Beliefs- religion, renewal and choice Flashcards
New age- From obligation to Consumption - Davie
• Argues that there was an obligation to go to church as it was the norm but in modern society its now due to choice and consumerism.
• Davie argues that religion isn’t declining but simply taking a different, more privatised form.
• Believing without Belonging
• Vicarious religion is now becoming more of a trend, this means religion practised by an active minority on behalf of the majority who experience it second-hand.
AO3
❌ Voas and Crockett don’t accept Davies’ claim of believing but not belonging, evidence shows that both beliefs and attendance levels are declining together.
New age- Spiritual Shopping - Hervieu-Leger
• Blames the decline of religious obligation on ‘cultural amnesia’, before children were socialised into religions belief however the view that religion is passed down through generations has been forgotten.
• People in the modern day have developed their own ‘do-it-yourself’ beliefs that give meaning to our lives and fit in with out own interest and aspirations (spiritual shopping).
New age- Postmodern religion
• Lyon states that the postmodernist society we now live in is changing the nature of religion.
• Religious ideas have become ‘disembedded’ from churches and spread across the media due to globalisation.
• This has resulted in religion becoming deinstitutionalised, it has been removed from its original location in a way that people can adapt it for their own purposes.
• Hellend distinguishes 2 types of internet activity involving religious organisations:
• Religion online: an electronic version of their hierarchical communication.
• Online religion: a community where individuals can visit virtual worship, explore shared spiritual interests and provide mutual support.
People haven’t given up on religion, just tailored it to suit their own religion, as Lyon notes religion isn’t declining just evolving.
• New age beliefs and practices put emphasis on spirituality, reject traditional views and connection with ones ‘inner self’, the key feature is individualism which encourages ‘self-spirituality’ or
‘self-religion’
Weaknesses of the New Age
• The problem with scale - even if newer forms of individualised religion were increasing, it would still have to fill the large gaps left by the decline of traditional religions.
• Socialisation of the next generation - parents aren’t socialising their children into the ways of the New Age, also women from the holistic milieu are remaining childless
• Weak commitment - sociologists found that while people dabbled in mediation, horoscopes etc they don’t actually have a serious commitment.
Religious Market Theory
• Stark and Bainbridge criticise secularisation as a theory noting that there has never been a ‘golden age’ of religion as well as it being Eurocentric.
• They argue that religion is attractive as it provides us with religious compensators (when real rewards are scare, we have supernatural ones).
• They also state that churches operate like companies selling goods in market, churches that make their product attractive will succeed in attracting more customers (religious competition)
Religious Market Theory- America vs. Europe - Stark and Bainbridge
• They believe that religion thrives in the US as there is no monopoly of truth, this means that there has been a variety of competition and a healthy religious market.
• In Europe however, most countries have been dominated by an official state church meaning that religious monopoly has been high and there’s been no competition so the lack of choice has then led to a decline.
• The decline of religion isn’t universal.
Religious Market Theory criticism
• Bruce rejects the view that diversity and competition increase the demand for religion, statistics show that decline of religion and diversity accompany one another.
• Beckford claims that the religious market theory is unsociological through it claims that people are naturally religious but doesn’t explain how.
Secularisation and Security - Norris and Ingleheart
• They claim that variations of religious following comes down to the society and the degrees of existential security (the feeling that survival is secure enough to be taken for granted).
• Those in poor societies or poor who live in rich societies face more life-threatening ris’ therefore are more religious.
Europe has the highest rate of secularisation as their society is the most equal unlike America
BUT they only see religion as a negative response to deprivation and ignore the positives.
