Topic 3 - Religion and Social Change

Question 1

Religion can be seen as conservative in 2 ways

Answer 1

• Conservative due to its traditions: defending traditional customs, institutions, and moral values
• Conservative due to function: preserves things as they are and stabilises society and maintains the status quo

Question 2

How religion preserves the status quo

Answer 2

• Religion and value consensus
• Religion and capitalism
• Religion and patriarchy

Question 3

Religion and value consensus

Answer 3

• DURKHEIM argues that religion maintains a constant status quo, through social solidarity and the collective consciousness
• We are all united into a singular organism
• BELLAH religion ties us into one unit

Question 4

Religion and capitalsim

Answer 4

• LENIN/ALTHUSSER argue that religion has the ability to keep the bourgeoisie in power and maintain this power through alienation and false consciousness

Question 5

Religion and patriarchy

Answer 5

• WOODHEAD argues religion maintains patriarchal power and that even in the Genesis women are depicted as being a product of man

Question 6

Religion as being a force for social change - WEBER

Answer 6

• Religion can be as a force for social change which all results in the status quo being challenged
• WEBER “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” = how a kind of religion belief “Calvinism” brought major changes in the status quo. Calvinism founded by John Calvin (Protestantism)
• WEBER “elective affinity” = capitalism changed from being the accumulation of wealth, to pursuing wealth

Question 7

A change in what capitalism means

Answer 7

• WEBER
• Calvinists form a sociological perspective and have used their religions as a massive influence to effect what we now see as capitalism

Question 8

What were calvinists beliefs that ultimately changed capitalsim

Answer 8

• Predestination: “Eternal life for some, eternal damnation for others” = God had already decided who was going to enter heaven, or ‘other-worldly benefit’ with individuals doing nothing to change this
• Divine Transcendence: Calvinists believed that God was completely separate to human beings and could not be compared to them all and left them with a sense of lonliness, felt they needed salvation on this earth

Question 9

How Calvinists changed the definition of capitalism

Answer 9

• Asceticism
• The idea of vocation

Question 10

Asceticism

Answer 10

• Self-discipline and self-denial
• For example Calvinists despite the fact that they would pursue wealth would refrain from luxury, they would wear simple clothes and avoid excess
• Drawing closer to God, and would gain ‘this-worldly’ benefit, even if they weren’t going to gain ‘other-worldly’ benefit (predestination)

Question 11

The idea of vocation

Answer 11

• Calvinists believed that they were put onto the earth to glorify God (divine transcendence)
• This would be done through hard work, and simply focusing on this-worldly asceticism
• Calvinists through self-discipline (asceticism), and vocation accumulated wealth but refrained from spending on luxury and they gradually changed the idea that capitalism was simply about profit for its own sake = elective affinity

Question 12

Exception - Were Calvinists entirely responsible for the birth of modern capitalsim

Answer 12

• WEBER:
  1. Natural Resources
  2. Growing trade between countries
  3. The invention of money
  4. The Growth in Technology

Question 13

Ancient India and Ancient China

Answer 13

• Other societies have had higher levels of economic development yet modern capitalism has not developed
• WEBER argues that Ancient China and Ancient India were far more advanced than Northern Europe but lacked the organisation that Calvinism had in being able to really change capitalism and society
• Calvinism was far more bureaucratically structured and therefore more powerful in being able to instigate social change

Question 14

Proving Ancient China and Ancient India were less organised

Answer 14

1. Confucianism was a religion in Ancient China which was similar to Calvinism in the fact that it focused on this-worldly benefit
   - WHY IT COULDN’T CHANGE CAPITALISM: It didn’t focus on asceticism and therefore it wasn’t successful in causing elective affinity
2. Hinduism was a religion which encouraged asceticism.
   - WHY IT COULDN’T CHANGE CAPITALISM: It focused too much on other-worldly benefit, unlike Calvinism, which focused more on individuals changing their position this-worldly

Question 15

A03 Criticising WEBER

Answer 15

• Marxists argue WEBER overestimates the role of ideas and underestimates economic
  factors, they also argue that capitalism came before not after Calvinism
• TAWNEY argues technological changes not religious ideas caused the birth of capitalism
• Capitalism also did not develop in every country where there were Calvinists e.g .Scotland had a large Calvinist population but were slow to develop capitalism

Question 16

Religion and social protest

Answer 16

• BRUCE:
  1. The Civil Rights Movement
  2. The New Christina Right

Question 17

How the Black civil rights movement promoted social change - BRUCE

Answer 17

1. TAKING THE MORAL HIGH GROUND: The Black Clergy were able to state that the White population were in fact hypocritical, as they were not ‘loving thy neighbour’. This directly violated the Golden Rule of Jesus (to treat others equally)
2. CHANNELLING DISSENT: Religion provides an excellent ground to express discontentment, e.g. the funeral of Martin Luther King was a rallying point for the cause
3. ACTING AS AN HONEST BROKER: Churches are almost seen as ‘neutral ground’, are seen as being above politics, as in the eyes of God everyman is seen as equal
4. MOBILISING PUBLIC OPINION: Black churches in the south successfully campaigned for support across the whole of America

Question 18

Religiousity link

Answer 18

• Pryce acknowledges that the reason many of the churches that were actually Black in the first place were only set up due to the fact that the White churches which initially existed in America would not allow Black worshippers therefore the Black churches were set up as a method of ‘Cultural Defence’

Question 19

Moral Majority - Who are they?

Answer 19

BRUCE:
- They are a political and moral Denomination in America set up in 1960s, which focuses on keeping America from becoming too much of a liberal society
- They aim to reverse social change and pluralism (restoring the status quo)

Question 20

Moral Majority - What do they aim to do?

Answer 20

BRUCE:
- They aim to take America ‘back to God’
- For example they wish to ban sex education, make homosexuality, divorce and abortion illegal. Campaigns for creationism to be taught in schools

Question 21

Moral Majority - How they make their changes?

Answer 21

BRUCE:
- They have made use of media such as ‘Televangelism’ (the use of Television to promote Christianity). This enables them to recruit new members, and to also raise funds
- Right-wing Christian pressure groups have also become part of political campaigns and strengthened links with the Republican Party

Question 22

Moral Majority - Why have they not been successful?

Answer 22

BRUCE:
- They lack widespread support = they do not have a moral majority
- Its campaigners find it very difficult to cooperate with other religions, even if they have the same beliefs on a matter such as divorce/abortion (as they are traditional in
their views)
- They have been met with significant criticism from people who support freedom of choice, such as ‘People for the American Way’
- America is a liberal society which is based on democracy, and most Americans oppose ‘Theocracy’: being led by a Religious Figure.

Question 23

A03 - Is it right to call the new Christian right a protest movement

Answer 23

• BRUCE notes that to be called a protest movement and to instigate social change, the New Christian Right require that their views are far more consistent with those of wider society
• They could therefore indeed be considered as being a sect due to their movement away from the values of mainstream society

Question 24

A03 - The dual character of Marxism

Answer 24

• ENGELS states that Marxism however has a ‘dual-character’
• The dual-character element provides agents or individuals with some autonomy, this is known as relative autonomy, instead of conserving or preserving the status quo, actually can cause social change.
• For example the Black leader Martin Luther King, who was himself a part of the church inspired social change
• BLOCH argues that when religious organisations start to reveal what a problem is, and how it needs to be changed, this is known as ‘The Principle of Hope’.
• This goes against the idea that churches are entirely conservative.

Question 25

Liberation theology Latin America - What is it?

Answer 25

• During the 1960s in Latin America, there was a strong emphasis on being ruled by a dictator
• Prior to this religion strongly encouraged a ‘false consciousness’ in terms of the suffering behind religion
• The factors that led to liberation theology were vast poverty, human rights abuses e.g. death squads and torture and growing commitment by catholic priests to protect the poor

Question 26

Liberation theology Latin America - How did the church help people realise they were suffering?

Answer 26

• Priests helped set up ‘base communities to help deal with poverty
• Priests set up literacy programmes to deal with education to raise mobility
• Priests would actually help individuals avoid state led terror on civilians

Question 27

The problem with liberation theology

Answer 27

• Since 1980s the movement has lost influence.
• CASANOVA = Liberation Theology takes away the spiritual element of religion, and makes it political.
• Similarly Pope John Paul II criticised Liberation Theology for taking the Catholic Church in Latin America to a point where it became too political, and where it almost lost its spirituality.

Question 28

Liberation theory

Answer 28

• Offers an option for the poor = consciousness raising and campaigning in other words revolutionary change

Question 29

Pentecostalism

Answer 29

• Offers an option for the poor to help pull themselves out of poverty through their own efforts in other words the solution is conservative

Question 30

Millenarian movements: What are they?

Answer 30

WORSLEY:
- ‘Millennium’
- They state that Christ will return the earth for a 1000 years, and he will reveal to the Proletariat that they are suffering on this earth, and that they should transform the earth, rather than wait for ‘other-worldly’ benefit.
- This is known as a ‘Proletarian self-consciousness’, which is the opposite of a ‘false-consciousness’.
- They teach the Proletariat to deal with the inequality they are suffering from in ‘this-world’ = desire to change things.

Question 31

Millenarian movements: Who do they appeal to?

Answer 31

WORSLEY:
- Claims that they appeal to those suffering from economic deprivation, and those needing salvation; largely the Proletariat.
- They are ‘political’ and not entirely spiritual, as it teaches people to deal with their suffering in this world, rather than waiting for ‘other-worldly’ benefit.
- A lot arose from European colonialism where exploitation was rife

Question 32

Millenarian movements: An example to a millenarian movement?

Answer 32

• Cargo Cults: In the West Pacific (Colonised), cargo (material goods) were delivered and they were specifically for White people, even though the people of the West Pacific were suffering from economic deprivation
• The Islanders realised that their suffering was unjust and they therefore started a cult to deal with this inequality
• Many of the secular nationalist leaders that overthrow colonial rule in 1950s and 1960s developed from millenarian movements, in places such as Ethiopia, South African and Zimbabwe

Question 33

Hegemony

Answer 33

• GRAMSCI
• Hegemony refers to the fact that the Bourgeoisie can actually rule through their ideas and that they don’t need force to make the Proletariat follow their ideologies
• The advantage of this is that it makes the Proletariat ‘ready and willing’ to accept the Bourgeoisie’s ideas, and they continue to follow them leading to Social Reproduction

Question 34

How can religions help to form a counter-hegemony

Answer 34

• BILLINGS
  Organic intellectuals:
  a) The coalminers
  b) Textile workers

Question 35

The Coalminers

Answer 35

• Leadership: The leaders were Priests who were able to convince the coalminers to see unions as ‘Godly’
• Organisation: The leaders were able to get the Coalminers into independent churches which were not attended by their bosses to organise meetings
• Support: The leaders organised prayer meetings to keep the morale of the group high
• The effect: The Organic Intellectuals managed to allow the Coalminers to form counter-hegemony

Question 36

Textile Workers

Answer 36

• Leadership: The leaders were not bureaucratic and saw unions as being ‘ungodly’
• Organisation: The leaders were not able to get the textile workers into independent churches, they therefore held meetings in churches which were owned by the mill owners
• Support: The leaders were not able to defend the textile workers from criticism as they lacked the structure to keep them focused on their purpose
• The effect: The Textile Workers were not led by Organic Intellectuals and therefore they could not form a counter-hegemony