Religion as a conservative force or a force for social change Flashcards
Weber
The Protestant ethic: Looks at and believes in the power of ideas to drive society and therefore creates social change. Studied Calvinism (a form of Protestantism) and how this led to the rapid growth of Western capitalism through the promotion of certain values such as hard work being a duty to God, but as they couldn’t spend the outcomes of this hard work on luxuries they simply invested their wealth. This helped them become wealthy and establish property. This was the start therefore of Western capitalism
Bruce
Studied two protest movements in America;
The Black Civil Rights Movement was a success in part because of Christian values:
- Black clergy united communities
- The Church was a key meeting place
- Religion was an ideological resource: Religious teachings were used to justify the fight for equality
The New Christian Right was an unsuccessful protest movement.
The “Moral Majority” was formed as a Christian pressure group, but it had little success and influence as they were unable to gain widespread support
What theories can be used to illustrate religion as a conservative force?
Functionalism (positive): Parsons, Durkheim, Bellah and Malinowski
Marxism (negative): Marx, Lenin and Althusser
Feminism (negative): El Saadawi, Armstrong, Daly, De Beauvoir
Fundamentalism: Cohen and Kennedy
What other theories can be used to illustrate religion as a force for social change?
Ne-Marxism: Engels, Gramsci, Billings, Maduro and Bloch
Bruce and Weber
Fundamentalism
