7.1 Theorists

Question 1

Alan Aldridge

inclusive and exclusive definitions of religion

Answer 1

Inclusive
Religion is defined broadly and could include devotion to a soccer team or royalty to a rock band or rap artist.

Inclusive or broad definitions would also include political belief systems such as nationalism, fascism and communism.

The focus on function means the content of religious beliefs is unimportant – it does not matter who, what or how people worship.

What is important is the fact that people act in a specific, often collective ways, and that they hold certain types of belief that influence their behaviour.

For inclusive approaches, therefore, the key to understanding religion is to see it as a belief system, or ideology based on faith: the uncritical and unconditional acceptance of a particular set of ideas

Exclusive
This excludes ‘quasi-religious’ behaviour that might serve a similar function to religion but which is not actually religious in the strict sense of the term.

Exclusive approaches involve a substantive definition of religion focused on its content or substance: the beliefs, practices and organisations that are distinctively religious and that mark religious behaviour as substantively different from other, similar, behaviours.

Question 2

Mcguire

Answer 2

Suggests that problems of definition arise because religion has a ‘dual character’ it is both individual and social.

• On an individual level, different religions encompass different beliefs and practices and teach a variety of ways to ‘be religious. Individual indicators are on the basis of religious belief such as orthodox or unorthodox.
• On a social level religion is functional: for example socialisation of moral values, promotion of social solidarity and social control. Social indicators measure things like religious participation.

Question 3

Durkheim

2 main functions

Answer 3

Social solidarity: this relates to how religion creates a feeling of belonging to a particular group by providing individuals with shared beliefs and values.

Social integration: this relates to the specific ways in which social solidarity is created, through mechanisms such as shared practices and experiences.

Question 4

Maguire

Answer 4

Describes ‘The Sacred’ (an essential characteristic of religion) as ‘that which is utterly and mysteriously precious in our experience’ and which is frequently represented through objects.

Question 5

s

Cornwall et al

identified 3 broad dimensions of religiosity

Answer 5

knowing or the ‘belief dimension’
doing: an indicator of religious participation/membership
feeling: a specific measure of commitment to both an individual’s beliefs and any religious organisation with which they identify.

Question 6

Hughes and Church

do ‘religious beliefs’ mean the same thing to everyone?

Answer 6

One way around this problem is, to use a proxy indicator of belief, such as whether people believe in a ‘higher being’. If they do, this indicates that they hold some form of religious belief. If they do not, this suggests that they are unlikely to hold further beliefs that could be classed as religious.

(not helpful for unconventional beliefs; NAMs, NRMs)

Question 7

Abrams et al

Answer 7

Suggested that a more valid way to understand religiosity is to measure commitment – the extent to which people feel they belong to a particular religion using a scale that measures and combines four
main commitments:

• Disposition: the philosophical dimension to religiosity through questions about spiritual ideas and experiences, such as whether people ‘draw comfort from prayer’.
• Orthodox belief: the extent to which people believe in ideas like god or the soul.
• Moral values: how these are influenced by religious values and teachings.
• Institutional attachment: the frequency with which people attend religious services, meetings and ceremonies.

Question 8

Navone

Answer 8

Argues ‘just because people say they are religious, does not make it so, no more than if they say they are intelligent or moral’.

Question 9

2015 YouGov survey of 7000 adults

Answer 9

Found that 62% of regular church goers were middle class and 38% working class.

The same 2015 survey found that twice as many married working class men had never attended church compared to middle class men (17% compared to 9%).

Question 10

Voas and Watt

Answer 10

Conducted research on behalf of the Church of England and made three observations not directly about social class, but relevant to it.

• Firstly, church attendance is higher in rural areas compared to urban areas.
• Secondly, church attendance is higher in the South of England compared to the North.
• Thirdly, they noted growth in church attendance in areas which had high performing church primary and secondary schools.

All of these indicators suggest higher church attendance in middle class compared to working class areas.

Question 11

Ashworth and Farthing

Answer 11

Found that, for both sexes, those in middle class jobs had above average levels of church attendance. Conversely, those in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled working class jobs had below average church attendance. Welfare recipients had the lowest levels of church attendance.

Question 12

Lawes

Answer 12

Found that ‘lifelong theists’ disproportionately come from unskilled and semi-skilled manual backgrounds, and were less likely to have academic qualifications. Conversely, lifelong atheists disproportionately come from higher professional and managerial backgrounds, and are more likely to have experienced higher education.

Question 13

Andrew Mckinnon

Answer 13

Notes that there has been a ‘dearth’ of research on the relationship between religion and social class, meaning there is something of a data gap.

Because of the above, we are often stuck with relying on indicators which might not actually measure social class.

Even if the data suggests that church attendance and belief are higher among the middle classes, this doesn’t necessarily mean the middle classes are actually more religious. They may just be attending church to keep up appearances or to get their children into the local church school (which tend to have high academic performance); or they may feel under more social pressure to state they are religious than the working classes

Question 14

Stark and Bainbridge

Answer 14

argue that cults draw their members from the higher social classes

Question 15

Aidan Kelly

Wiccan

Answer 15

has suggested that new religious movements are founded and populated by the educated middle classes.

Question 16

Adler

Answer 16

drew attention to the fact that, in the USA, members of witch covens mainly come from the professional middle classes

Question 17

Bader

Answer 17

also notes that two thirds of those who claim to have been abducted by aliens previously held middle-class occupations

Question 18

Bruce

mc victims

Answer 18

argued that the general attraction of NAMs to the middle classes is based on the idea that ‘spiritual growth appeals mainly to those whose more pressing material needs have been satisfied. Unmarried
mothers raising children on welfare tend to be too concerned with finding food, heat and light to be overly troubled by their inner lights and when they do look for release from their troubles they prefer the bright outer lights of bars and discotheques’.

Question 19

Weber

wc victims

Answer 19

Suggested that sects offer members a theodicy of disprivilege, a world view that helps them cope with their lives. This explains why members of the working classes may join sects or other religious organisations. In effect, the promise of salvation in the afterlife makes up for poverty in this life.

Question 20

Cook

Answer 20

warned that ‘collecting data on ethnicity is difficult because there is no consensus on what constitutes an ethnic group’.

Question 21

Berthoud

Answer 21

In the UK, the highest levels of religious affiliation are found among Pakistani (92%) and Bangladeshi (92%) minorities. Berthoud has shown that these ethnic groups are among the very poorest in British society. This suggests a correlation between poverty/class and religiosity among some ethnic groups.

While this correlation is interesting, deprivation itself is not enough explanation for higher levels of religiosity, measured in terms of both affiliation and practice.

Question 22

Crockett and Voas

Answer 22

‘All major ethnic minority populations are more religious than British-born whites’. Since high levels of deprivation exist among the white working class, the question here is why do some ethnic groups display higher levels of religiosity under similar economic circumstances?

Question 23

Lynch

Answer 23

has suggested that the feelings that might once have led young people to religion are being diverted into areas that have always been seen as non-religious. For some people, the non-religious becomes
‘sacred’, in Durkheim’s terms their energies are diverted to football, music, social activities such as clubbing or to commitment to a cause such as feminism or environmentalism. From this view, religiosity has not disappeared but has been channelled into new, almost unrecognisable, forms.

Question 24

August Comte

Answer 24

Suggested that there were three stages in human understanding of the world. In the first stage, the theological stage, phenomena are explained as being caused by gods, spirits or other supernatural beings.

In the metaphysical stage, the supernatural
aspect of this is reduced and people start to investigate and explain phenomena by referring to natural or abstract forces such as the power of Nature.

Finally, in the scientific stage, rational scientific explanations based
on observation, evidence and logic take over.

Comte saw the development of sociology as part of this, with human society investigated in a scientific way that would uncover the laws of human nature.

Question 25

Weber

Answer 25

Argued that the world was becoming disenchanted. That is, as society becomes more modern, political (bureaucratic) and secular there is no longer room for the magical or mystical, for superstition, intuition and faith. The world ceases to be what Weber called an ‘enchanted garden’.