of God that gave monarchs the right to rule.
- Religion has even turned kings into gods – for example, the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
- Bruce suggests that USA republican politicians enjoyed from ‘The New Christian Right’, which supports a more aggressive anti-communist foreign policy, more military spending, less welfare spending, more deregulation policies, defends the interests of the rich and the ideologies such as the pursuit of materialism. When George Bush in 2004 was elected, an exit poll found that two thirds of voters who attended church more than once a week had voted for him. It shows that they do tend to support more economically powerful sectors of the political elite, supporting for the Marxist view of religion
- [Evaluation]Engels argue that religion does not always legitimize power; it often works as an impetus for social change.
- [Evaluation] McGuire argues that the relationship between religion and social and political action is more complex and unpredictable than Marx claimed. Although religion can act as an opiate, it can also linked to social and political change.
- [Evaluation] many traditional Marxists ignore the fact that religion can act as a form of resistance to the powerful, and as an agent of social change, and not simply as a conservative force, as the following examples suggest. In South America in the 1960s and 1970s, Roman Catholic priests – followers of a doctrine mixing Communism and Catholicism called Liberation Theology – played major roles in fighting against political dictatorships and poverty. Liberation Theology sought to present an image of Christ portrayed more as a reforming revolutionary than the passive peacemaker presented in mainstream Catholicism. This shows how religion can act as what Gramsci calls a ‘counter-hegemony’ in showing oppressed peoples alternative ways of organising societies.
Neo-marxism
- Maduro argued that religious institutions have a degree of freedom from the economic base. Religious institutions do not always work for the benefits of powerful elites, they can act independently
- In some societies, religion might actually be the only institution through which people can organise for radical social change. In Latin America, Maduro argues that Catholicism has traditionally tended to act as a conservative force. It has tended to support the political and economic elites, even if they are military dictatorships.
- However, in the middle of the 19th century, some catholic priests became increasingly critical of the radical inequalities in Latin America. These priests took up the cause of landless peasants and became supporters of movements for social justice.In the late 1970s, Liberation Theology was very critical of the wealth and power of the Bourgeoisie in Latin America, and were vocal supports of wealth redistribution. This explains ‘counter-hegemony’ in which ruling class hegemony can be challenged by presenting to oppressed people the vision of an alternative and more just organisation of society.
- Gramsci argues that religion can become an institution of empowerment for the proletariat. He points out that over time many popular religions have supported the interests of oppressed classes.
- A contemporary example of this is the support the Roman Catholic Church gave the Polish trade union ‘Solidarity’ in the 1980s against the Soviet Union-backed communist government. This challenges the traditional Marxist view that religions inevitably support the dominant groups in society. Although the economic liberation of Poland from state-controlled communism would therefore mean that the Catholic Church would become free too.
- The American Marxist Gary Marx argued that the impact of religion on change depended on whether it promoted ‘inner-worldly’ or ‘other worldly’ ideas. He felt that for most Black people in the USA, their religious beliefs were ‘other worldly’, which served to emphasise their powerlessness on earth and to look forward to the salvation after death. Consequently, Marx felt that far from promoting social change, for the Black people in the USA it represented a hold on their lives and inhibited change.
- [Evaluation] Liberation theology, by trying to transform the lives of peasants, illustrates the potential for religious ideas to raise consciousness. It also shows that religions can take the side of the marginalised and the oppressed rather than reflect ruling-class ideology. However, support for the traditional Marxist position comes from the fact that the official Roman Catholic Church opposed liberation theology.
- [Evaluation] It would be wrong to see Neo-Marxists as adopting an over-simplistic one-directional view of the relationship between religion and social change. They would argue that the propensity of a religion to encourage change depends on a variety of variables. These would include the beliefs religions have. For example, the strong moral code preached by the Reverend Martin Luther King and his Southern Baptist Church was at the vanguard of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Ghandi also used Hindu religion, which was central to Indian culture, to inspire the peasants of India to attack and undermine British colonial rule. Therefore the degree to which religions promote social change depends on the context in which they operate within a society.
Radical feminist perspective
Radical feminists tend to believe that patriarchy is so built into existing religions that only their destruction or replacement with an alternative can lead to the furthering of feminism.
- Religion was oppressive to women; all women are part of a planetary sexual caste system which is patriarchal and exploitative of women.
- Radical feminist Daly argues that existing religions are based on an ‘inadequate God’. Religions especially the Christianity often proclaims that the subordination of women is God’s will. She argues in the ‘Beyond the god father’ that god is male, a father figure, where god does not have sexual organs or male characteristics, hence it is unnecessary to call god father. Religion encourages detachment from the reality of human struggle against oppression. Therefore, religion is inherently oppress to women.
- America’s Southern Baptist Convention declares in its faith and mission statement that ‘a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband’
- From the report issued in 2022, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, stonewalled and defamed survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations. Survivors who reported abuse to executive committee were ‘ignored’ as leaders were ‘singularly focused on avoiding liability’
- Women are encouraged to follow traditional gender role in society in many religions.
- Holm argues that while the classical teachings of many religions have stressed equality between men and women, in practice women have usually been far from equal as it is always subirdinate to the role of men.
- In Chinese popular religion, women are associated with Yin and men with Yang where Yang spirits are more important and powerful.take part in the public performances.
- [Evaluation] Daly’s is generalised and in places lacks detailed evidence to show that a belief in God really does have the effects that she claims.
- [Evaluation] Radical feminists tend to ignore evidence that progress has been made and that aspects of patriarchal ideology within religion have been successfully challenged.
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