Sociology 3301: Sociology of Religion
Lecture 1: Defining the Field
How can we define religion? Many people think they know what it is, but it is also the case that some theistic definitions are too narrow (e.g. excluding Buddhism), while others so broad that more diverse social behaviors may be included (e.g. nationalism, political views and beliefs providing individuals and groups a sense of worth and meaning). To get at this question, then, we have to recognize that the way we define our subject matter sets boundaries over what we can and cannot discuss under this heading, and that what we see also excludes what we cannot consider. We also must be aware that definitions are not mirrors of reality, but rather tools that are more or less useful to those who use them.
Substantive Definitions:
One type of definition attempts to get at the substance, essence, or core of religion. Edward Tylor (1873) did this when he defined religion as “belief in spiritual beings” (a term inclusive of a deity or deities, but also the spirits of deceased ancestors worshipped by various peoples).
Yet trying to define the essence of religion is hard, but even more so if the definition is to be used cross-culturally. In the Western world, we tend to emphasize religion as belief, some even measure religiosity by determining how orthodox someone is. Yet, as R.R. Marett (1914) notes, in some religions ritual and emotion are primary, while belief is only secondary. For example, Gill’s (2004) study of traditional Native American religions found that these are expressed through tribal practices, prayer, and religious objects, not creeds, dogmas, or theologies. Similarly, Orthodox Judaism focuses more on behavior than belief. Indeed, anthropologists note that the emphasis on belief is a Western bias that causes researchers to miss the underlying thrust of non-western religions (e.g. concepts of deity or superhuman beings are peripheral to mainstream Buddhism, though many practicing Buddhists do believe in them). This focus on belief at least puts in question whether Buddhists who do not emphasize belief in superhuman beings are practicing a religion. But is this emphasis on belief necessary?
Another substantive definitional approach was articulated by Emile Durkheim in 1912. Fascinated with cleansing practices and attitudinal changes prior to religious ritual in various cultures, Durkheim argued that the division of life into sacred and profane realms allows us to identify religion in any culture. Encountering holy objects or engaging in ritual is associated with a psychological shift, a particular sense of awe, feelings of fear and majesty not encountered elsewhere in a given culture. While not all individual experiences of awe or sacredness are necessarily religious, Durkheim emphasized religion as communal activity involving social groups. The sacred attitude must be fundamentally a group experience if it is to be identified as religion. His definition states: “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”
This approach is helpful in a great many cases and avoids the above problem of deciding which beliefs are intrinsically or inherently religious. Nevertheless, those who have used this approach have often implied, even asserted a dualistic worldview, one considering that life has a religious dimension and a non-religious dimension, one sacred, the other profane, that cannot exist in the same time and space. For religious persons, space is not homogeneous, some parts are qualitatively different from others (Eliade). While true that that many people organize their life experience into separate categories, not all do. For example, the Shakers attempted to sustain an attitude that all of life is sacred, while the Bruderhof attempted to make all life hallowed and thus de-emphasize sacraments and rituals. In their case, all of one’s life is to be lived in the spirit of worship and the community works to sustain this attitude in simple, everyday acts of living. They do not even erect a church building lest religion be identified with a distinct time and place. Such groups do not seem to divide life into sacred and profane realms. In fact, Davis (1949) argues that Durkheim’s distinction creates a false dichotomy in some instances.
Given such examples, Greeley (1972) attempted to maintain the focus on sacredness but avoid the dualism found in many earlier writers. He argues that any being, social process or value that gives meaning and purpose to life tends to become a source of reverence or profound respect. A sacred attitude is not totally unlike a secular outlook, but involves a matter of intensified respect (e.g. this does not exclude the study of nationalism, political ideologies, or any other system of profound loyalty as a form of religion).
Such broad views bring us back to one underlying question in this whole debate: whether religion by definition has to include only that which has an otherworldly or supernatural dimension. Can nationalism be a form of religion? There is often much symbolism, ritual, emotion, special days to celebrate, and so on, but does this involve the same sort of awe and reverence that people feel toward the divine? Some say yes, some say no. Some suggest that we focus on the sociology of the sacred in such cases, even if the behavior is not a religion in the strictest sense – since anything that is considered “sacred” in practice is likely to interest the sociologist of religion.
The major criticism of these substantive definitions is that they tend to focus researcher’s attention solely on traditional forms of religion. Some feel that people in complex and changing societies like ours are religious in new ways. Hence, the old, substantive definitions are too narrow, too tradition bound, blinding sociologists to these new forms of religiosity.
Functional Definitions:
Milton Yinger (1970) offered a more inclusive definition of religion that changed the question from what a religion is to what it does. He suggests that we define a social phenomenon as religious if it fulfils the conscious and intended functions of religion. Yinger, following Weber and Tillich, asserted that meaning in life is a basic human need. A fundamental concern of human beings is to understand the purpose of life and the meaning of death, suffering, evil, and injustice. Thus, religion “can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with these ultimate problems of human life.” Religion, in this sense, helps individuals cope with these perplexities by offering an explanation and by providing a strategy to overcome despair, hopelessness, and futility.
Of course, using this type of definition considerably expands the range of phenomena that we consider under the heading of religion (e.g. nonthesistic, even non-supernatural systems of belief and practice). Yinger states “It is not the nature of belief, but the nature of believing that requires our study.” Anything that closes the gap between fact and hope, that allows a leap of faith in the face of evil and suffering, is fair game. Even a secular faith that science and technology will ultimately solve all our problems is, on Yinger’s view, a religious or quasi religious phenomenon. Yinger speaks of religion as comprising ways of life in these senses. Thus, employing traditional, narrow definitions of religion may result in misunderstanding and misidentification of religion – particularly in societies undergoing cultural change. As well, Yinger assumes that, to some extent at least, all people are religious. He writes: “To me, the evidence is decisive: human nature abhors a vacuum in systems of faith. This is not, then, a period of religious decline but is one of religious change.” Hence, the assumption underlying the functional definition of religion does not really invite the question of whether a society is becoming less religious but rather asks what new forms religion is taking. Sociologists using this approach are less likely to overlook non-traditional or alternative forms of religion or new ways that people practice religion.
Yinger, without making judgments about the truth or falsity of belief, also suggests that all people have a god or gods that give meaning to life (though the intensity of the need for meaning/relative consistency of belief patterns vary). The task is to discover what gives meaning to people’s lives, for that is their religion. Other scholars, like Geertz (1968) disagree with Yinger over the assumption of an intrinsic and universal need for transcendent meaning in life. Social scientists differ, then, about whether there is an innate religious tendency in humans.
A second well-known functional definition of religion comes from Robert Bellah (1970). Again influenced by Tillich’s idea of “ultimate concern,” Bellah defines it as “a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate people to the ultimate conditions of their existence.” Of course, “ultimate conditions of existence” are hard to identify and even harder to measure. Still, Yinger and Bellah assert that any system of belief and action that fails to address the fundamental questions of meaning in life is not a religion.
Some, such as Stark and Bainbridge (1996) have thus argued that a supernatural dimension to the belief system is a fundamental characteristic of religion. Not only does lacking such a dimension fail to address the “ultimate concern,” but the resultant definition will be so broad and inclusive so as to be virtually meaningless. Nevertheless, Yinger opts for breadth. This shows the need for all of us to consider one’s own orientation to the “ultimate concern” in deciding for ourselves what is and what does not fit into a functional definition of religion.
A Symbolic Definition:
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1966) developed a symbolic definition of religion that is somewhat more detailed in defining what religion does. Symbols – objects, behaviors, or stories that represent or remind one of something else – are powerful forces in human behavior, and also central to religion. Given the abstract nature of the focal point of religion, symbols serve as an indispensible medium. Geertz was impressed with the way in which various levels of meaning can be communicated through symbols – and they are far more accessible to human observation than a subjective experience of “ultimate concern.” Thus, he used symbols as the starting point for his definition of religion.
For Geertz, religious symbols are distinct from non-religious ones in that the former are macro symbols, those that help one interpret the meaning of life itself and that involve a cosmology or worldview (e.g. a cross). Hence, their sacred function involves their acquisition of a sense of sacredness or profound respect. In contrast, many non-religious symbols are micro symbols, those that affect everyday interaction with other and enhance daily communication and cooperation (e.g. a handshake). Micro symbols do not purport to explain the purpose of life nor suggest values and beliefs that claim highest priority in life.
Geertz’s definition of religion states: “Religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, persuasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in people by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” There are several important aspects here. First, religion involves a system of symbols that provides a model of the world by helping people understand what the world and life really are (e.g. a testing ground), and also prescribes what the world ought to be (e.g. how to pass the test). Secondly, acknowledgement of the symbolic structure affects ones moods and motivations, depth of feeling and directions for appropriate behavior (one more transitory, the other more goal directed). Some religions focus more on the former (e.g. mystical experience in Buddhism); others on religion as a system of ethical goals. Nevertheless, all religions contain both and they feed off each other as the very ethos of the religion. Thirdly, religion provides a worldview, a cognitive ordering of concepts of nature, self, society, and the supernatural. It provides both intense feelings and a cosmology that satisfies the intellectual need for reasonable explanations. Yet, Geertz points out that not all intense feelings are religious (i.e. if no explanatory perspective or worldview of the meaning of life is involved, the experience is not religious.
There are 3 major challenges that seem to belie the meaningfulness of life and it is these that a religious worldview must resolve: (1) a sense of coherence and reasonableness of events in life; (2) a sense of meaning in suffering so that it becomes sufferable; and (3) a sense of moral order in which evil will be overcome and that virtue, goodness, and justice will somehow, someday prevail. Symbol systems thus attempt to account for, and even celebrate, the perceived ambiguities, puzzles, and paradoxes in human experience. The wordview represents an intellectual process by which people can affirm that life makes sense, that suffering is bearable, and that justice is not just a mirage – that in the end, good will be rewarded.
Geertz moved on to consider how a particular worldview or set of concepts comes to be believed. He asserts that symbols “act to clothe those conceptions in such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” How is it, he asks, that despite common sense, everyday experience, and empirical evidence people will come to believe irrational and unsupportable things? Geertz answers that, when people are involved and socialized into it, religious ritual often creates an aura in which a deeper reality is said to be reached. Truths are experienced or understood that are more profound than everyday experience provides.