Class, Age, Gender, Ethnicity: Religion

Question 1

It’s been noted that there’s a class dimension to who does and doesn’t participate in religious practice.
What does Linda Woodhead et al in the ______ project, refer to the increase of middle class women’s participation in NAM as?

Answer 1

. The Kendall project.
‘A spiritual revolution’

Question 2

What is the Marxist perspective on religion?
Eg: Marx and Lenin

Answer 2

That religion is an “opium”, it’s a comfort that distracts people from real physical action to solve the class conflict.
False class consciousness is created by making people idle and fatalistic, promises of a better afterlife prevent meaningful action.

Question 3

Weber says that religions tend to attract different classes based on their compatibility with class ideals and or whether they align with their material conditions.
There are two types of religion to Weber, what?

Answer 3

• Theodicy of misfortune
  Appealing to the frustration of the poor working classes, it see poverty as a virtue, wealth as decadent. It promises an afterlife to those living frugally which the poor are.
  Eg: Protestantism, puritanicalism
• Theodicy of good fortune
  Appealing to the Rich, it sees wealth as symbolic of a blessing of God or indicative of a Godly character that’s worked hard in their life, deserving of passing into the next.
  Eg: Calvanism - Weber’s theory of the link between Calvanism and Capitalism.

Question 4

Hunt notes that NAM are likely more attractive to the middle classes because…

Answer 4

They have incorporated individualistic, Liberal ideology that promotes the individuals independent spiritual enlightenment.

Modern Liberal thinking stemming from the enlightenments suspicion of the objectivist fundamentalism of the church, is more inclined to a set of beliefs that they can stitch onto their own.

Question 5

Lawes is the _______ thesis.
It means…

Answer 5

Lifelong thesis,
It means the theory that the working classes are more likely to believe in a higher power their whole lives and
…
that atheism is a distinctly middle class school of thought that has flourished because of their greater access to education and rationalism.

• It may also be because religion serves a comforting function that you may begin to more openly question if your material needs are not strained,
• Lending credence to Marxist perspective and Functionalist perspective.

Question 6

O’Beirne’s study found what?

Answer 6

Results suggested that minorities tended to see religion as more central to their identity.
It was frequently linked to the importance of family.

Question 7

Bruce and cultural…
It means…

Answer 7

Defence theory,
It means that minorities are more likely to be engaged with their religion because it symbolises a resistance to assimulationism that’s often paired with racist antagonism.

Their place of worship and community can also be a refuge from racist hostility.

Question 8

Functionalists see religion as an as_________,
Creating co__________

Bellah would argue what?

Answer 8

Assimulator,
Creating cohesion.

. Bellah would probably argue that civil religions transcend cultural/ethnic backgrounds, and this is another reason that they’re growing in popularity in a multicultural world.

Question 9

Davie notes what about the nature of JudioChristian religions
(this was noted on by Feminist theorist Karen Armstrong, eg: The Kendall study)

Answer 9

That a male central, fatherly archetype dominates conversations about and the concept of God.
God has characteristics that are stereotypically male.

Question 10

Women compared to men…
(In relation to religion)

What did the _____ British attitudes survey find?

Answer 10

Women participate far more in their religion.

The 2008 British attitudes survey found that 55% of women vs 44% of men said they had a religion.

Question 11

Holm’s theory of …,
Means…

Answer 11

Theory of gender equality,
Means that Holm thought that the monotheistic male God religions tend to have drawn up stricter gendered roles.

. Women can’t be Catholic priests
. The orthodox synagogue has a gendered separations with women not in ceremonies, watching from the balcony.
. The different freedoms allowed for monks and nuns.

Question 12

Bruce posits two theories.
One is to do with gender the other is to do with ethnicity.
They are…
Meaning…

Answer 12

Theory of paid work,
It means that women have adopted a role closer to that of men’s as well as their mannerisms being more acceptable to express.
This is not complete though and women are still the more domesticated gender under patriarchy and secularisation has led to religion becoming more locked into the private sphere and this explains why women participate more.

Cultural defense theory,
To minorities, being a part of their cultural religion and hetetage gives them a communities to fee safe from outside societal hostility and demands to assimulate.
It becomes a symbol of Rebellion.

Question 13

What are some examples of women’s participation in religion?

Answer 13

• Encouraged to join convents.
• Shrine maintenance in Hindu households done by the woman.

Question 14

An older person from an ethnic minority is still…

Answer 14

More likely than a young person to attend religious practice, except for under 15s because they have less choice in the matter if socialised with religion.

Question 15

Why might immigrants in particular be less subject to changes to their participation in their religion?

Answer 15

• cultural ties, a tie to their home they left behind they’re sentimental for.
• Familiarity in a very different culture, something stable.
• Refuge in their community from outside hostility.
• Symbolic Rebellion against assimilation.

Question 16

There is however a decline in religious participation within ethnic minority groups in the….

Answer 16

Second generation,
Likely because of greater assimilation and comfortability in the new country.

This is called the secular transition

Question 17

In 2011, a U.K census found that only 1/_ of those with religious beliefs were over 25.

Answer 17

1/3

Question 18

Bruce notes that religion may be struggling with newer generation because of its lesser role in …

Answer 18

The education system and society.

Sunday school attendance is down and faith schools are fewer (accept for minority faiths like Islam)

Keep in mind that state led education started in 1870

Question 19

What’s Bruce’s point on education and religion?
Why might Nancy Ammerman’s study refute this?

Answer 19

Religion is losing ground because it’s got less involvement in education and socialising the young.

Ammerman reported that Christian fundamentalist identifying families were actually surprisingly uninterested in the denominations they participated in but focused more on the functional relief of family burdens churches gave them, helping with child care, family planning, and days out.

Question 20

Norris and Inglehart, found that industrialised societies tended to be more …

Answer 20

Secular.

Question 21

Norris and Ingelhart are responsible for what theory?

Answer 21

Existential security theory.

Question 22

What is existential security theory?

Answer 22

Ingelhart et al

The theory that industrialised societies tend to be more secular because their material conditions and socio-economics tend to be more reliable and stable.

Unstable countries are more prone to disasters and insecurity, religion soothes the mental scars of this, giving people meaning out of meaningless day to day struggles.

• This is probably also why Anti-Colonial religious institutions struggle against imperialism often have religious undertones.
  Eg: liberation theory.

Question 23

Older people tend to vote more conservatively, indicating why they might also value…

Answer 23

The church as an institution representing old tried and tested moral values.

Question 24

What’s Thompson’s claim as to why women may gravitate more towards sects?

Answer 24

Sects and NAM offer status and enlightment to the half of society which is most symbolic situations is on a lower standing to men under patriarchy.

Salvation, communalism, and enlightenment therefore become very attractive.

Question 25

What is the Penatcostal gender paradox?

Answer 25

In Pentacostalism, only men are the heads of the house and can be pastors.

But

Brusco notes: that Pentacostalism I reinforcing the providing role of the men, has challenged the culture of ‘Machismo’, where in poorer area in particular, fathers and husbands fall into a hedonistic spiral.
Men in pentacostalism, must support their wives, be faithful to them, and respect them.

This makes a patriarchal movement enticing to women in Latin America

Question 26

According to Woodhead,
There’s 3 types of modern woman.
What are they?
What’s their relionship to religion.

Answer 26

• Traditional: Housewives, deeply Conservative, they see religion and their involvement in it as protecting stability and sanctity of structures that protect them even if patriarchal.
• Jugglers: Usually career mothers, they become drawn to NRM as they allow them to go on their independent spiritual journey without sacrificing agency, and not invalidating their personal, likely feminist sympathising perspective.
• Work centred: A career woman completely unconcerned with the value of religion or spirituality. They’re busy being hard working materialistic providers.

Question 27

Who did the study on witchcraft as a old tradition to a new religious movement.

Answer 27

Pam Grossman

Question 28

Both feminist thinker Brusco and Woodhead noted that religion to women can…

Answer 28

Empower them, be a route to status under the patriarchy.
It is also attractive because of its ties to communalism and care that women are socialised to value.

Question 29

Gender Equality theory is what?

Extra: By who?

Answer 29

Holm,

The greater, dogmatic separation between male and female expectations and the emergence of patriarchy, can be tracked with the emergance of monotheistic religions.

Question 30

Aldridge noted that the presence of what in older religions made the hybrid NRMs so attractive?

Armstrong noted this in her studying of the pre-abrahamic religions.

Answer 30

The archetype of a strong female figure whether a patron or a healer central in the community.

Question 31

80% of women in the Kendall project were in the “________ _______”

Answer 31

“Holistic Milieu”

Referring to the spirituality of the new age, incorporating a holistic selection of spiritual/religious/scientific ideas and practices.

Question 32

Why might be a reason (according to Bruce) that women like NAM and NRM?

Answer 32

Because they give practical advice and use physical participation to give an illusion of progress.

Eg:
- Crystal healing
- Massages
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Reading
- Spells

Question 33

What does ‘generational replacement’ mean?

To what theory does it link to?

Answer 33

It means older generations typically are more religious but there’s a new decline in religion as their offspring aren’t adopting those beliefs or being socialised with them, as much.

This links to the theory of the
‘Secular transition’

Question 34

What is the theory of the secular transition?

Answer 34

That religion has began to naturally wane in relevancy as fewer of the next generation decides to adopt the last generations ideals, and they search for their own.

Question 35

Why might places like Iran, and post Soviet Russia, Poland, and Yugoslavia be so compared to other nations so religious?

Answer 35

It seems that choice in a market place of ideas (eg: Stark and Bainbridge) leads to traditional religions waning in relevancy.

It seems also there’s a trend of religious communities becoming reactionary when after being suppressed their allowed greater influence in society again.

Question 36

At the beginning of the 20th century around roughly / women worked, it is now roughly /

Answer 36

1/3
It is now 2/3

Question 37

Cultural d… theory
Cultural t… theory

Answer 37

Cultural defence theory
Cultural transition theory.

Question 38

According to Simone
de Beauvoir’s ‘The second sex’….

Answer 38

women are taught that they’re inherently less capable and autonomous by religious institutions, and that ideas like salvation and a promised afterlife under patriarchy, translate to control mechanisms to legitimise male authority.

It discourages free thinking and in existentialist terms is ‘bad faith’ thinking.

Question 39

‘Madonna-Whore complex’

Answer 39

Armstrong

Question 40

The Kendall project was conducted by

Answer 40

Woodhead et al.

Question 41

An example of active discrimination against women and association with their natural biology and evil is…

Answer 41

The belief in some religions like Orthodox Judaism and Islam that women should not be allowed to be in holy places when menstruating because of its believed corrupting influence.