New Forms of Religion Flashcards
What does Davie mean: from obligation to consumption?
In the past, churches such as the Church of England could oblige people to attend church and believe in certain things
Now, it’s about choice
What is Believing without belonging?
- Religion isn’t declining, it’s just taking a different, more privatised form
- People are more reluctant to belong to organisations but they still hold religious beliefs
Vicarious Religion: The Spiritual Health Service
- Vicarious Religion: religion practised by an active minority (professional clergy and regular churchgoers)
- Churches/religion is used for rites of passage such as baptisms, funerals and for major national occasions…
- Similar to the structure of an iceberg
Neither believing nor belonging: Voas and Crockett respondents
- Voas and Crockett disagree with Davie
- Evidence from 5750 respondents: both church attendance and belief in God is declining
- Bruce: if people aren’t investing their time in going to church, this shows the declining strength of their beliefs
What % of people identified themselves as Christian in the census? What did Abby Day (2007) discover about these ‘Christians’?
- 72%
- The reason for identifying as Christian wasn’t for religious reasons, but simply a way of saying they belonged to a ‘White English’ ethnic group
Spiritual Shopping (Hervieu-Leger)
- There has been a decline in religion due to cultural amnesia
- In the past: children were taught religion through the church and the extended family
- Individual consumerism has replaced collective tradition
What 2 new religious types are emerging, according to Hervieu-Leger?
- Pilgrims
- Self-discovery
- The demand is created by today’s emphasis on personal development - Converts
- Strong sense of belonging, usually based on a shared ethnic background or religious doctrine
Globalisation, the media and religion:
- Refers to the growing interconnectedness of societies, which has led to greatly increased movements of ideas and beliefs across national boundaries
- New forms: the ‘electronic church’, televangelism…
Online religion and religion online
Helland (2000): 2 types of internet activity
- Religion online
- Form of top-down communication where a religious organisation uses the internet to address members and potential converts - Online religion
- ‘Many-to-many’ form of communication
- Allows individuals to create non-hierchical relationships and a sense of community
- Can visit virtual worship or meditation spaces…
Heelas and Woodhead’s study of Kendal in Cumbria
- Investigated whether traditional religion has declined, and if so, how far has spirituality come since?
- 2 groups:
1. The congregational domain: traditional, evangelical Christianity
2. The holistic milieu: spiritual, New Age - 2000, in a typical week: 7.9% of the population attended church, 1.6% attended the activities of the holistic milieu
Why is the holistic milieu growing, according to Heelas and Woodhead?
- Due to a massive subjective turn in todays culture- shift from performing duties and obeying external authority to exploring your inner self
- Traditional religions which demand duty and obedience are declining
- Evangelical churches demand discipline and duty, but also the importance of spiritual healing and personal growth
The weakness of the New Age
Bruce
- The problem of scale
- New Age forms of individualised religion must be/grow on a bigger scale to fill the gaps from other traditional religions - Socialisation of the next generation
- (In Kendal) only 32% of parents involved in New Age movements said their children shared their spiritual interests
- Women in the holistic milieu are more likely to be childless - Weak Commitment
- Structural weakness
- Lacks an external power
- Cannot achieve consensus
- Cannot evangelise
