Sociology of Religion – Peter Kivisto

the sociology of religion is a really broad subfield in sociology and it's one of the subfields that has been sort of part and parcel of the discipline right from the start and one can talk about it from a variety of angles such as the the institutional or organizational structure of religious communities and so on but what I want to focus on is one powerful debate that has been going on in the sociology of religion that maybe kind of structures everything else and that has to do with the issue of secularization at the moment there is a current discussion going on among sociologists of religion that is called post secularism the Pope can post secular debate or discussion and you know post secularism is one of those posts that you find all over the place in sweet arted talking about post-industrial society and post-modernism and and so on and so forth post secularism is almost inevitable but what exactly are we talking about and and what are people who are post secularists reacting or responding to when they when they make the claims that they make and I will say this there is no one unified position in turn in terms of post secularism but I think if we step back and look at the history of the sociology of religion what we'll see is that there is a general notion that religion in the modern world is going to wane in significance it's either going to disappear or probably more likely it's going to become less and less consequential in a variety of ways and while you can think about Karl Marx who talked about the opium of the masses religion being the opium of the masses he had this dream that it would disappear now here and if you talk about someone like Durkheim who thought that religion was an important kind of glue that held society together at some level but he himself didn't seem to be somebody who could embrace religion but probably the most consequential person in terms of shaping the way we thought about secularization was Max Weber the great German sociologist born in 1864 Weber is major if there's one kind of theme that runs through his his work and if you look at Marx and you said Marx Marx was primarily interested in two things alienation and exploitation and if you look at Durkheim you'd say probably the theme that runs through his work is solidarity how does a society can hang together for Weber it seems to be rationalization now there's no there's no one you can't go to any one work of his and say see he says as much it's people who have been commenting and doing exegetical studies of his work for decades and decades and decades now have come to the sort of general consensus that rationalization is the kind of thread the key theme that that kind of permeates his is thinking and you know it means a lot of things but but among other things rationalization suggests that we begin to explain and interpret the world in ways other than religious ways in particular because of of science you know so the sort of the tension between the presumed tension between science and and religion but this this kind of thinking percolated into sociology as it became a full-fledged discipline you know when Weber was writing sociology was really trying to get grounded it really didn't have much of a presence in the universities in Europe or North America it was there but it did not been there for a very long time and it was kind of insecure in terms of its status but jump ahead to the post-world War two period which was kind of a high point for sociology and we're in particular American sociology loomed large in part because of the devastation of World War two you know we ended up being fairly unscathed and this meant that while Europe was trying to rebuild its everything including its universities the United States was in a kind of privileged position there are any number of people who became important spokespersons or advocates for for the secularization thesis but the person all point to because he was probably the most influential was a person but by the name of Peter Berger who argues that in fact you can if you want to trace the origins of secularization you can actually go back to the Protestant Reformation because Protestantism starts the strip away the kind of corporate and collective character of religion it promotes a kind of individualism and that means you know people are you know Martin Luther said you know in talking about the so-called priesthood of all believers that individuals have a direct relationship with God as opposed to having a church body shaping it which you which you found both in Eastern Christianity and in ended Roman Catholicism so the seeds of secularization he said were planted within religion itself in the West okay and not surprisingly where those places in Western Europe and then spilling over into North America because they were predominantly Protestant you see you see in the second half of the 20th century secularization taking root religion becomes a far more private matter it's not that it sometimes it becomes sort of invisible it's there so under the surface but it's not there in terms of shaping people's lives you don't you don't decide your career based on what you think God wants you to do you know you're not looking for a vocation the way actually at Luther talked about you're not choosing your friends your if you're ill you're not going to a faith healer or pray to get better you're going to a doctor and using modern science and technology in place after place fear atmosphere of everyday life religion kind of gets squeezed out okay the place that it seems to still have a role is that people end up and the at Weber actually understood this he said people need to understand they need an account of why suffering takes place in the world how do you how do you explain suffering which includes the inevitability of death which is probably by the way what I think where Marx got it wrong about religion disappearing in his terms because he talked about you end exploitation and alienation but you don't end sickness and death you know and and so those are the what in in effect with the secularization thesis that was that dealing with those ultimate private matters and then and then perhaps people may find that there they can deal with those in ways other than religion so the assumption is that some people will become irreligious a religious but many for many people for most people in fact probably religion will still be part of their lives but it will it will be compartmentalized okay that's that's what secularization argued okay now compounding all that I just said is something else in the modern world and that is that we live increasingly in societies especially the large developed societies that are religiously pluralistic and one of the ways in which if you're going to be religiously pluralistic and you learn to get together with people and respect other people's religions then it's some level it becomes a harder sell to say but my religion is the one true religion some people hang on to that people who we call religious fundamentalists they want to say my religion is the one true religion all other religions are false but others are prepared to say that that my this is my way to trying to deal with and wrestle with these issues of ultimate meaning in life but in fact um my neighbor who's you know but you know I'm if I'm a Protestant my neighbors a kid was a Catholic or who's a Jew is doing the same thing and I respect that that so at some level then you don't come away with the same kind of absolute certainty that your religious beliefs are correct they are more tentative they're more something that you embrace or endorse you feel comfortable with them or you're going to stick with them you're just going to have faith in them but you're but you also understand that that there are other options there are the possibilities and as pluralistic societies evolve this means you actually have choices so you can actually move from one religion to another you can be you can be born a Catholic and become a Protestant you can convert to judaism or jews can convert to christianity or what have you and one plausibility structure in all of this is that you're not religious anymore now here's what it one of the one of the anomalies in all of this debate was that the united states is is still a very religious country okay so how did how do you explain this thesis if the united states you know it is still highly religious and the argument that berger suggested was that it's an anomaly okay jump ahead 20 years and what we see is a whole lot of evidence that religion in the world writ large is alive and well you know in latin america not only is catholicism thriving now they have it now a lot of latin american catholics are excited because they have a pope from their own region but evangelical product cancer even Jellicle Protestantism has taken hold and is doing all sorts of things you have you have both an Islamic revival and an evangelical Christian revival in places like West Africa like Nigeria it is true that the secular the secularization thesis argued that this was happening in the developed world and any kind of ignored the world that had not kind of caught up with with with the developed world but the reality is you still fight you find also find evidence of religion in the world so what Peter Berger ended up saying is I used to think that the United States was the anomaly but now I think Western Europe is the anomaly the the lack of religion in Western Europe stands in stark contrast to everywhere else okay so this is the this is the basis for starting to talk about post secularism we don't live in a secular age we live in this world in which somehow religion has managed to survive despite it all despite science technology pluralism etc etc etc that that's the argument of of the post secularist they don't necessarily have a power particularly I mean there is more in many respects it's more descriptive religions everywhere we can point to it you're here here but in fact one of the things that they raised is that is the idea that that both religion various kinds of religion and non-religion are options one of the one of the realities is people live in a world where you have this sense that they have an option and I'll I would point to a very very important article not by a sociologist or not an article a book a huge book 700 or 800 page book by the Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor and the title is significant because it's called a secular age number of people who been talking about post secularism find this book very very compelling and what what he argues is in many respects not quite the way Berger but we do live in a secular age but people have this eye that you know religion is still far more powerful but but a secular age is one in which religion is far more of an optional thing and far less something that people are just born into and then stay that we don't know people still talk about this but people used to talk in the US about being a so-called cradle Catholic you know somebody who hadn't been to mass for decades and so on well so I'm a cradle Catholic lemon you're born a Catholic and somehow you think I'm still a Catholic even though I'm not a good Catholic or practicing Catholic and increasingly that kind of that kind of situation doesn't exist in people if they're going to be religious they end up choosing and shifting and moving and and the very fact that you have to make decisions and make choices and that one of the choices it is not just among different religious options but one is to be irreligious there's now an assertive growing assertive movement the so-called new atheists who are prepared to you know make their case that that they need to be seen and and sometimes they call themselves humanists sometimes they have a kind of in-your-face attitude towards established religion other times they're simply saying we need to be we need to have a place at the table here too but this is the world that we live and I would you know I think sometimes the term post secular although interesting is probably something that leads to more confusion than is necessary and probably the more important thing to think about and look at is that we live in this widely deliciously diverse world and the sheer diversity to share pluralism of it is what shapes people's options and choices and so you

Channel: Serious Science

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Keywords: science, lecture, Serious Science, Sociology (Field Of Study), Sociology Of Religion (Field Of Study)

Id: d9W0q6RqdV0

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2015