A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

ON RELIGION



 

HUMAN SPECIES


Basic Assumption: Humans are a species with distinctive characteristics that facilitate survival
and adaptation.

The qualities that we define as characteristic of human individuals and groups are the product
of physical, psychological, and social attributes.

All three dimensions therefore are important in understanding any human form, in this case
religion.
 

1. Physical Attributes

Opposable thumb (permits creation of material culture)

Absence of instinct (undirected physical/psychic energy)

Long period of conception and dependency (requires organized protection of mate and offspring)

Lack of physical characteristics for survival (hide, senses, speed, strength, claws/fangs)

Brain structure (permits ecstatic experiences)


2. Psychological

Individual capacity for moods and "alternative states of consciousness"

Individual capacity for symbolizing (permits language)

Individual capacity to suspend disbelief

Individual capacity to conceive holistically


3. Social

Capacity for collective symbolic organization in the form of culture

Capacity for the supra-individual organization in the form of social groups


Survival for any species requires adaptation (mechanisms for creating control)

Across species, organisms possess mechanisms to promote survival and adaptation

Aggression/defense

Sense perception

Food procurement

Sexual relationships and procreation

Establishing and maintaining territorial location
 

SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED REALITY


Because human behavior is not instinctual (pre-patterned), the patterning of human behavior is created through

Culture – symbolic patterning

Group organization – social patterning

Creating cultural and social reality involves constructing cultural and social logic (the relationship between part and whole

Culture and group organization are not inherent in the world but rather are created by humans.

This means that the only order that exists for humans is created by them.

A constructed cultural reality involves

Common cognitive interpretations of existence

Common emotional stake in these interpretations

Common set of moral orderings and priorities


All constructed cultural order establishes a means for creating order and avoiding chaos.

Cognitive - meaning

Order is enhanced by creating larger systems of interpretation

Chaos is avoided by preventing a breakdown in interpretive systems (bafflement, confusion, indecisiveness)


 Emotional - commitment

Order is enhanced by creating a connection to sources of energy

Chaos is avoided by preventing dissolution of energy (demoralization)

Moral - value
Order is enhanced by creating legitimicacy and priority for alternative lines of action

Chaos is avoided by avoiding moral indeterminacy (quandry, paradox, contradiction)


Creating social reality involves

Effectiveness of social organization

Legitimating social processes

Power consolidation


All social organizations are mechanisms for creating and sustaining order

Institutions

Social Processes

Types of Organizations

Intensity of organization
 

TRANSCENDENT REALITY


Transcendence refers to structural principles or relations of a level lying above or outside the level of structure taken as the point of reference

Like all other social reality, the transcendent is socially constructed

Transcendence is constructed on multiple levels, and humans are accustomed to inhabiting realities on several different levels simultaneously

 Time

 Space

 Logic


TRANSCENDENT REALM

In some cases transcendence may be constructed in the form of a separate realm, domain, plane, sphere.  In these cases, the transcendent realm is qualitatively different from the everyday world

Creation of a transcendent realm establishes a part-whole relationship of the largest scale structural principles or relations of a level lying above or outside the level of structure taken as the point of reference

Like all other social reality, the transcendent is socially constructed

Transcendence is constructed on multiple levels, and humans are accustomed to inhabiting realities on several different levels simultaneously

Creation of the transcendent establishes a part-whole relationship of the largest scale
 


RELIGION


The social construction of religion involves ultimate transcendence

     Definition -- Religion is the social form that is the product of the social
     construction of a transcendent realm (world, sphere, level, plane, power, force)
     that possesses qualitatively different attributes, the sacred, which distinguish it
     from the profane, everyday realm. The social construction of religion involves
     creating narratives that describe the relationship between the sacred and
     profane (myth), procedures through which a relationship of the sacred and
     profane is maintained (ritual), and social collectivities through which adherents
     organize themselves (“church”).
 
The creation of an alternative, transcendent realm distinct from the realm of everyday life that creates a larger whole of which the everyday world becomes part and which authorizes social relations in the everyday world

The relationship between part and whole is religious logic, which authorizes social relations within a religious community
 

THE SACRED/HOLY

     Definition - The sacred/holy is a nonempirical force of great and power that is
     intrinsically valuable to believers and places a moral obligation on them


What distinguishes religious transcendence from other forms of transcendence is that the transcendent realm is the locus of the sacred/holy
 

MYTH

Religious transcendence is constructed culturally through myth

     Definition -- Narratives that (1) recount the operation of transcendent forces in
     primordial times that have shaped the everyday world as it presently exists and
     (2) provide the ultimate truths and foundational assumptions about the nature
     of the world and of humankind that guide and authorize our actions.
 
Myth creates a narrative of the relationship between the transcendent realm and the everyday world through its construction of
Time  – past, present, future

Space  – everyday world and sacred/demonic realms

Logic – nature of the relationship between the everyday and sacred realm


Through myth the transcendent realm is constructed as the ultimate source of

Understanding (The cognitive dimension)
The transcendent realm is the repository of ultimate knowledge
 Energy (The emotional dimension)
The transcendent realm is the locus of the true/ultimate source of energy
Value (The moral dimension)
The transcendent realm is the source of ultimate value
Myth creates a set of ultimate ordering normative prescriptions and proscriptions are constructed in such as fashion that they
Apply to all individuals

Apply to all situations and actions

Apply to all time

Apply unequivocally


RITUAL

Religion is constructed socially through ritual

     Definition -- Religious ritual is a prescribed form of behavior through which
     transcendent sources of value are created and affirmed. These rituals are closely
     scripted, dramatically organized, and authorized by the source of transcendent
     value, which lend to them an intrinsic value.
The creation of spritual agency involves constructing ritualistic connections between the everyday world and the transcendent realm and demonstrating the independent power of the transcendent realm

Transcendent power is

Irresistible

Inexorable

Irreversible

There are a variety of ways in which a ritualistic connections between the transcendent realm and everyday world are established
Prayer
 
Pilgrimage
 
Transportation of a realm member to the other realm

Astral travel

Channeling

Near death experience

Connection with the transcendent realm produces the capacity to reorient human understanding (The cognitive dimension), the basis of human loyalty and commitment (The emotional dimension), and human commitments (The moral dimension)
Healing
 
Conversion

Glossolalia

Salvation

Revelation


RELIGIOUS COLLECTIVITIES
 

Religious collectivities historically have been organized around three forms of relationship with the transcendent

Coercive

Utilitarian

Normative


Contemporary religious collectivities are most clearly distinguished by

The extent to which they accommodate to or resist the established social order
Priestly religious groups

Prophetic religious groups

The social location of religious group adherents
Social class
 Their primary organizing form of social relations
Contractual

Covenantal