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The Impact of Religion on Society

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Published: Feb 12, 2024

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Works Cited

• Herbert, David. Religion and Civil Society: Rethinking Public Religion in the Contemporary World . Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003.
• Levi, Anthony. Cardinal Richelieu: And the Making of France . NY: Carroll & Graf, 2002.
• Neusner, Jacob. World Religions in America: An Introduction . Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.

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The Impact of Religion in Society

Have you ever wondered how different religions influence society? In this impact of religion on society essay sample, you’ll find an answer to this and other questions about impact of religion on society. Keep reading to gain some inspiration for your paper!

Impact of Religion on Society: Essay Introduction

Impact of religion on society: essay main body, impact of religion on society: essay conclusion, works cited.

Let us start by saying that in the course of the development of human society, there were a lot of factors that influenced it and caused dramatic changes.

Among these factors, there is one that deserves special attention: religion. Points of view concerning religion are the most controversial that can be imagined, and religion is always at the center of heated arguments. Religion is a paradox because it is opposite to science, but still, it does not disappear with the development of science.

First of all, the influence of religion on society should be studied on a large scale – a historical scale. Since times immemorial, religion has occupied a considerable place in the human soul. It is characteristic for a human being to be scared by everything he does not understand, and that was the case with ancient people.

Religion was the source of information for them; they got the answers they needed from shamans and, as a result, from different religious ceremonies and interpretations of “signs” sent by gods. In this case, such a strong impact of religion may be explained by a lack of scientific knowledge.

If we move further by a historical scale, we should mention the impact of religion in medieval society, where it was predominantly negative. At that time, religion caused a number of serious problems that may even be called catastrophes: Crusades, which took the lives of hundreds of people, and the Inquisition, which murdered and deceived even more people, may be given as examples of the destructive influence of religion on society.

Moreover, it is commonly known that in medieval society, God stood in the center of the Universe, and the significance of man was enormously underestimated. Medieval people thought that a person was a mere toy in the hands of an omnipotent God.

Luckily, the situation changed with the development of knowledge, education, and science, and a man got his level of significance. However, even later, when the Dark Ages ended, religion was still very powerful in many countries. It may be proved by such a historical personality as Cardinal Richelieu, who managed to become the unofficial ruler of France (Levi).

Nowadays, in the contemporary world, there exist societies in which state and religion are separated from each other and those where they are united (Islamic countries). In the latter, the ties between state and religion may be illustrated by strict observance of the rules of the Koran, though it must be mentioned that some attempts to lessen its influence are being made.

In the USA, the First Amendment “declares freedom of religion to be a fundamental civil right of all Americans” (Neusner 316). So, it is up to people to decide what place should be occupied by religion in their life.

Religious people insist that religion helps to improve the relationship in the family, can help overcome poverty, and can help struggle against social problems like divorce, crimes, and drug addiction. Religion can strengthen a person’s self-esteem and help to avoid depression. They say that if each person is an element of society, religion helps to organize the functioning of society successfully.

One more thing to be mentioned here is the contemporary decline of religion observed by sociologists nowadays. It is seen as part of “secularization” (Herbert 4). “Secularization, in turn, is understood to be the result of modernization… as a worldwide process consisting of ‘industrialization … urbanization, mass education, bureaucratization, and communications development’” (Herbert 4).

Still, the question of secularization is a very debatable one; many sociologists question its validity, proving that religion is not in decline everywhere (Herbert 4).

In conclusion, let us say that religion has always occupied an important place in society. The attitude towards religion is a very personal matter, and everyone may treat religion in the way that he/she finds the most appropriate; unless he/she takes actions that can harm other members of society.

Herbert, David. Religion and Civil Society: Rethinking Public Religion in the Contemporary World. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003.

Levi, Anthony. Cardinal Richelieu: And the Making of France. NY: Carroll & Graf, 2002.

Neusner, Jacob. World Religions in America: An Introduction. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.

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17.3 Sociological Perspectives on Religion

Learning objectives.

• Summarize the major functions of religion.
• Explain the views of religion held by the conflict perspective.
• Explain the views of religion held by the symbolic interactionist perspective.

Sociological perspectives on religion aim to understand the functions religion serves, the inequality and other problems it can reinforce and perpetuate, and the role it plays in our daily lives (Emerson, Monahan, & Mirola, 2011). Table 17.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes what these perspectives say.

Table 17.1 Theory Snapshot

The Functions of Religion

Much of the work of Émile Durkheim stressed the functions that religion serves for society regardless of how it is practiced or of what specific religious beliefs a society favors. Durkheim’s insights continue to influence sociological thinking today on the functions of religion.

First, religion gives meaning and purpose to life . Many things in life are difficult to understand. That was certainly true, as we have seen, in prehistoric times, but even in today’s highly scientific age, much of life and death remains a mystery, and religious faith and belief help many people make sense of the things science cannot tell us.

Second, religion reinforces social unity and stability . This was one of Durkheim’s most important insights. Religion strengthens social stability in at least two ways. First, it gives people a common set of beliefs and thus is an important agent of socialization (see Chapter 4 “Socialization” ). Second, the communal practice of religion, as in houses of worship, brings people together physically, facilitates their communication and other social interaction, and thus strengthens their social bonds.

The communal practice of religion in a house of worship brings people together and allows them to interact and communicate. In this way religion helps reinforce social unity and stability. This function of religion was one of Émile Durkheim’s most important insights.

Erin Rempel – Worship – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

A third function of religion is related to the one just discussed. Religion is an agent of social control and thus strengthens social order . Religion teaches people moral behavior and thus helps them learn how to be good members of society. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Ten Commandments are perhaps the most famous set of rules for moral behavior.

A fourth function of religion is greater psychological and physical well-being . Religious faith and practice can enhance psychological well-being by being a source of comfort to people in times of distress and by enhancing their social interaction with others in places of worship. Many studies find that people of all ages, not just the elderly, are happier and more satisfied with their lives if they are religious. Religiosity also apparently promotes better physical health, and some studies even find that religious people tend to live longer than those who are not religious (Moberg, 2008). We return to this function later.

A final function of religion is that it may motivate people to work for positive social change . Religion played a central role in the development of the Southern civil rights movement a few decades ago. Religious beliefs motivated Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists to risk their lives to desegregate the South. Black churches in the South also served as settings in which the civil rights movement held meetings, recruited new members, and raised money (Morris, 1984).

Religion, Inequality, and Conflict

Religion has all of these benefits, but, according to conflict theory, it can also reinforce and promote social inequality and social conflict. This view is partly inspired by the work of Karl Marx, who said that religion was the “opiate of the masses” (Marx, 1964). By this he meant that religion, like a drug, makes people happy with their existing conditions. Marx repeatedly stressed that workers needed to rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie. To do so, he said, they needed first to recognize that their poverty stemmed from their oppression by the bourgeoisie. But people who are religious, he said, tend to view their poverty in religious terms. They think it is God’s will that they are poor, either because he is testing their faith in him or because they have violated his rules. Many people believe that if they endure their suffering, they will be rewarded in the afterlife. Their religious views lead them not to blame the capitalist class for their poverty and thus not to revolt. For these reasons, said Marx, religion leads the poor to accept their fate and helps maintain the existing system of social inequality.

As Chapter 11 “Gender and Gender Inequality” discussed, religion also promotes gender inequality by presenting negative stereotypes about women and by reinforcing traditional views about their subordination to men (Klassen, 2009). A declaration a decade ago by the Southern Baptist Convention that a wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband’s leadership reflected traditional religious belief (Gundy-Volf, 1998).

As the Puritans’ persecution of non-Puritans illustrates, religion can also promote social conflict, and the history of the world shows that individual people and whole communities and nations are quite ready to persecute, kill, and go to war over religious differences. We see this today and in the recent past in central Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland. Jews and other religious groups have been persecuted and killed since ancient times. Religion can be the source of social unity and cohesion, but over the centuries it also has led to persecution, torture, and wanton bloodshed.

News reports going back since the 1990s indicate a final problem that religion can cause, and that is sexual abuse, at least in the Catholic Church. As you undoubtedly have heard, an unknown number of children were sexually abused by Catholic priests and deacons in the United States, Canada, and many other nations going back at least to the 1960s. There is much evidence that the Church hierarchy did little or nothing to stop the abuse or to sanction the offenders who were committing it, and that they did not report it to law enforcement agencies. Various divisions of the Church have paid tens of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits. The numbers of priests, deacons, and children involved will almost certainly never be known, but it is estimated that at least 4,400 priests and deacons in the United States, or about 4% of all such officials, have been accused of sexual abuse, although fewer than 2,000 had the allegations against them proven (Terry & Smith, 2006). Given these estimates, the number of children who were abused probably runs into the thousands.

Symbolic Interactionism and Religion

While functional and conflict theories look at the macro aspects of religion and society, symbolic interactionism looks at the micro aspects. It examines the role that religion plays in our daily lives and the ways in which we interpret religious experiences. For example, it emphasizes that beliefs and practices are not sacred unless people regard them as such. Once we regard them as sacred, they take on special significance and give meaning to our lives. Symbolic interactionists study the ways in which people practice their faith and interact in houses of worship and other religious settings, and they study how and why religious faith and practice have positive consequences for individual psychological and physical well-being.

The cross, Star of David, and the crescent and star are symbols of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, respectively. The symbolic interactionist perspective emphasizes the ways in which individuals interpret their religious experiences and religious symbols.

zeevveez – Star of David Coexistence- 2 – CC BY 2.0.

Religious symbols indicate the value of the symbolic interactionist approach. A crescent moon and a star are just two shapes in the sky, but together they constitute the international symbol of Islam. A cross is merely two lines or bars in the shape of a “t,” but to tens of millions of Christians it is a symbol with deeply religious significance. A Star of David consists of two superimposed triangles in the shape of a six-pointed star, but to Jews around the world it is a sign of their religious faith and a reminder of their history of persecution.

Religious rituals and ceremonies also illustrate the symbolic interactionist approach. They can be deeply intense and can involve crying, laughing, screaming, trancelike conditions, a feeling of oneness with those around you, and other emotional and psychological states. For many people they can be transformative experiences, while for others they are not transformative but are deeply moving nonetheless.

Key Takeaways

• Religion ideally serves several functions. It gives meaning and purpose to life, reinforces social unity and stability, serves as an agent of social control, promotes psychological and physical well-being, and may motivate people to work for positive social change.
• On the other hand, religion may help keep poor people happy with their lot in life, promote traditional views about gender roles, and engender intolerance toward people whose religious faith differs from one’s own.
• The symbolic interactionist perspective emphasizes how religion affects the daily lives of individuals and how they interpret their religious experiences.

For Your Review

• Of the several functions of religion that were discussed, which function do you think is the most important? Why?
• Which of the three theoretical perspectives on religion makes the most sense to you? Explain your choice.

Emerson, M. O., Monahan, S. C., & Mirola, W. A. (2011). Religion matters: What sociology teaches us about religion in our world . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Gundy-Volf, J. (1998, September–October). Neither biblical nor just: Southern Baptists and the subordination of women. Sojourners , 12–13.

Klassen, P. (Ed.). (2009). Women and religion . New York, NY: Routledge.

Marx, K. (1964). Karl Marx: Selected writings in sociology and social philosophy (T. B. Bottomore, Trans.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Moberg, D. O. (2008). Spirituality and aging: Research and implications. Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging, 20 , 95–134.

Morris, A. (1984). The origins of the civil rights movement: Black communities organizing for change . New York, NY: Free Press.

Terry, K., & Smith, M. L. (2006). The nature and scope of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons in the United States: Supplementary data analysis . Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Religious Influence in Society, Essay Example

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Religion plays an important role in everyday life. A person’s religious beliefs can affect various aspects of his/her life. Religion is not always about accepting or living by a certain set of beliefs, but it can be about the way those beliefs indirectly influences one’s life. Religious beliefs may instil morals and values in a person that will in turn influence the decisions he/she makes about the type of life he/she leads. Religion is defined as a set of beliefs, cultural systems, or views of the world that relates the human being to the supernatural realm. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine why religion plays such an important aspect in society. Great debates have been pursued about various religions and the people who practice them. Religion has a much greater impact on society than the average person realizes. Human society is built on religion, so even if one doesn’t believe in a particular religion, he/she is still inadvertently affected by a religious society. Consequently, almost every aspect of one’s daily life is influenced in some way by one religion or another. One of the greatest influences that religion has on everyday life is the fact that many of the laws and social and cultural beliefs that are practiced are based upon religious teachings. These laws are the foundation of the society that humans know. Because these laws govern our daily behaviour, in essence humans are behaving according to religious doctrine. Religious beliefs are an intricate part of each human being that shapes their social interaction, family life, type of job they work, whether or not they attend religious services, the role they play in society as a female or male, and their economic life.

Religious beliefs help to keep and maintain order in society. Religious practices also help to comfort humans and explain why tragic events happen. By nature humans are naturally sociable creatures. Humans learn from each other and often work better with the help and ideas of others. Without religion, people would not be able to live together and function in society. Religious beliefs govern the way people interact with one another in society. Religion is used by society members to comfort one another in time of crisis. Religious groups ban together to pray when tragic events happen. Many religious people admit that they are able to face a world of crime and violence because of their strong religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are used in to comfort bereaved families. Funeral, wakes, tributes, memorials, and other rituals all have their foundations in one religion or another. Many of the Ten Commandments are actual state laws that one could be penalized for violating. Nonetheless, most cultures have vowed to separate church and state. One religious belief can also affect one’s social status. Many time in small town when someone is seeking political office, one of the aspects of their lives that is mentioned is their religious affiliation. In order to live productively in society together, humans must be able to resolve conflict in a peaceful manner. Again, religion plays a role in conflict resolution. Must religions have a set of guidelines that govern how conflicts should be resolved among believers. Most religious believers follow these guidelines and only revert to state law when no other actions can be taken.

Religion also affects aspects of family life. The act of marriage is a religious convention. Whether or not a couple gets married, has children, divorces, use contraceptives, or attends some type of religious services each week all depends upon religion. With nearly fifty percent of all marriages today ending in divorce, many scholars are examining whether or not a family’s religious beliefs has an effect on its cohesiveness. Marriages end in divorce over many dilemmas from money to the best way to raise and discipline children. Many studies have concluded that families that practice religious beliefs and rituals together tend to be happier and more loving. When couples have religious grounding in their relationship they tend to not argue as much as couple who do not because many religions have the role of each person in the relationship outlined. If each person is willing to abide by the guidelines set for him/her, the possibility of arguing of the general government of the family is slim. Statistics also show that children who come from loving, two parent homes have a better chance at success than their counterparts. Religious people feel that these statistics are no mistake because a higher being designed it that way. Many religions have guidelines as to the role of the mother and father. Many religions convey that the role of the woman is to bear children, while the role of the man is to provide the finances. Disciplining children has become a huge controversy lately. The law says that whipping is a crime, while many religions teach that discipline is necessary. Nonetheless, it is quite obvious that in order for a marriage to work, the couple must be operating under some type of guidelines.

One’s profession may be influenced by religious beliefs. Many people were taught that an honest dollar was a good dollar, but many people refuse to work certain types of jobs due to their religious beliefs. There have been many heated debates in the news lately about abortions and casinos. Many religions teach that abortions are wrong because it is murder. As a result, people who support this will not work for physicians or clinics that perform abortions. They may feel that if they work in a place that performs abortions that they are somehow condoning the action. Likewise, many people will not accept the services of a doctor or nurse that performs or assists in the act of abortion. Religious people often ask their doctor or nurse these questions before eliciting their services. Likewise, many religions profess that gambling is wrong too. Consequently, no matter how desperate a person may be for a job, he or she will not take a job at a casino because of religious beliefs. Another example is massage parlours. There are an endless number of religions that convey that the woman’s body should be covered properly and not seen by strange men. Most women at massage parlours wear very skimpy clothing to elicit male customers. Likewise, some women do not patronize massage parlours out of fear of being stereotyped.

Attending some type of religious service is a religious ritual. Surveys have confirmed that a high percentage of people attend some type of religious service on a regular basis. In some instances, people don’t attend religious services because they believe in the particular religion, but because it has become a routine for them. They grew up attending a service and they continued when they were grown. As a result, they now attend with their family. Or, attending a religious service may be expected by the community in which they live. Many people attend services because everyone else in their neighbourhood does or because people they work with attend the same service. Whatever the reason may be, people seem to go. Some people even attend more than one service per week. Although many people are unaware of it, in some denominations people hold offices in their religious establishments. With these offices comes societal and economic prestige. Some religious organizations demand that their member donate a certain percentage of their family’s earnings.

The role of males and female in society has been determined for years. As children, humans are taught that some roles are feminine, while others are masculine. Female children are given dolls and male children are given trucks. These teachings stem from the false assumption that women are naturally passive and men are naturally aggressive. Nonetheless, societal roles are being transformed in today’s society. Women are going out and working while men stay home and take care of the home and children. There are men who decide to become school teachers and women who want are professional truck drivers. The way people teach their children about these roles are rooted in religious beliefs. As a result, humans grow into the roles they will have later in life. Sadly, those people who do not fit into the cookie cutter design are ostracized by society. The religious connotation of these roles is still state law in many places. The institution of marriage is defined as a woman and man in many states today; the same way it is defined in most religions. People who object to these rules are deemed deviants and trouble makers.

Deciding to live meagrely or extravagant is also rooted in religious beliefs. Most people who are religious practices decide to live meagrely. Living extravagantly is seen as a waste by most religions. Donating to charities, volunteering, tithing, and helping the poor in general are seen as wealth to religious people. In most religions, the main teacher was of poor upbringings. For example, in Christianity, Christ was poor. He didn’t own anything and live the life of a nomad, moving from place to place. As a result of this teaching, and others like it, many people believe it is a sin to be wealthy.

The roots of religious practices are manifested in various aspects of human life. Even people who profess that they are not religious are still inadvertently affected by religion. Every member of the civilized world is subject to societal laws, and depending upon where one lives those laws could come directly from some religious teaching. Some type of religion has been present to humans from the very beginning of existence. Many practices have evolved and changed over time, but can be traced back to one particular religion or another. Much research has been conducted to try to uncover the meaning of it all, but one definitive meaning has remained elusive. People who practice religious beliefs seem happier, content with life, and more purpose driven than people who do not practice at all. Religion affects how members of society interact with one another. It determines if one will get married or cohabitate. Religion determines the type of job or career one pursues. Religion affects all aspects of one life both directly and indirectly.

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Are Religions Good or Bad for Society?

In many parts of today’s world, religion is a touchy topic – something that often causes conflict, hostilities, or other negative outcomes. As a result, we’re apt to avoid talking about it with friends, neighbors, coworkers, and sometimes even family. And many people in many places insist that religion should be kept out of public life.

Yet, religions have always been part of human civilizations. What do we really know about the impact of religion on societies? And what might we learn if we seriously researched the subject?

Sir John Templeton regarded religious faith and practice as a dynamic, prosocial force — a transformative force for good in the world, part of and even a source of solutions to the wide range of problems we face, such as warfare, poverty, and prejudice.

Where and when does religion have positive versus negative effects? What might change if we understood the full range of the effects throughout the world? How do the outcomes vary across regions? How do they change over time?

An Ambitious Investigation

To address important questions such as these, in 2020 we launched a groundbreaking research program undertaking focused on the social consequences of religion. The overall goal is ambitious and, we believe, essential for our time: to build a repository of data on the interconnected impacts and influences of religion in society. To accomplish this, we’ve invited leading social scientists, scholars of religion, and experts from across the globe to develop and conduct research projects in three thematic strands:

• Religion and cooperation
• Religion and peacebuilding
• Religion and economic development

The research infrastructure spans three sequential stages of investigation:

• Landscaping – gather and analyze existing data to determine the current knowledge base and where there are gaps.
• Research – launch new quantitative and qualitative investigations to gather new data and test hypotheses.
• Fallow/dissemination – develop strategies for sharing insights gained from the findings.

Strand I: Religion and Cooperation

The investigation into religion’s impact on cooperation and prosocial behavior is guided by several key objectives:

1) Prioritize research that tests causal claims. 2) Measure behavior versus self-reported measures of cooperation. 3) Attend to multiple time scales and levels of analysis. 4) Maintain scientific objectivity, following the data where they lead. 5) Test generalizability.

Projects will research cooperation within groups as well as among individuals. Other potential foci are how religion influences prosocial behavior throughout people’s lives and how culture determines the consequences of religion for cooperation.

Strand II – Religion and Peacebuilding

The investigation into the types and impacts of faith-inspired peace initiatives that occur after a war is guided by these objectives:

1) Deepen the research base, including thorough attention to questions of causality. 2) Consider directions for better synthesis of existing research. 3) Expand methodological innovation and integration among adjacent fields and academic disciplines. 4) Prioritize research into peacebuilding efforts that offer potential improvements to the lives of people in post-war societies.

Projects include researching how best to weigh the social consequences of religious faith, practice, institutions, and ideas in post-war environments. A related consideration is how to account for their interaction with other social, economic, and political dynamics as well as how people who have lived through war see the effects.

Strand III – Religion and Economic Development

The investigation into how religion factors into the causes of economic development is focused on putting theories and hypotheses to the test of science-based methods and measurements. Among its key objectives are:

1) Determine the most promising theoretical and empirical innovations in this area of research. 2) Establish how to better integrate academic research and policy work in economic development. 3) Gain insight into how scholarship can help create public influence on policymaking and recognition of religious variables.

A Paradigm-Shifting Initiative

Through a diversity of both qualitative and quantitative methods of data-gathering and collaboration across projects, we hope to create a valuable new repository of information. The hoped-for result is more insightful and productive conversations about the impact of religion in societies — what it’s been, what it is now, and, perhaps most important, what it could be going forward.

Good or Bad? Investigating the Social Consequences of Religion

In many ways the only way to answer that question is to answer “it depends.” But how might we be able to begin to understand if religions are part of the problem or part of the solution? What do we really know about the social consequences of religions, and what more can we learn about them? Many regard religious faith and practice as a dynamic, prosocial force—a force for good in the world, part of and even a source of solutions to the wide range of problems we face, like poverty and sickness. But religions are often associated with negative social outcomes like intolerance and conflict.

How can we increase the social dividends associated with religious faith and practice and reduce the negative effects that can occur when religions get mixed up with other factors, like fear or greed? Templeton Religion Trust’s Social Consequences of Religion initiative — or SCORE, is building a repository of data on the various interconnected impacts and influences of religion in culture.

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• Americans Have Positive Views About Religion’s Role in Society, but Want It Out of Politics

Most say religion is losing influence in American life

Table of contents.

• 1. Many in U.S. see religious organizations as forces for good, but prefer them to stay out of politics
• 2. Most congregants trust clergy to give advice about religious issues, fewer trust clergy on personal matters
• 3. Americans trust both religious and nonreligious people, but most rarely discuss religion with family or friends
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

A large majority of Americans feel that religion is losing influence in public life, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. While some say this is a good thing, many more view it as a negative development, reflecting the broad tendency of Americans to see religion as a positive force in society.

At the same time, U.S. adults are resoundingly clear in their belief that religious institutions should stay out of politics. Nearly two-thirds of Americans in the new survey say churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters, while 36% say they should express their views on day-to-day social and political questions. And three-quarters of the public expresses the view that churches should not come out in favor of one candidate over another during elections, in contrast with efforts by President Trump to roll back existing legal limits on houses of worship endorsing candidates. 1

In addition, Americans are more likely to say that churches and other houses of worship currently have too much influence in politics (37%) rather than too little (28%), while the remaining one-third (34%) say religious groups’ current level of influence on politics is about right.

On balance, U.S. adults have a favorable view about the role religious institutions play in American life more broadly – beyond politics. More than half of the public believes that churches and religious organizations do more good than harm in American society, while just one-in-five Americans say religious organizations do more harm than good. Likewise, there are far more U.S. adults who say that religious organizations strengthen morality in society and mostly bring people together than there are who say that religious organizations weaken morality and mostly push people apart. On all three of these questions, views have held steady since 2017 , the last time the Center measured opinions on these issues.

The survey also shows that roughly four-in-ten U.S. adults – including a majority of Christians – lament what they perceive as religion’s declining influence on American society, while fewer than two-in-ten say they think religion is losing influence in American life and that this is a good thing. In addition, roughly two-thirds of the public believes that religious leaders in general have high or very high ethical standards, and a larger share of Americans who attend religious services at least a few times a year say this about the clergy in their own congregations. Among these U.S. adults who attend religious services, majorities express at least “some” confidence in their clergy to provide useful guidance not only on clearly religious topics (such as how to interpret scripture) but also on other matters, such as parenting and personal finance (see Chapter 2 ).

These are among the key findings from a nationally representative survey of 6,364 U.S. adults conducted online from March 18 to April 1, 2019, using Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points. Many of the questions in the survey were asked only of U.S. adults who attend religious services a few times a year or more often; results for that group have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

The survey, part of an ongoing effort by the Center to explore the role of trust, facts and democracy in American society, was designed to gauge the public’s views about many aspects of religion’s role in public life, as well as asking how much U.S. adults trust clergy to provide various kinds of guidance, what messages Americans receive from their clergy about other religious groups, how satisfied they are with the sermons they hear, how close they feel to their religious leaders, and whether they know – and share – the political views of the clergy in their houses of worship.

The survey shows that slightly more than half of U.S. adults say that the Republican Party is friendly toward religion (54%), while just under half say the same about the Trump administration (47%). Far fewer say these two groups are unfriendly toward religion. Other major societal institutions are viewed by majorities or pluralities of the public as neutral toward religion; for instance, roughly seven-in-ten U.S. adults say the Supreme Court is neutral toward religion.

Equal shares say that reporters and the news media (54%) and university professors (54%) are neutral toward religion, and 48% say this about the Democratic Party. In each of these cases, however, Americans are considerably more likely to say these groups are unfriendly toward religion than to say they are friendly. For instance, more than one-third of the public (37%) says university professors are unfriendly to religion, while just 6% say professors are friendly to religion.

On balance, Republicans and Democrats mostly agree with each other that the GOP is friendly toward religion. They disagree, however, in their views about the Democratic Party; most Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party say the Democratic Party is unfriendly toward religion, while most Democrats and those who lean to the Democratic Party view their own party as neutral toward religion.

Partisan differences in views toward religion in public life

The survey also finds that four-in-ten U.S. adults (including six-in-ten among those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party) think religious conservatives have too much control over the Republican Party. At the same time, one-third of Americans (including six-in-ten among those who identify with or lean toward the GOP) say liberals who are not religious have too much control over the Democratic Party.

More broadly, Republicans and Democrats express very different opinions about religion’s impact on American public life. Seven-in-ten Republicans say churches and religious organizations do more good than harm in the U.S., and two-thirds say these institutions strengthen morality in American society and mostly bring people together (rather than push them apart). On all three of these measures, Democrats are less likely to share these positive views of religious organizations. 2

Furthermore, most Republicans say religion either has about the right amount of influence (44%) or not enough influence (38%) in the political sphere, while a slim majority of Democrats say that religion has too much influence in politics (54%). And although most Republicans and Democrats (including those who lean toward each party) agree that religion is losing influence in American life, Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to view this as a regrettable development (63% vs. 27%). There are about as many Democrats who say religion’s decline is a good thing (25%) as there are who say it is a bad thing (27%), with 22% of Democrats saying religion’s declining influence doesn’t make much difference either way.

Feelings about religion vary among Democrats based on race and ethnicity

There are stark racial differences among Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party in views on religion’s role in society: Black Democrats consistently express more positive views of religious institutions than do white Democrats. For example, half or more of black Democrats say churches and religious organizations do more good than harm in American society, mostly bring people together (rather than push them apart), and strengthen morality in society. White Democrats are substantially less inclined than black Democrats to hold these views.

In addition, two-thirds of white Democrats say churches have too much political power, compared with only three-in-ten black Democrats and four-in-ten Hispanic Democrats who say this. In fact, black Democrats are just as likely as white Republicans to say churches do not have enough influence in politics (37% each). 3  And while one-third of white Democrats (33%) say that religion is losing influence in society more broadly and that this is a good thing, far fewer black (9%) and Hispanic (18%) Democrats agree.

Americans who attend religious services largely satisfied with political talk by clergy

The survey also sought to gauge people’s perceptions about the politics of their clergy, finding that relatively few Americans say their clergy are united on one side of the partisan divide. In fact, many Americans who attend religious services at least a few times a year say they are unsure of the party affiliation of the clergy at their place of worship (45%), while about one-in-four say their clergy are a mix of both Republicans and Democrats (27%). 4  When those who attend religious services think they know their leaders’ party affiliation, slightly more say their clergy are mostly Republicans (16%) than say they are mostly Democrats (11%).

Among partisans, few say their clergy are mostly members of the opposite party. For example, among those who attend religious services at least a few times a year and identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, just 4% say their clergy are mostly Democrats, while 23% say they are Republicans. Similarly, among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 8% say their clergy are Republicans, while 20% say their clergy are Democrats. Among both groups, most say they are unsure of the political leanings of their clergy, or say that there is a mix of both Republicans and Democrats in the religious leadership of their congregation.

Most attenders – including majorities in both parties – are satisfied with the amount of political discussion they’re hearing in sermons. About seven-in-ten say the sermons at their place of worship have about the right amount of political discussion, while 14% say there is not enough political talk and 11% say there is too much political talk in the sermons they hear.

Furthermore, congregants tend to agree with their clergy when politics is discussed: Overall, about six-in-ten say they generally agree with their clergy about politics (62%), although Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say this (70% vs. 56%).

The survey asked those who attend religious services at least a few times a year the extent to which religious leaders help inform their opinion about three social and political issues: abortion, immigration and global climate change. Four-in-ten religious service attenders have a lot of confidence in their clergy to provide useful guidance to inform their opinion on abortion. Smaller shares have a lot of trust in their clergy’s guidance about immigration (20%) or global climate change (13%).

Republican attenders are much more likely than Democrats who go to religious services to say they have a lot of confidence in their clergy to provide guidance about abortion (53% vs. 25%). Catholics are consistently less likely than Protestants – particularly evangelical Protestants – to say they trust their clergy on all three issues. On abortion, for example, 34% of Catholics say they have a lot of trust in their clergy to provide guidance that helps form their opinion, compared with 46% of Protestants overall and 57% of evangelical Protestants who say this. Mainline Protestants (33%) and members of the historically black Protestant tradition (32%) look similar to Catholics on this question.

Other key findings from the survey include:

• Americans who attend religious services with any regularity express “a lot” of trust in the clergy or other religious leaders at their place of worship to provide advice about religious questions, such as growing closer to God or how to interpret scripture. They are more skeptical about advice from their religious leaders on other common life milestones and issues, such as marriage and relationships, parenting, mental health problems, and personal finances, although most express at least “some” confidence in their clergy to weigh in on these topics. And in general, Catholics are less likely than Protestants to say they trust their clergy to provide advice on these issues. (For more, see here .)
• Most adults who attend religious services a few times a year or more describe themselves as having at least a “somewhat close” relationship with the clergy at their place of worship, although respondents are much more likely to say they have a “somewhat close” relationship with their clergy (50%) than a “very close” one (19%). About three-in-ten say they are not close with the clergy at their congregation (29%). Just 8% of Catholics say they are very close with their clergy, a much lower share than in any other major U.S. Christian group analyzed. (For more, see here .)
• Many U.S. adults hear messages about religious groups other than their own from their clergy or other religious leaders. About four-in-ten religious service attenders have heard their clergy speak out about atheists (43%), while slightly fewer have heard clergy speak out about Catholics or Jews (37% each). About one-third of attenders say they’ve heard their clergy mention evangelical Christians (33%) or Muslims (31%). In terms of the types of messages congregants are hearing from their clergy, the messages about atheists tend to be more negative than positive, while the sentiments toward Jews are mostly positive. 5  (For more, see here .)
• When searching for information about their religion’s teachings, religiously affiliated adults say scripture is the most trusted source. Six-in-ten U.S. adults who identify with a religious group say they have “a lot” of confidence in the information they’d find in scripture, and an additional three-in-ten say they have “some” confidence in this source. Four-in-ten would have a lot of confidence in the clergy at their congregation to give information about religious teachings. Fewer place a high level of trust in family, professors of religion, friends, religious leaders with a large national or international following, or information found online. (For more, see here .)
• Most Americans (66%) say religious and nonreligious people generally are equally trustworthy, while fewer think religious people are more trustworthy than nonreligious people (21%) or that nonreligious people are the more trustworthy ones (12%). Majorities across religious groups say religious and nonreligious people are equally trustworthy, but evangelical Protestants are more likely than others to say religious people are especially trustworthy, and self-described atheists are particularly likely to put more trust in nonreligious people. (For more, see here .)
• When U.S. adults find themselves in an argument about religion, most say they approach the conversation in a nonconfrontational manner. About six-in-ten say that when someone disagrees with them about religion, they try to understand the other person’s point of view and agree to disagree. One-third say they simply avoid discussing religion when a disagreement arises, and only 4% say they try to change the other person’s mind. (For more, see here .)

The remainder of this report examines the public’s views about religion in public life and religious leaders in further detail, including differences in opinions across religious groups. Chapter 1 looks at Americans’ views about religion in public life. Chapter 2 explores levels of confidence in clergy (and other clergy-related opinions) held by Americans who attend religious services at least a few times a year. And Chapter 3 looks at religion’s role in some of Americans’ interpersonal relationships, including levels of trust in religious and nonreligious people.

• This is not the first time Pew Research Center has asked these questions of the U.S. public. However, previous surveys were conducted over the phone by a live interviewer, and are not directly comparable to the new survey, which respondents self-administered online as part of the Center’s American Trends Panel . ↩
• Another question asked on a different 2019 Pew Research Center survey – conducted by telephone – found that Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party also are much more likely than Democrats and their leaners to say churches and other religious organizations are having a positive effect on the way things are going in the country (68% vs. 38%). The overall share of Americans who say churches are having a positive impact has declined in recent years, according to telephone surveys. ↩
• Researchers were not able to separately compare the views of black and Hispanic Republicans due to limited sample size. Previous Pew Research Center telephone surveys have found that majorities of black and Hispanic adults identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party while minorities in these groups identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP. ↩
• Many places of worship have multiple clergy, while others have just one. The question was asked this way so that it would apply to respondents regardless of how many clergy work at their place of worship. ↩
• Results are based only on respondents who are not a member of the group in question. For example, results about Catholics do not include the views of Catholics themselves. See topline for filtering and question wording. ↩

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15.1 The Sociological Approach to Religion

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Discuss the historical view of religion from a sociological perspective
• Describe how the major sociological paradigms view religion

From the Latin religio (respect for what is sacred) and religare (to bind, in the sense of an obligation), the term religion describes various systems of belief and practice that define what people consider to be sacred or spiritual (Fasching and deChant 2001; Durkheim 1915). Throughout history, and in societies across the world, leaders have used religious narratives, symbols, and traditions in an attempt to give more meaning to life and understand the universe. Some form of religion is found in every known culture, and it is usually practiced in a public way by a group. The practice of religion can include feasts and festivals, intercession with God or gods, marriage and funeral services, music and art, meditation or initiation, sacrifice or service, and other aspects of culture.

While some people think of religion as something individual because religious beliefs can be highly personal, religion is also a social institution. Social scientists recognize that religion exists as an organized and integrated set of beliefs, behaviors, and norms centered on basic social needs and values. Moreover, religion is a cultural universal found in all social groups. For instance, in every culture, funeral rites are practiced in some way, although these customs vary between cultures and within religious affiliations. Despite differences, there are common elements in a ceremony marking a person’s death, such as announcement of the death, care of the deceased, disposition, and ceremony or ritual. These universals, and the differences in the way societies and individuals experience religion, provide rich material for sociological study.

In studying religion, sociologists distinguish between what they term the experience, beliefs, and rituals of a religion. Religious experience refers to the conviction or sensation that we are connected to “the divine.” This type of communion might be experienced when people pray or meditate. Religious beliefs are specific ideas members of a particular faith hold to be true, such as that Jesus Christ was the son of God, or that reincarnation exists. Another illustration of religious beliefs is the creation stories we find in different religions. Religious rituals are behaviors or practices that are either required or expected of the members of a particular group, such as bar mitzvah or confession of sins (Barkan and Greenwood 2003).

The History of Religion as a Sociological Concept

In the wake of nineteenth century European industrialization and secularization, three social theorists attempted to examine the relationship between religion and society: Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. They are among the founding thinkers of modern sociology.

As stated earlier, French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things” (1915). To him, sacred meant extraordinary—something that inspired wonder and that seemed connected to the concept of “the divine.” Durkheim argued that “religion happens” in society when there is a separation between the profane (ordinary life) and the sacred (1915). A rock, for example, isn’t sacred or profane as it exists. But if someone makes it into a headstone, or another person uses it for landscaping, it takes on different meanings—one sacred, one profane.

Durkheim is generally considered the first sociologist who analyzed religion in terms of its societal impact. Above all, he believed religion is about community: It binds people together (social cohesion), promotes behavior consistency (social control), and offers strength during life’s transitions and tragedies (meaning and purpose). By applying the methods of natural science to the study of society, Durkheim held that the source of religion and morality is the collective mind-set of society and that the cohesive bonds of social order result from common values in a society. He contended that these values need to be maintained to maintain social stability.

But what would happen if religion were to decline? This question led Durkheim to posit that religion is not just a social creation but something that represents the power of society: When people celebrate sacred things, they celebrate the power of their society. By this reasoning, even if traditional religion disappeared, society wouldn’t necessarily dissolve.

Whereas Durkheim saw religion as a source of social stability, German sociologist and political economist Max Weber (1864–1920) believed it was a precipitator of social change. He examined the effects of religion on economic activities and noticed that heavily Protestant societies—such as those in the Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Germany—were the most highly developed capitalist societies and that their most successful business leaders were Protestant. In his writing The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), he contends that the Protestant work ethic influenced the development of capitalism. Weber noted that certain kinds of Protestantism supported the pursuit of material gain by motivating believers to work hard, be successful, and not spend their profits on frivolous things. (The modern use of “work ethic” comes directly from Weber’s Protestant ethic, although it has now lost its religious connotations.)

Big Picture

The protestant work ethic in the information age.

Max Weber (1904) posited that, in Europe in his time, Protestants were more likely than Catholics to value capitalist ideology, and believed in hard work and savings. He showed that Protestant values directly influenced the rise of capitalism and helped create the modern world order. Weber thought the emphasis on community in Catholicism versus the emphasis on individual achievement in Protestantism made a difference. His century-old claim that the Protestant work ethic led to the development of capitalism has been one of the most important and controversial topics in the sociology of religion. In fact, scholars have found little merit to his contention when applied to modern society (Greeley 1989).

What does the concept of work ethic mean today? The work ethic in the information age has been affected by tremendous cultural and social change, just as workers in the mid- to late nineteenth century were influenced by the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Factory jobs tend to be simple, uninvolved, and require very little thinking or decision making on the part of the worker. Today, the work ethic of the modern workforce has been transformed, as more thinking and decision making is required. Employees also seek autonomy and fulfillment in their jobs, not just wages. Higher levels of education have become necessary, as well as people management skills and access to the most recent information on any given topic. The information age has increased the rapid pace of production expected in many jobs.

On the other hand, the “McDonaldization” of the United States (Hightower 1975; Ritzer 1993), in which many service industries, such as the fast-food industry, have established routinized roles and tasks, has resulted in a “discouragement” of the work ethic. In jobs where roles and tasks are highly prescribed, workers have no opportunity to make decisions. They are considered replaceable commodities as opposed to valued employees. During times of recession, these service jobs may be the only employment possible for younger individuals or those with low-level skills. The pay, working conditions, and robotic nature of the tasks dehumanizes the workers and strips them of incentives for doing quality work.

Working hard also doesn’t seem to have any relationship with Catholic or Protestant religious beliefs anymore, or those of other religions; information age workers expect talent and hard work to be rewarded by material gain and career advancement.

German philosopher, journalist, and revolutionary socialist Karl Marx (1818–1883) also studied the social impact of religion. He believed religion reflects the social stratification of society and that it maintains inequality and perpetuates the status quo. For him, religion was just an extension of working-class (proletariat) economic suffering. He famously argued that religion “is the opium of the people” (1844).

For Durkheim, Weber, and Marx, who were reacting to the great social and economic upheaval of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in Europe, religion was an integral part of society. For Durkheim, religion was a force for cohesion that helped bind the members of society to the group, while Weber believed religion could be understood as something separate from society. Marx considered religion inseparable from the economy and the worker. Religion could not be understood apart from the capitalist society that perpetuated inequality. Despite their different views, these social theorists all believed in the centrality of religion to society.

Theoretical Perspectives on Religion

Modern-day sociologists often apply one of three major theoretical perspectives. These views offer different lenses through which to study and understand society: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory. Let’s explore how scholars applying these paradigms understand religion.

Functionalism

Functionalists contend that religion serves several functions in society. Religion, in fact, depends on society for its existence, value, and significance, and vice versa. From this perspective, religion serves several purposes, like providing answers to spiritual mysteries, offering emotional comfort, and creating a place for social interaction and social control.

In providing answers, religion defines the spiritual world and spiritual forces, including divine beings. For example, it helps answer questions like, “How was the world created?” “Why do we suffer?” “Is there a plan for our lives?” and “Is there an afterlife?” As another function, religion provides emotional comfort in times of crisis. Religious rituals bring order, comfort, and organization through shared familiar symbols and patterns of behavior.

One of the most important functions of religion, from a functionalist perspective, is the opportunities it creates for social interaction and the formation of groups. It provides social support and social networking and offers a place to meet others who hold similar values and a place to seek help (spiritual and material) in times of need. Moreover, it can foster group cohesion and integration. Because religion can be central to many people’s concept of themselves, sometimes there is an “in-group” versus “out-group” feeling toward other religions in our society or within a particular practice. On an extreme level, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, and anti-Semitism are all examples of this dynamic. Finally, religion promotes social control: It reinforces social norms such as appropriate styles of dress, following the law, and regulating sexual behavior.

Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists view religion as an institution that helps maintain patterns of social inequality. For example, the Vatican has a tremendous amount of wealth, while the average income of Catholic parishioners is small. According to this perspective, religion has been used to support the “divine right” of oppressive monarchs and to justify unequal social structures, like India’s caste system.

Conflict theorists are critical of the way many religions promote the idea that believers should be satisfied with existing circumstances because they are divinely ordained. This power dynamic has been used by Christian institutions for centuries to keep poor people poor and to teach them that they shouldn’t be concerned with what they lack because their “true” reward (from a religious perspective) will come after death. Conflict theorists also point out that those in power in a religion are often able to dictate practices, rituals, and beliefs through their interpretation of religious texts or via proclaimed direct communication from the divine.

The feminist perspective is a conflict theory view that focuses specifically on gender inequality. In terms of religion, feminist theorists assert that, although women are typically the ones to socialize children into a religion, they have traditionally held very few positions of power within religions. A few religions and religious denominations are more gender equal, but male dominance remains the norm of most.

Sociology in the Real World

Rational choice theory: can economic theory be applied to religion.

How do people decide which religion to follow, if any? How does one pick a church or decide which denomination “fits” best? Rational choice theory (RCT) is one way social scientists have attempted to explain these behaviors. The theory proposes that people are self-interested, though not necessarily selfish, and that people make rational choices—choices that can reasonably be expected to maximize positive outcomes while minimizing negative outcomes. Sociologists Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (1988) first considered the use of RCT to explain some aspects of religious behavior, with the assumption that there is a basic human need for religion in terms of providing belief in a supernatural being, a sense of meaning in life, and belief in life after death. Religious explanations of these concepts are presumed to be more satisfactory than scientific explanations, which may help to account for the continuation of strong religious connectedness in countries such as the United States, despite predictions of some competing theories for a great decline in religious affiliation due to modernization and religious pluralism.

Another assumption of RCT is that religious organizations can be viewed in terms of “costs” and “rewards.” Costs are not only monetary requirements, but are also the time, effort, and commitment demands of any particular religious organization. Rewards are the intangible benefits in terms of belief and satisfactory explanations about life, death, and the supernatural, as well as social rewards from membership. RCT proposes that, in a pluralistic society with many religious options, religious organizations will compete for members, and people will choose between different churches or denominations in much the same way they select other consumer goods, balancing costs and rewards in a rational manner. In this framework, RCT also explains the development and decline of churches, denominations, sects, and even cults; this limited part of the very complex RCT theory is the only aspect well supported by research data.

Critics of RCT argue that it doesn’t fit well with human spiritual needs, and many sociologists disagree that the costs and rewards of religion can even be meaningfully measured or that individuals use a rational balancing process regarding religious affiliation. The theory doesn’t address many aspects of religion that individuals may consider essential (such as faith) and further fails to account for agnostics and atheists who don’t seem to have a similar need for religious explanations. Critics also believe this theory overuses economic terminology and structure and point out that terms such as “rational” and “reward” are unacceptably defined by their use; they would argue that the theory is based on faulty logic and lacks external, empirical support. A scientific explanation for why something occurs can’t reasonably be supported by the fact that it does occur. RCT is widely used in economics and to a lesser extent in criminal justice, but the application of RCT in explaining the religious beliefs and behaviors of people and societies is still being debated in sociology today.

Symbolic Interactionism

Rising from the concept that our world is socially constructed, symbolic interactionism studies the symbols and interactions of everyday life. To interactionists, beliefs and experiences are not sacred unless individuals in a society regard them as sacred. The Star of David in Judaism, the cross in Christianity, and the crescent and star in Islam are examples of sacred symbols. Interactionists are interested in what these symbols communicate. Because interactionists study one-on-one, everyday interactions between individuals, a scholar using this approach might ask questions focused on this dynamic. The interaction between religious leaders and practitioners, the role of religion in the ordinary components of everyday life, and the ways people express religious values in social interactions—all might be topics of study to an interactionist.

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• Authors: Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Introduction to Sociology 3e
• Publication date: Jun 3, 2021
• Location: Houston, Texas
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The Significance of Religion in Society: Examining its Impact on Politics, Morals, and Community

Article 20 Apr 2023 6019 0

Religion is a significant aspect of human society that has played a crucial role in shaping social, political, and cultural structures. It has been a part of human history since the beginning of time and has influenced the way people think, behave, and interact with one another. In this article, we will explore the role of religion in society, discussing its influence on politics, morality, and community.

Definition of Religion and Its Various Forms

Religion is a system of beliefs, practices, and values that relate to the existence of a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. It encompasses a range of beliefs and practices that vary greatly across different cultures, regions, and historical periods. Some of the major religions of the world include Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Historical Overview of the Role of Religion in Society

Religion has been a significant force in shaping social and political structures throughout history. It has been used as a tool to legitimize political power, promote social order, and provide a sense of meaning and purpose to individuals and communities. In ancient times, religion played a central role in the lives of people, providing a framework for understanding the world, and shaping moral and ethical values. In medieval Europe, the Catholic Church held considerable power and influence, with the Pope being seen as the ultimate authority in matters of faith and governance.

Religious Influence on Politics and Governance

Religion has played a significant role in shaping political structures and governance systems. It has been used as a tool to legitimize political power, promote social order, and provide a sense of meaning and purpose to individuals and communities. In many countries, religion has been the driving force behind political movements and revolutions. For example, the role of the Catholic Church in the fall of communism in Poland is a case study of how religious institutions can mobilize people to bring about social and political change (BBC).

Religion also plays a crucial role in the political decision-making process. Religious leaders and organizations often lobby governments to pass laws and policies that align with their values and beliefs. For example, in the United States, religious organizations have been actively involved in political campaigns, advocating for issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and education policies.

Role of Religion in Shaping Moral Values and Beliefs

Religion has been instrumental in shaping moral and ethical values across different societies and cultures. It provides a framework for understanding right and wrong, and for defining what is considered acceptable behavior. For example, in Islam, the five pillars of faith provide a comprehensive guide for leading a moral and ethical life. Similarly, the Ten Commandments in Christianity provide a framework for ethical behavior.

Religion also plays a significant role in shaping personal identity and providing a sense of purpose and meaning in life. Many religious individuals view their faith as a guiding force that provides direction, purpose, and meaning to their lives.

Positive and Negative Effects of Religion on Individuals and Society

Religion can have both positive and negative effects on individuals and society. On the positive side, religion can provide individuals with a sense of community, belonging, and social support. It can also promote moral and ethical behavior and encourage acts of kindness and compassion towards others. Religious organizations also play a crucial role in providing social services and support to communities in need (World Bank).

On the negative side, religion can be used to justify violence, discrimination, and intolerance towards others. It can also lead to the suppression of individual freedoms and the promotion of rigid and dogmatic belief systems. Additionally, religious conflicts have been a major source of violence and political instability in many parts of the world.

Contemporary Issues Related to Religion in Society

Religion continues to be a controversial and divisive issue in contemporary society. While religion can bring people together and provide a sense of community, it can also be a source of conflict and discrimination. One of the most significant contemporary issues related to religion is religious extremism and terrorism. Religious extremists use violence and terror to advance their ideological agendas, causing harm and destruction in their wake. This issue has become increasingly important in recent years, with the rise of groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

Another issue related to religion in contemporary society is the role of religion in politics and governance. In many countries, religious groups have significant influence over political decision-making, which can lead to policies that discriminate against minority groups or prioritize the interests of one religious group over another. This issue is particularly relevant in countries where religion plays a significant role in the lives of the population, such as in the Middle East and South Asia.

Religion can also be a source of tension and conflict between different cultural and ethnic groups. In many cases, religious differences have been used to justify violence and discrimination against minority groups. This issue is particularly relevant in countries where there are tensions between different religious groups, such as in India, where there have been numerous instances of violence between Hindus and Muslims.

Another issue related to religion in contemporary society is the role of religion in shaping attitudes towards gender and sexuality. Many religious groups hold traditional views on gender roles and sexuality, which can clash with contemporary attitudes towards these issues. This tension can lead to conflict between religious groups and individuals who do not conform to traditional gender and sexual norms.

Overall, religion continues to be a significant force in shaping society, with both positive and negative effects. While religion can provide a sense of community, moral guidance, and support to individuals and communities, it can also be a source of conflict, discrimination, and extremism. It is important to recognize and address these issues to ensure that religion can play a positive role in shaping society.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, religion has played a significant role in shaping society throughout history, influencing politics, morality, and community. Religion has been used to provide guidance and support to individuals and communities, but it has also been used to justify violence and discrimination against minority groups. While religion continues to be a divisive issue in contemporary society, it is essential to recognize the positive and negative effects of religion and work towards ensuring that religion plays a positive role in shaping society. The role of religion in society is complex and multifaceted, and it is crucial to approach this issue with an open mind and a critical perspective.

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51 Religion and Social Problems: A New Theoretical Perspective

Titus Hjelm is Lecturer in Finnish Society and Culture at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK.

• Published: 02 September 2009
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While the relationship between religion and social issues has begun to attract a good deal of interest from researchers in recent years, it is without much theoretical guidance in the way of social-problem theory. This is a gap that this article attempts to fill. The discussion focuses on the following issues: social problems as claims-making activities; how religions construct solutions to social problems; and how religion itself is constructed as a social problem and how this impacts on the way religion is perceived. It also holds that in addition to being a solid field of inquiry in itself, the study of religion and social problems also works as a prism through which many other central problems in sociology of religion – and sociology in general – can be examined.

S ociology of religion and the social-scientific study of social problems are both well-established fields of scholarship, but interestingly enough the intersection between the two remains mostly an unexplored area. True, some recent influential studies do discuss religion in a broader context of social capital and social problems (e.g., Putnam 2000 : 65–79), but few sociologists of religion have been aware of the developments in social problems theory proper. And vice versa, social problems textbooks usually mention religion only when it is relevant as an ‘impact factor’ in assessing a particular social problem, while this chapter falls short of a comprehensive survey of research into the issue at hand, it aims to provide a fresh theoretical view of the relationship between religion and social problems, and how the intersection between the two could be studied from a sociological perspective.

In the field of sociology of religion, social problems theory has had—perhaps not surprisingly—most impact on the study of new religious movements, or ‘cults’. The often negative public reaction provoked by new religions has created a whole subfield of study that examines the social processes whereby religious groups become labeled as deviant—that is, how religion becomes a social problem in itself (e.g., Beckford 1985 ; Robbins 1985 ; 1988 ; Swanson 2002 ). Research on the Satanism scare that gripped the USA in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Richardson et al . 1991 ) has most explicitly anchored itself in contemporary social problems theory. Among the contributors to this work was Joel Best, one of the leading figures in the sociology of social problems (see Best 1991 ).

Nevertheless, in spite of a budding interest, a systematic overview of the intersection of the sociology of social problems and the sociology of religion has not surfaced to date. The aim of this chapter is to discuss how social problems theory has been and could be effectively used in the study of religion and also how studying religion can broaden the study of social problems. I admit that the examples I'm using have a definite Western bias, but the theoretical discussion should provide a basis for the application of social problems theory in the study of religion in a wider context too. I will first provide a brief outline of the development of social problems theory and then discuss three possible approaches to the study of religion and social problems: namely, the effects of religion on social problems, how religion is socially constructed as a cure to social problems, and how religion is constructed as a social problem itself. Lastly, I will discuss the methodological questions that the issue poses and examine how the study of religion and social problems ties in with wider interests in the sociology of religion.

What is a Social Problem?

The sociology of social problems has probably produced as many definitions of a social problem as sociology of religion has produced definitions of religion. The definition by sociologists Richard Fuller and Richard Myers, however, catches best the varied aspects of social problems, and although almost seventy years old, is still very useful:

A social problem is a condition which is dermed by a considerable number of persons as a deviation from some social norm which they cherish. Every social problem thus consists of an objective condition and subjective definition. The objective condition is a verifiable situation which can be checked as to existence and magnitude (proportion) by impartial and trained observers, e.g. the state of our national defense, trends in the birth rate, unemployment, etc. The subjective definition is the awareness of certain individuals that the condition is a threat to certain cherished values. (Fuller and Myers 1941 : 320)

Here Fuller and Myers explicate the two features that every social problem has: an objective condition and a subjective definition . As theory building developed, the focus of the study of social problems also shifted. The early sociologists were interested in the objective conditions, and firmly believed that they were the ‘impartial and trained observers’ capable of measuring whether or not a condition was a social problem. Later generations, however, were increasingly interested in the subjective definition part of Fuller and Myers's classic formulation.

A definitive break from earlier sociology of social problems occurred in the 1960s with several important publications endorsing a completely revised approach that became known as ‘labeling theory’. Howard Becker, often quoted as one of the main representatives of the approach, wrote in his influential book Outsiders :

Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance , and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘Offender’. (Becker 1991[1963] : 9; emphases original)

Becker's definition was clearly different from the prevailing understanding of deviance, and for a while research based on the labeling perspective supplanted the older approaches and became the hegemonic ‘theory’ in the sociology of deviance (see Becker 1991[1963] : 178).

Some opponents of the labeling approach based their critiques on the older tradition of the study of deviance and went on conducting research that focused on the objective conditions, stating that the labeling approach was simply not adequately supported by empirical facts (e.g., Akers 2000 : 126–8). Another strand of criticism, however, was inspired by the labeling approach but wanted to take it further. This strand of criticism eventually evolved into what is now known as the social constructionist perspective on social problems (Rubington and Weinberg 1995 : 287–92).

Constructing Social Problems

The first and most influential flag-bearers of the social constructionist approach were John I. Kitsuse and Malcolm Spector, who wrote two important articles (Kitsuse and Spector 1973 ; Spector and Kitsuse 1973 ) that redefined the study of social problems in the early 1970s. They later compiled their ideas into a book entitled Constructing Social Problems (Spector and Kitsuse 2001[1977] ), which soon became the definitive work on the constructionist perspective.

Spector and Kitsuse's argument was that although the labeling approach had rightly emphasized subjective definitions over objective conditions, Becker and others did not take the approach to its logical conclusion. Even if the labeling process was the focus of the labeling approach, it still presupposed an objective act that was considered deviant according to norms that were similarly considered objective (Kitsuse and Spector 1975 : 584–5). For example, using cannabis became labeled deviant because people were smoking marijuana and it was against the norms and values of society, and therefore was later criminalized. In turn, marijuana smokers adopted a deviant identity because of the labeling, and so the deviant behavior was strengthened. Most of the studies of labeling tried, after all, to explain how persons really—that is, in the objective sense—become deviant.

Spector and Kitsuse's radical reformulation was that deviance was important only insofar as people recognized an act as deviant. According to them, a proper sociology of social problems did not even exist (Spector and Kitsuse 2001[1977] : 1). They argued that for a proper sociology of social problems the only important thing was the process whereby an act or a situation became defined as a problem, regardless of the objective condition . Following this line of thought, marijuana is not a social problem because some people are smoking it, but because some people are concerned about others smoking it.

Spector and Kitsuse's approach radically subjectivized the study of social problems. Their definition of social problems makes clear that objective conditions play little role in their study: ‘Thus, we define social problems as the activities of individuals or groups making assertions of grievances and claims with respect to some putative conditions ’ (Spector and Kitsuse 2001[1977] : 75; emphasis original). The important word here is ‘putative’:

We use the word [putative] to emphasize that any given claim or complaint is about a condition alleged to exist, rather than about a condition that we, as sociologists, are willing to verify or certify. That is, in focusing the attention to the claims-making process we set aside the question whether those claims are true or false. (Spector and Kitsuse 2001[1977] : 76; emphasis original)

In effect, Spector and Kitsuse take a completely disinterested stance towards any claims regarding the reality of the phenomenon in question, what matters is the public reaction, and this is what sociologists should study. Therefore, the process of claims making becomes the focus of constructionist study of social problems. Social problems are social movements in themselves, because they would not exist without people who make claims about them (Mauss 1975 ). This radical approach became widely used in the study of social problems, but also ignited a critical discussion that continues to date (see Holstein and Miller 2003 ; Miller and Holstein 1993 ). A more moderate version, usually referred to as contextual constructionism , reads Spector and Kitsuse in less strict terms, allowing that although the claims-making process remains the focus of constructionist research, it is framed by a social and cultural context which influences and limits the forms and expressions that claims making can take (Best 1993 ). It is this kind of constructionism that I am referring to when I talk about the construction of religion as a solution to social problems and the construction of religion as a social problem in itself. But first I will look at more traditional ways of analyzing the intersection of religion and social problems.

Religion and Social Problems: The ‘Traditional’ Approach

How does religion figure in the study social problems, then? Overall—and this is obvious from the small number of studies mentioned above and also noted by other scholars (Stark and Bainbridge 1996 : 149–55; Beckford 1990 : 3–4)—religion has played little role in theorizing about social problems and deviance. In this sense the study of social problems seems to follow more general patterns in sociology (e.g., Beckford 2003 : 1; Hamilton 2001 : p. vii). The question of whether this is the outcome of the explicit secular outlook of the profession, as some suggest (Stark et al . 1996 ) is beyond the scope of this chapter; but it is relevant to note that the centrifugal effect that religion has had in sociology is not confined to social problems theory alone.

When religion has played a role in the study of social problems, it has usually been in the form of a variable in quantitative assessments. Titles such as ‘The Impact of Religion on …’ and ‘The Effects of Religion on …’ sometimes occur in studies that measure different variables affecting the emergence of and solution to social problems. This is what I refer to as the ‘traditional’ approach to religion and social problems. It should be noted that ‘traditional’ in this sense is not an evaluative assessment. The reason I'm calling it ‘traditional’ is that, first, it was the earliest approach to studying religion and social problems, and, second, it has so far also been the most popular one.

The ‘father’ of this type of inquiry is of course Émile Durkheim. In his Suicide (1897) Durkheim compared statistical data from different European countries in order to analyze the impact of social and cultural factors on the voluntary taking of one's life. Many consider this Durkheim's most important work, and many of the concepts he created in the study—for example, anomie —have become parts of standard social-science vocabulary. From the perspective of religion and social problems, the most relevant part of Durkheim's argument was that Protestants were more prone to commit suicide than followers of other confessions in all of the countries he compared (Durkheim 1979[1897] : 154). This notion became very influential, to the extent that eminent sociologist Robert K. Merton ‘credited Emile Durkheim with having discovered sociology's first and thus far its only scientific “law”’ (Stark and Bainbridge 1996 : 31).

In an ardent critique of Durkheim, Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge show, however, that Durkheim's data and methods were deeply flawed. Because Durkheim more or less equated religion with social integration, religion was in fact relegated to the status of an epiphenomenon (Stark and Bainbridge 1996 : 30). Stark and Bainbridge's studies (1996 and 1985) have shown that religion does have an effect on suicide and other individual and social problems independently of social integration. The problem, however, is that sociologists often continue to follow the original example set by Durkheim, thus distorting the impact of religion on social problems such as suicide (Stark and Bainbridge 1996 : 50–1). This is of course not to say—especially when no comprehensive reviews of the literature discussing the impact of religion on social problems other than suicide exist—that all of the ‘traditional’ perspectives are plagued by Durkheim's shadow. There is a growing number of empirical studies of the effects of religion on a variety of issues (e.g., Evans et al . 1995 ; Johnson et al . 2001 ; Shields et al . 2007 ) which show that the ‘traditional’ perspective remains the most significant approach to religion and social problems, and that the approach is continuously evolving.

Constructing Religion as a Solution to Social Problems

A quick database search of ‘religion and social problems’, ‘religion and deviance’, or ‘religion and crime’, for example, reveals that the field has not perhaps been as quiescent as Stark and Bainbridge noted in 1996. An emerging corpus of empirical (quantitative) studies (see above) discuss the impact of religion on the above-mentioned issues. If, however, we look at the connection between religion and social problems from another perspective, little headway has been made in reference to contemporary social problems theory in particular, what I want to do here is to discuss how religion figures and could figure in the constructionist theory of social problems, outlined above. This is partly because of my own theoretical leanings, but also because constructionism is a major strand in the contemporary study of social problems.

As already noted, from a constructionist point of view ‘a social problem does not exist unless it is recognized by the society to exist’ (Blumer 1971 : 302). The process of claims making, which ideally results in social recognition of a problematic condition, has to point out the moral reprehensibleness of a condition, name the villains and victims, and, preferably, what should be done about the condition (Loseke 1999 : 103). In doing so, the claims-makers and their claims-making activities form a social movement in itself (Mauss 1975 ). The focus here is on how religious communities and movements have contributed to the construction of social problems and what solutions they have offered.

First of all, it is worth reiterating here the more or less obvious fact that religious groups have been throughout time major claims-makers in social problems issues. From early Christians to Gandhi and the Civil Rights movement, religious groups and individuals have been in the forefront to point out issues of social injustice. Contemporary protests against perceived social evils, such as war, the death penalty, and abortion, for example, have often been initiated and led by religious groups. The claims and organizing efforts of religious communities have led to changes in legislation and, longer term, in culture. The social movements that have grown out of the will to change perceived social problems have often been led by religious leaders and driven by religious motivations.

In many cases the scope of the problems is such that religious communities and movements themselves can only point out the problem and bring it out in the open—in other words, ‘make it real’ by public construction. This is obviously the case for issues where legislative changes are needed in order to remedy the problem, for example. Sometimes, however, religious communities and movements aim to change perceived problematic conditions by more direct action, constructing solutions by themselves. Some of these solutions are alternatives to other social welfare initiatives, others specific to religions. A very general typology can be created about the claims that religious communities and movements make. In ascending order of abstraction, the claims can be material, communal, or spiritual .

Material Claims

Religious communities have throughout time provided people in need with material resources, including food and shelter, for example. The advent of the centralized nation-state and the subsequent transition of social welfare from the private to the public sphere has made this connection more problematic—especially so in countries such as the United States, where ‘church’ and state are constitutionally separated (Wuthnow 2006 ). Despite the emergence of the modern welfare state (in its diverse forms), religious communities have retained their material charity functions in many cases, where the modern state has been unable to provide adequate social services, the ideology of ‘loving your neighbor’ (again, in many of its forms) has prompted direct action in the form of material help. Although many religions and religious communities still aim to affect public policy through claims making, among the claims is that the community itself should take care of the less well-off. This has manifested itself in a myriad of forms, ranging from food distribution to providing housing, employment, and educational resources.

There are differences in the social arrangement of these material solutions. First, the religious communities may benefit from direct support by the state. This is the case in Finland, for example, where the state collects revenues from church members in the form of a ‘church tax’ and distributes it directly to the two constitutionally recognized religious bodies, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Orthodox Church. In this arrangement these religious organizations function effectively as state welfare agencies, despite the occasional reference to them as ‘third sector’ actors. Second, similar to the above but in a more contested sense, the state may support the material services of religious organizations through direct budgetary allocations. In the United States, President George w. Bush initiated an expansion of existing Charitable Choice programs to include faith-based organizations and set up the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in his first month in office, while religious organizations had received federal funding before, these actions and the bills introduced in the House and the Senate to implement the President's proposals incited an unprecedented public discussion on the role of religion in state affairs (Ebaugh et al . 2003 ). Unlike the constitutionally enshrined arrangements such as those in Finland, this material support policy is much more dependent on the current ideological atmosphere in the administrative and legislative bodies. Finally, material support for social problems work is gained through voluntary work, whether in the form of private donations or actual labor (see Ch. 52 below). This type of material solution overlaps most of the time with public funding schemes, but is also often the only source of alleviating social problems for religious communities and movements.

Claims of Community

Durkheim might have been mistaken in equating religion and sense of community, but his ideas echo in the claims that religious groups make about the beneficial effects of belonging to a (spiritual) community. Community claims overlap both material claims and spiritual claims, but as a form of discourse they are quite unique and important in the claims-making process. Using social-scientific knowledge reflexively (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly), religious groups can claim that they provide not only the material framework for decent living but also people to relate to, thus making individuals tackling social problems part of a wider community tackling the same problems. This is especially important in the case of youth who are in the crucial phase of socialization, and even more so for youth in danger of being marginalized (see Smith and Denton 2005 ; Bainbridge 1997 : 276–80; Stark and Bainbridge 1996 : 81–99).

Spiritual Claims

On the most abstract level, the feature that sets religious communities apart from all other actors in the social problems field is the claim of spiritual community. When one accepts baptism, for example, one becomes part of a cosmic community, in which the material world is in close interaction with the spiritual (Berger 1973 : 34). There is huge variation between religions and within specific religious traditions as to how the spiritual level is believed to affect coping with social life, and social problems in particular. First, there is difference as to whether solutions to problems can be found in this life through pious action, or only in an afterlife. For example, the prong of Karl Marx's famous dictum ‘[religion] is the opium of the people’ was aimed against religious beliefs which promise relief from suffering in an afterlife and in so doing in fact perpetuate inequality by diminishing people's will to change society themselves. Second, even if the transcendent is considered to have an effect on everyday lives, there are differences in the interpretation of the intensity of divine influence. Whereas a liberal Protestant might see narratives of miracles and divine intervention as metaphorical (although psychologically or existentially useful), in an Evangelical understanding the human world is in continuous interaction with the spirit world, mirroring the eternal struggle between born-again Christians and the hordes of Satan (Fenn 2006 ). Therefore, in Evangelicalism ‘spiritual warfare’ (Arnold 1997 ) is as important as finding material solutions to social problems.

Constructing Religion as a Social Problem

It is perhaps intuitively obvious that religious communities have for a long time been central in raising awareness about social problems and offering solutions to them. What has been less obvious—at least until September 11, 2001—is that religion can be, and has been, constructed as a social problem in itself, while nowadays the traditions referred to as ‘world religions’ are also increasingly regarded as the source of social problems (Juergensmeyer 2001 ; 2004 ; Lincoln 2003 ), this is a perspective already familiar to scholars of new religious movements (see above, and Robbins 1988 : 201–2).

The public arenas in which religion is constructed as a social problem are very much the same as those in the process of constructing awareness and solutions to social problems: news media, politics, and the court system (Loseke 1999 : 40). Of these, the arena of the courts is perhaps the best researched (see Richardson 2003 ). Whereas the research on constitutional battles over religion in the United States Supreme Court (see Hammond 1998 ), for example, is a well-established field of study, research on the importance of the media in the public construction of religions is somewhat lagging behind (for some notable exceptions, see Said 1981; Silk 1998 ; Beckford 1999 ; Hjelm 2006 b ; McCloud 2004 ). Although individual studies of the different arenas of contestation exist, very little research has been done to chart all of the above aspects in specific cases.

Regardless of the arena, there are several recurring types of claims or discourses in which religion is constructed as a social problem, just as with the claims of religion as solutions to social problems. I have named the discourses ethics, healthiness, heresy, rationality , and pseudo-religion . The typology is drawn from empirical research in Finland (Rikkinen 2002 ; Hjelm 2006 b ), and as such represents only one possible typification. However, I believe that the above claims represent a fairly comprehensive sample of accounts of ‘bad religion’, what is contextually dependent is the priority of the different discourses. For example, in the American ‘Bible belt’ a small rural newspaper might be more prone to report fundamentalist Christian views as expert testimony of ‘Satanic cults’ engaging in criminal activities—the credibility of the claim from a law enforcement perspective notwithstanding. The relative silence of national newspapers on occult issues, on the other hand, most likely reflects a less shared sense of ‘us’, a context where explicitly fundamentalist Christian claims might be considered offensive, trivial, or absurd (Lowe and Cavender 1991 ; Shupe and Bromley 1980 ). Although the objectives (implicit or explicit) of the claims might be the same, the context shapes their final form.

The discourse on the (un)ethicality of a religion or its practices is almost self-evident, since all claims of deviance are eventually moral claims (Loseke 1999 : 55). To claim that a religion is deviant and that its practices constitute a social problem is to say that what it does is wrong, and that it should be restricted, or even prohibited. The ‘problem’ with this kind of argumentation is that in contemporary multicultural and religiously plural societies, explicitly moralistic claims can be seen as problematic. For example, the mainstream media tend to present news as neutral communication, and in this genre explicit moral claims are often eschewed. Therefore, significant variation exists according to whether a moral claim is made explicitly or implicitly. The old ‘journalist as a moralist’ (see Einstadter 1994 ; Buddenbaum 1998 : 91–2; Buddenbaum and Mason 2000 : p. xix) has in most cases given way to the silent ‘compiler of facts’. Implicitly, however, religions can be, and are, constructed as a social problem by using experts that confirm the un-ethicality of a religious practice. Although the experts maybe biased themselves (as the ‘cult controversies’ have shown), their testimonies fade the journalist's voice into the background, thus making the news more ‘objective’. Furthermore, it depends on the legitimacy of the religion in question whether it is publicly denounced as ‘bad religion’ in the substantive sense—that is, claiming that the religion itself is deviant—or whether only a particular practice of the religion is condemned. For example, in many cases Scientology is represented as controversial, without much detail about what exactly makes it problematic. On the other hand, Islam, as a world religion, is in general recognized as legitimate, but incites controversy on the ethics of specific practices, such as veiling and ritual slaughter.

Healthiness

In their ground-breaking book Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness , Peter Conrad and Joseph Schneider ( 1980 ) coined the influential term medicalization . In short, medicalization refers to the transformation whereby ‘deviant behaviors that were once defined as immoral, sinful, or criminal have been given medical meanings’ (Conrad and Schneider 1980 : 1). In the public discussion on religion, this process is manifested in a significant change from explicitly moral language to an appreciation of religion and religious practices according to their healthiness or unhealthiness. The argument first gained credence in the debate concerning alleged cult ‘brainwashing’ (Bromley and Shupe 1981 ; Beckford 1985 ; Robbins 1988 ; cf. Zabłocki and Robbins 2001 ). Later, it has become increasingly prominent in describing religion and religious practice of all kinds. Its appeal lies in the scientific aura it emanates and the sense of objectivity it conveys. In this respect, medicalized arguments are much more difficult to challenge than explicitly moral ones. Through medicalization, deviant religious practices become technical problems which can be technically solved by suggesting the removal of the practice without taking into account the possible moral problems involved in dismissing tradition and orthodox belief and practice (see Gusfield 1980 : p. vii). This is in line with what Gusfield calls the depoliticization of social problems: ‘The medicalization of social problems depoliticizes them and diminishes the recognition of differences in moral choices that they represent’ (Gusfield 1980 : p. viii).

For a long time arguments against other religions, especially the evil ‘cults’, were made on explicitly religious grounds (Jenkins 2000 : 10–12; McCloud 2004 ). Religions other than whatever was considered ‘good religion’ in a given context were condemned on the basis of their deviance from the prevailing religious culture—that is, as heresy. Since the advent of multiculturalism and religious pluralism in the West, this kind of language has become increasingly rare in public discourse, but re-emerges sometimes in times of crisis. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were condemned in America in explicitly religious terms by prominent commentators, such as Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter. Although most certainly dismissed as bigotry by many Americans, this kind of crisis religion achieved unprecedented coverage exactly because of a crisis situation, what I have termed ‘crisis religion’ refers to the process where by religious discourse achieves a significant status in explaining certain social phenomena that are perceived as problematic and threatening (Hjelm 2006 b ). Why the extraordinary situation was crucial to the emergence of openly religious public statements can be summed up in Durkheimian tones: ‘One of the surest ways to confirm an identity, for communities as well as for individuals, is to find some way of measuring what one is not ’ (Erikson 1966 : 64; emphasis original).

Rationality

Pseudo-religion.

The last type of discourse in my typology concerns the definition of religion. Almost diametrically opposed to the religion/science discussion mentioned above in conjunction with the rationality discourse, claiming something as pseudo-religious makes religion problematic because it is actually not ‘really’ a religion. This all has to do with the legitimacy of particular religions in specific social contexts and is particularly important in the case of alternative religions (Hjelm 2007 ), which often do not have the legitimacy that more established religions possess (Melton 2003 ; Lewis 2003 ). In Finland, for example, practising any religion is allowed. However, registering as an officially registered religious community gives a group certain benefits and, most of all, a certain aura of legitimacy. The Finnish Ministry of Education's decision to deny the Finnish Free Wicca Association the status of a religious community certainly had an effect on the public understanding of Wicca as a non- bona fide religion, but also, perhaps more importantly, on the drawing of boundaries of belief and practice within the movement (Hjelm 2006 a ; 2007 ).

Studying Religion and Social Problems: Brief Methodological Considerations

After considering the application of social problems theory to the study of religion, it seems appropriate to discuss briefly what methodological implications the above approaches have. Again, we can take Fuller and Myers's ( 1941 ) definition of social problems as a starting point. Although whether we are focusing on the objective conditions or the subjective definitions does not necessarily dictate the choice of method, it does make some choices more feasible than others. As shown above, most of the studies of objective conditions have used quantitative methods, exemplified in Stark and Bainbridge's well-known studies (1996; 1985). However, the history of social problems research shows that the choice of quantitative methods is not inevitable: for example, many of the sociologists of the famous ‘Chicago School’ used ethnographic methods in studying street gangs and social inequality in city settings (e.g., Park et al . 1967 ).

The situation with claims making is a bit different. By its nature, public discourse is less easily converted into numbers (although quantitative content analysis is used in media research, for example), therefore making qualitative methods usually a primary choice. By calling the claims presented above—both those of religion as a solution and those of religion as a problem— discourses , I have already hinted at one possibility of analysis. The constructionist tradition in American sociology has not been very explicit about the methods of studying claims making, but I have found the developments in European discourse theory helpful in this sense. Little used in sociology of religion so far (Spickard 2007 ), discourse analysis focuses on the use of language as an element of social interaction (Fairclough 2003 : 2–3). There are many approaches to discourse analysis, and many other approaches close to it (such as conversation analysis), but the main focus overall is on how discourses—in our case, claims referring to social problems and religion—on the one hand draw from social practices and on the other hand shape these social practices. Put differently, the analysis asks how the social world is constructed in discourse.

Conclusion: Religion and Social Problems as a Sociological Prism

Much more could be said about the interface between sociology of religion and the study of social problems. It is also clear that the examples presented above are by no means the only way to approach the subject, what is offered as ‘new’ here is the focus on social problems as claims-making activity and how, on the one hand, religions construct solutions to social problems and, on the other hand, how religion is constructed as a social problem in itself, what I find most interesting and important is that in addition to being a solid field of inquiry in itself, the study of religion and social problems also works as a prism through which many other central problems in sociology of religion—and sociology in general—can be examined. For example, first, the role of religious communities in alleviating social problems raises crucial questions about the function and performance of religion in the contemporary world (Beyer 1994 ). That is, is religion losing its unique status as a spiritual institution by concentrating on ‘profane’ issues such as social problems? Second, the construction of religion as a social problem tells us a lot not only about ‘bad religion’, but also about the image of what ‘good religion’ (or ‘ our religion’) is. In Clifford's ( 1986 : 23) words: ‘It has become clear that every version of an “other”, wherever found, is also a construction of the “self”.’ This too has implications for other issues, such as multiculturalism and religious pluralism, that, although not necessarily directly related to social problems, explore the question of interaction between cultures and religious traditions. Many other examples could be added, which only goes to show that the emerging field has a lot to offer—both in empirical study and theoretical refinement—for the sociological study of religion in the contemporary world.

Suggested Reading

The following are recommended: Beckford ( 2003 ); Loseke ( 1999 ); Rubington and Weinberg ( 1995 ); Spector and Kitsuse ( 2001[1977] ); and Stark and Bainbridge ( 1996 ).

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Parts of the section on religion as a social problem were reworked from an earlier published article (Hjelm 2006 b ). Used with kind permission of Nordicom.

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Free Religion, Culture & Society Essay Examples & Topics

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, religion is an organized system of beliefs and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods. In comparison, culture is defined as the values, customs, arts of a particular society and group, place, or time.

As you can suspect, writing a religion and culture essay is truly exciting but not always easy. That’s why our IvyPanda team is here to help you explore this subject. Let’s start with the connection between the phenomena.

Culture and religion are interconnected, and some say that they are inseparable. This link is complicated, but our mind aims to simplify everything. For instance, can you be a Muslim yet belong to Western Culture? Can you be white and not be a Christian colonizer? Can you be an African and not be associated with African religions?

To accept that you can belong to the same culture but be different religiously is a problematic endeavor. One thing is clear: you cannot study one without studying another.

If you are working on a religion and culture essay, you have many approaches to explore. That is why it can be tricky to write about it. Whether you’re composing a paper on Buddhism or an Islamophobia essay, outlines are a great way to realize what you want to do. Here, we have written a step-by-step guide on organizing your essay. We have also gathered topics and samples for your inspiration.

How to Outline a Religious and Cultural Values Essay

How are religion and culture connected? Essays like this aren’t easy to plan, let alone write. Nevertheless, organizing beforehand lowers your workload. You can save a lot of time by writing your works with an outline.

Here, we have presented steps towards structuring your paper:

• Create the right research question. A great question asks “how” and “why” instead of “what.” It leads your research and the way you organize your paper. Your question can also be based on a puzzle or some form of contradiction.
• Make a strong thesis statement. It is the core of your paper that sets your position – even your outline has to showcase it. Two levels of thesis exist. The first one is thesis-as-a-thoughtful-answer. The second level is thesis as exciting and original. Try to keep both of them in mind while creating your own. Our thesis generator can help you find the right words.
• Begin your introduction. It should reveal the topic and how you intend to argue your position. First, hook your reader from the start and provide essential context. Then, give your reader an idea of where you are going with your essay by including your thesis.
• Structure your body paragraphs. Here, you will state your points and why you find them compelling. Generally, it takes three paragraphs to do so. Include at least two arguments and one counterargument to add reliability to your statement. Make sure to list all the crucial points in your outline. You can add supporting evidence later.
• State your conclusion. Here, you briefly summarize the arguments you’ve already provided. Additionally, you can include important implications and further research areas. In your outline, leave a place for a restatement of your thesis and a concluding sentence.

15 Stellar Religion and Culture Essay Topics

You can say a lot regarding religion and culture, and just an area of Christian festivals is abundant with topics. Yet, it is not easy to find a good idea for your essay, which is why we have tried to simplify your task.

Here are some religious and cultural values essay topics:

• Explain the creation/evolution controversy and why both can be seen as a form of religion.
• A critique of trinity doctrine in Christianity.
• Positive effects of religion in coping with mental health problems.
• The connection between mental health and prayers.
• The role of religion in American society and culture.
• Should American kids be taught Christian moral values in school?
• What is the history behind Christmas? Why do Christians celebrate it on December 25th?
• What are the Islamophobia causes and solutions?
• What are some similarities and differences between Buddhism and Christianity?
• What are the origins behind singing during Christian gatherings?
• Compare the creation myths in the Bible and the Quran.
• The roles and responsibilities of women in Hinduism.
• Describe the five pillars of Islamic religion and their significance.
• Why is Paul Tillich called the father of systematic theology?
• What are the major religions around the world?

Thank you for reading our article till the end. For more ideas, you can try out our topic generator . Or you can simply look through our religion and culture essay examples below.

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• Published: 26 June 2018

Does religion always help the poor? Variations in religion and social class in the west and societies in the global south

• Megan Rogers 1 &
• Mary Ellen Konieczny 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  4 , Article number:  73 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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From Marx’s famous dictum that religion is “the opium of the people” to Weber’s recognition of the dignity reaped by the “religiously musical,” disagreement about both the prosocial and deleterious—even violent—effects of religious beliefs and practices has been a long discussion in social theory. The social scientific literature shows that religion is shaped by social structures—including economic and political structures—and also that, as an integral element of many cultures, it can shape those same structures in turn. This article discusses the dialectical relationship between religion and social structures to consider when and how religion has the capacity to alleviate poverty and where it might figure in inequality’s endurance or exacerbation. The range of the empirical cases considered here not only suggests the power of religion to address poverty, but also and importantly, the ways in which religion can be co-opted in sustaining the status quo for poor and politically subjugated groups. Taking a global view in case selection, this article shows that although differences in these processes do exist based on global location, there are many similarities that cross national and religious lines.

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Introduction.

Questions about the ways in which religion may help to alleviate poverty are of concern to a broad interdisciplinary audience that includes theologians, religious studies scholars, and scholars of human development, as well as a wide range of social scientists. Those of us interested in these issues know that answers to such questions are by no means simple. This is the case, at least in part, because the relationship between religion and poverty is often mediated by social structural, political, and cultural factors implicated in the very class-based relationships that religious groups seek to change in order to lift themselves, or those they seek to help, out of poverty.

What are the major factors involved in reaping religion’s pro-social benefits for those in poverty? Conversely, when and how does religion become implicated in perpetuating and exacerbating economic inequalities? This essay explores significant strands of social scientific research on religion and social class Footnote 1 in order to demonstrate the variability of the relation between the two and to clarify some of the common ways in which religion can be involved in either the alleviation of poverty or its exacerbation.

We organize this discussion along two axes: social-theoretical tradition and global location. Sociological discussions of religion and social class generally distinguish different perspectives based on their affinities to either Marxist or Weberian approaches, and we do the same, since they can be quite helpful in identifying the various ways in which we might explain how religion may alleviate or exacerbate the conditions of those living in poverty in particular cases. We enter this discussion as sociologists working primarily in the sociological literature, although we do draw in works from other disciplines, such as political science and anthropology, that have been influential in the sociology of religion. As we discuss work in both the Marxist and Weberian traditions, we divide our analysis along lines of studies which examine, in Immanuel Wallerstein’s ( 1974 ) terms, a globalized world’s center versus its periphery. We show some clear differences in religion’s relation to poverty with respect to global location. We also show that there is a notable consistency between center and periphery both in some of religion’s pro-social benefits and also in the ways in which it may be used to reinforce economic (and other) inequalities. These findings suggest that some elements of the relationship of religion and poverty are, within limits, generalizable and thus useful to a wide range of scholars interested in the how religion might best be involved in projects addressing poverty.

“A camera obscura :” Marxist lenses on religion’s role in the plight of the poor

In order to understand Marxist conceptions of the relation between religion and social class, we must first understand Karl Marx’s positioning of this relation in the materialist conception of history, which grounds human beings in the process of producing and reproducing their real lives. Pushing back against earlier philosophical work that prioritizes consciousness, he argues that, as he says in The German Ideology , “Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” (1978, p 155). Aspects of consciousness, including “morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology” (p 154), are not independent of the material conditions of humans’ existence but rather dependent upon them. However, religion and other forms of ideology serve to mask and misrepresent the nature of the social relations that result from our material conditions by, as Riesebrodt and Konieczny ( 2005 ) put it, “expressing the alienation inscribed into class structures” (p 127). Religion, then, functions as “a camera obscura ” (Marx, 1978 , p 154), which distorts human perceptions of social and material worlds.

Marx finds this distortive effect of religion to be especially pernicious in capitalist societies, where it serves to legitimate the interests of the dominant capitalist class and uphold the status quo by preventing the exploited working class from recognizing the roots of their alienation. For an alienated people, religion provides a form of comfort that they can turn to alleviate their suffering—hence Marx’s famous dictum that religion is “the opium of the people” (1978, p 54). However, by focusing on the eternal rather than the temporal, religion turns the gaze of the oppressed away from the exploitation that shapes their everyday lives, thereby discouraging them from challenging the established social relations and pushing for changes that would positively impact their lives. In the process, religion helps foster a form of false consciousness that encourages cultural values and beliefs that support and validate the continued dominance of the ruling class. The result, then, is that religion functions as a problematic conservative force in society, and in Marx’s view it will continue to do so until workers finally overthrow capitalism and establish a classless socialist society. When this happens, unequal social relations will no longer need to be legitimated, people’s alienation will fade away, and with them will go any need for religion.

In short, Marx largely views religion and its relationship to social class in a negative light, and this negativity has generally predominated in Marxist research on the topic since—although in a few cases, scholars working in Marxist categories have identified conditions under which religion may help foster class consciousness and collective action. In the negative vein, different lines of theorizing underscore Marx’s conclusion that religion often serves as a coping strategy for the deprived that prevents them from recognizing their oppression while also legitimizing and preserving the social structures that keep them in poverty. On the more positive side, research shows that when inequality is recognized and challenged, as is the case within liberation theologies, religion and religious ideas can provide powerful tools for those opposing the status quo .

Marxist studies of religion and social class based in the Western world

Marxist studies that concern religion, poverty, and social class in the West draw in varied ways on the interplay of the different strands of Marx’s theory discussed above. For example, in his influential book The Making of the English Working Class (1966), E.P. Thompson shows how Methodism disciplined members of the emerging working class in every aspect of their life, including providing workers with an inner compulsion to work and encouraging them to respect temporal authority—thereby making it very popular among the bourgeoisie. Thompson demonstrates the utility of this strategy through the lens of Marxist categories, for religion was indeed also popular among members of the working class; the doctrines, prayers, and communal gatherings infused rare instances of emotionalism into their lives, which helped them cope with their hard working and living conditions and thus maintained the bourgeoisie’s interests and oppressive class relations.

However, Thompson also shows that religious action did not always support existing class structures. He discusses the case of a Methodist pastor who interpreted his faith in a way that impelled him to attempt to go up against the factory owners for the sake of the workers. Even though his efforts ultimately failed—as Marxists might expect of actions borne of consciousness distorted by religiousness—Thompson’s discussion nevertheless illustrates that religion can not only encourage acquiescence to the status quo but also produce leadership that can attempt to mine religion for the purposes of liberation from poverty.

Similarly, in Millhands and Preachers (1942), Liston Pope offers a foundational study of the 1929 strikes among textile workers in Gastonia, North Carolina, in which he examines the links between religion and economics in a Marxist flavor. He also finds that religion is primarily a conservative force that reinforces oppressive and exploitative class inequalities. As with Thompson, he shows that religion served to mold people into docile and passive workers who supported the source of their own exploitation, thereby perpetuating an unjust status quo . When communists led a strike at the mills, the clergy of the mainline churches in town, whose churches received a great deal of support from local industrialists, not only failed to support the striking workers but also proactively worked to uphold the existing social order by organizing religious activities meant to distract workers from the strike. In contrast, the local Holiness and Pentecostal churches, which primarily served the lower classes and received no funding from the mill owners, supported the workers, but they had less influence in the shaping of these events. The strikes ultimately failed. Pope argues that religion thus plays a key part in this failure.

At the same time, Pope’s work is not only an account of the labor strikes; it is also a community study of Gastonia, one that highlights religion’s role in legitimizing and maintaining the unequal structures of local society. He and other community studies scholars find stark religious stratification in the communities that they researched (see, e.g., Warner, 1942a , 1942b , 1963 ; Warner and Lunt, 1941 ). As Marx predicts, religion is used to naturalize these religious and economic divisions, thereby discouraging the oppressed from even seeing, much less acting against, the exploitation inherent in the local social structures. For example, in their study of Muncie, Indiana, Lynd and Lynd ( 1929 ) observe that a binary class division existed between the business class and the working class, one that dominated community life. Religion served to uphold this divide: the business class attended only a small number of the town’s churches, where the sermons emphasized the importance of being a member of a religious community and religion stayed confined to the church. The working-class churches, by contrast, emphasized regular religious practice, and religion infused everyday conversation. As other community studies scholars also found, both religious stratification and divergent class cultures served to legitimize and maintain class divisions.

However, for all the negative conclusions that Marxist theorizing about the relationship between religion and class tends to prompt, other work, such as studies of labor movements, complicates this view. Harkening back to Thompson ( 1966 ) and Pope’s ( 1942 ) identification of rare instances when religion was used for a liberationist cause, even some studies with Marxist theoretical leanings nevertheless highlight the ways in which religion can be a proactive force for social change. In particular, they highlight how religious ideologies provide a common vocabulary that workers can use to create a “culture of solidarity” (Fantasia, 1989 ) or to call explicitly for social change (Billings, 1990 ; Corbin, 1981 ; Fantasia, 1989 ; Mirola, 2003 ; Pehl, 2016 ). Workers’ ability to draw on religion for opposition is not automatic, however. Billings ( 1990 ) builds off Gramsci’s work of hegemony and counterhegemony to examine “how socially dominate groups attempt to influence the interests and preferences of subordinate groups and how subordinate groups attempt to resist domination and achieve autonomy” (p 3). He compares labor strikes among Pope’s ( 1942 ) textile workers with coal miners in a culturally similar part of the southern United States after World War I. In doing so he identifies three factors that can determine whether religion encourages the maintenance of the status quo or fosters opposition in labor protests: leadership resources (i.e., the development of organic intellectuals who can articulate oppositional interpretations of religious ideologies), organizational autonomy (created through the mass abandonment of company churches and the formation of alternative sites of worship), and plausibility structures that support these new beliefs (such as the ritualized group singing of rewritten Protestant hymns that link religious faith with union activism). Billings finds that all three factors were required for religion to be used to take an oppositional stance, as was the case among the coal miners, who successfully unionized. Even today, religious people are highly involved in a revitalized labor movement, with faith-based labor support organizations such as Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) and Interfaith Worker Justice playing an important role (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2008 ). In short, these studies show that religion can serve as a powerful unifier that helps to foster class consciousness.

Religion does not only serve as a force for change in the context of labor movements, however. In the study of religion and collective action more broadly, scholars have found that religion and religious communities often play important roles in a range of social movements and advocacy efforts, including many that can profoundly impact the lives of the poor (Nepstad and Williams, 2007 ; Smith, 1996a ; Williams, 2003 ). Well-documented U.S.-based examples include the Civil Rights movement (Harris, 1999 ; Morris, 1984 ) and community building and neighborhood improvement movements (Braunstein, 2017 ; Braunstein et al. 2017 ; Jeung, 2007 ; Warren, 2001 ; Wood, 1997 , 2002 ; Wood and Fulton, 2015 ). As with Billings’ ( 1990 ) Gramscian-infused recognition of the importance of interests, resources, organization, and culture and beliefs for the coal miners’ successful unionization, social movements scholars, particularly those working in the resource mobilization tradition and including many who do not directly draw on Marxist theorizing, point to these factors as being vital for movement success. Importantly for this article, religion and religious organizations are recognized, as Zald and McCarthy ( 1987 ) describe it, as vital “half-way houses” for wider social movements, providing powerful foundations for all of these factors. After all, religious organizations have strong preexisting infrastructures and resources, and even religion’s focus on the eternal, of which Marx is so critical, can provide a powerful lens through which injustice is recognized when it is activated to evaluate the world using a divine standard (Williams, 2003 ).

One such example can be found in Mark Warren’s ( 2001 ) discussion of Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) in San Antonio, Texas. Founded in 1974 by a community organizer who was influenced by Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), COPS successfully pushed for massive investments in the services and infrastructure of San Antonio’s low-income neighborhoods while also building a regional network for the movement. An important COPS innovation was their extensive reliance on religion, particularly the city’s Hispanic Catholic parishes. Warren found that religion provided the moral rationale for their mobilization efforts and the infrastructure necessary to organize and motivate a sufficient number of people to attend rallies and vote for change. Although this and similar works (e.g., Braunstein, 2017 ; Wood, 2002 ) are not necessarily Marxist in their theoretical orientation, their attentiveness to issues of power and domination, concerns that are central to Marxist theorizing, highlight the ways in which religion, including the use of religious ideologies and ritualized religious practices such as ecumenical prayer, can play an important role in building effective movements across class, racial, and cultural lines.

A final important insight from Western studies discussing research with or through a Marxist theoretical framework comes from a recent book on the very type of religious stratification that community studies scholars have often identified. James D. Davidson and Ralph E. Pyle (2011) point out that an important strand of Marxist theory has largely been neglected in the study of religion and social class: the conflict perspective. On one hand, stratification scholars, who make good use of conflict theory in their studies of race, class, and gender, largely ignore religion; if they touch upon it at all, they assume that it is primarily used as a tool for ideological legitimation. On the other hand, religion scholars, who are well aware of the stratified nature of the socioeconomic status of members of different religious denominations in the United States, tend to draw on functionalist or Weberian perspectives in theorizing religion and class and use conflict theory only rarely.

In contrast, Davidson and Pyle turn to conflict theory to explain the development and sustainment of religious stratification in the United States, arguing that it can be traced back to colonial-era conflict and competition between denominations. Even with some post-World War II shifts in the general socioeconomic status of members of certain denominations (Pyle, 1996 ; Wuthnow, 1988 ), the religious stratification that developed in the colonial era remains largely intact (Pyle, 2006 ; Smith and Faris, 2005 ). This stratification has real-world implications for members of lower-ranked denominations: they are less likely to engage in behaviors known to facilitate economic upward mobility, such as pursuing higher education (Beyerlein, 2004 ; Schwadel, 2014 ) or building up savings (Keister, 2003 , 2008 , 2011 ). We believe that Davidson and Pyle ( 2011 ) are right: that much more work can and should be done to examine what the conflict perspective offers to better our understanding of the development of religious stratification within societies and its impact on religious individuals.

Marxist studies of religion, poverty, and social class based in the Global South

Moving beyond the confines of the West, Marxist-inspired studies of the relationship between religion and inequality in the Global South both confirm and further enrich the findings gleaned from Western contexts. On one hand, they identify similar structures and causes of oppression and domination of the poor that we see in the West, including religious stratification, religion being used as a coping mechanism in the face of deprivation, and religion acting as a conservative force that supports the status quo and discourages calls for change. On the other hand, these studies show more: they highlight the processes of exclusion that religion can be implicated in or reinforce. In addition, they also show some places, perhaps unexpected, where religion is liberatory and not merely a form of “opium” that helps people endure their oppression.

First, we find that the power dynamics that Thompson ( 1966 ) and Pope ( 1942 ) observed in Western contexts are not unique to that specific global location. For example, Nanlai Cao ( 2011 ) finds clear parallels to Thompson’s industrializing Methodist England in the role of religion in the industrializing city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang, known as China’s Jerusalem for the number of Christians there. Wenzhou has a concentration of wealthy, largely native-born factory owners who are Christian, but it also has a number of Christians among the rural migrants who come to the city in search of economic opportunity. The working conditions in these factories are labor-intensive and come close to, in Cao’s words, “crude capitalist exploitation” (p 140)—it is not uncommon for laborers to work for ten to twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with only one day off per month. He finds that many of the wealthy “boss Christians” use Christianity to legitimize their success and validate their continued support of these dismal working conditions. Furthermore, through their sermons, boss Christians teach newly converted migrant workers Footnote 2 that their deplorable working conditions are the result of their own sins, which encourages docile acceptance of the status quo , just as Thompson ( 1966 ) and Pope ( 1942 ) found to be the case in their studies. While there are some preachers emerging from the migrant worker community who challenge this dominant narrative, they are without the resources, institutional support, and cultural legitimacy enjoyed by the boss Christians. As such, they have had little luck in opposing the status quo , both in the church communities and the migrants’ working environment.

Other researchers find similar processes of religion being used to legitimate social inequality, maintain the status quo , or provide coping strategies for the dispossessed happening in other contexts around the world, including locations as diverse as Latin America (Berryman, 1994 ; Nash, 1996 ; Peterson 1994 ; Slade, 1994 ; Smith, 1996b ), the Middle East (Mahmood, 2005 ; Masoud, 2014 ; Wickham, 2002 ) and colonial South Africa (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991 ). However, as we saw in the Western context, some of these cases also illustrate instances when religion has been activated to oppose oppression and call for social change.

In the negative vein, Slade ( 1994 ) examines the growth of Pentecostalism among the poor in Latin America and sees the same oppressive and dominating elements that were present in the old forms of spirituality being transferred to this new form of popular spirituality. Specifically, he points to the absence of a loving God, the absence of a just God, and the absence of an incarnate God. He traces these elements through the region’s history, arguing that they have served to maintain a feudalistic system in which extreme social inequality is normalized and efforts to mobilize for change are seen as a rebellion against God. In this context, Protestantism does not offer poor converts a liberatory reinterpretation of their oppression that can help spur collective action; instead, it serves as a new coping mechanism that helps them submit and endure.

However, other research complicates this picture of religion functioning primarily as opium that helps maintain oppression and domination. Instead, this work shows how religion can help people cope with deprivation while also providing them with a powerful channel for change. As with Billings’ ( 1990 ) example of coal miners in the U.S., another Latin American example highlights the ways in which religious beliefs and rituals can, in contrast to Slade’s ( 1994 ) findings, foster class consciousness and resistance to domination. In her study of tin-mining communities in highland Bolivia, Nash ( 1996 ) shows that key religious beliefs and rituals that tie them to their agricultural past, such as recognition of the hill spirit Huari and linking commemoration of political events with the ritually charged days of the winter and summer solstice, help create a unified common identity, a sense of solidarity, and communal recognition of when they are being exploited. In this way, religion “generate[s] a sense of self that rejects subordination and repression” (p 87) and, in the Bolivian context, has produced social movements that have changed society. Similarly, even though some Catholics in El Salvador advocated for a type of Catholicism that preserved the status quo during the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s, the progressive church developed new forms of religious worship and ministry that facilitated social change (Berryman, 1994 ; Montgomery, 1982 ; Nepstad and Williams, 2007 ; Peterson 1994 ).

Although not explicitly working the Marxist tradition, recent work on the growth of conservative religious groups in the Middle East similarly highlights the role of economics in the groups’ development. Take, for example, Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in pre-Arab Spring Egypt: political scientist Carrie Wickham ( 2002 ) argues that the growth of these religious groups can in no small part be explained by the economic and political exclusion that many of the country’s young people faced. Upon graduating from university and being unable to find work commensurate with their education, many turned to Islamist groups, which did, as Marxist scholars would argue, provide them with consolation for such disappointment and their relative deprivation. However, contrary to fostering the political quiescence that Marxist-inspired arguments may lead us to expect, such groups also served as an important channel for political activism under a dictatorship that offered few opportunities for political engagement (Masoud, 2014 ). As Wickham ( 2002 ) emphasizes, “Though couched in religious terms, [these groups’] vision of a better society embodies many of the same hopes and aspirations—for freedom from dictatorship and for social justice and public accountability—that have inspired secular movements for democracy elsewhere around the globe” (pp 10–11). In short, the appeal of these groups is not merely due to their religious ideas but also the liberationist opportunities that they offer (see also Mahmood, 2005 ), and their impact is not confined to Egypt alone; a wide range of Islamic social movements throughout the Middle East play an important role in the provision of social welfare (Delibas, 2009 ; Jawad, 2009 ).

In a different vein, anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff (1991) provide an important addition to the conversation on the relationship between religion and social inequality in their examination of how religion can play a central role not just in maintaining or legitimizing structural inequality but also in producing it in the first place. Working as cultural analysts in the Marxist tradition, they show how the encounters of Nonconformist missionaries and the Southern Tswana from 1820 to 1920 resulted in Africans’ domination and eventual impoverishment in colonial South Africa. In a prime example of how the conflict perspective can be profitably applied in Marxist studies of religion and class, they illustrate how, in the midst of conflict and misunderstanding, hegemony was being created. This was done not merely through discourse but also through place, space, and material culture. As the missionaries tried to reshape Tswana daily life into one of Christian modernity, conflict and conversation about objects such as mirrors and clocks and the control of water served to refashion the Tswana consciousness in ways that reshaped local power relations to the benefit of the colonial government—despite the good intentions of the missionaries and active Tswana efforts to resist the changes. In other words, the Comaroffs show how cultural domination—and by extension, economic domination—comes to occur even in conflict; as Marx argues, the role of economic inequality and its relation to power is decisive. In short, this work illustrates how the conflict perspective can be fruitfully applied to analyze the role of religion in producing inequality, helping us to better understand how religion is implicated in processes of exclusion.

Social class, status honor, and power: studies in Weberian and related traditions

Like Marx, Max Weber is also highly attentive to the relationship between religious ideas and economic behavior. But Weber is highly critical of the Marxist view that religion is part of an ideological superstructure arising from an economic base. Instead, while Weber acknowledges the power of the economic sphere in human life in general and industrial capitalism in particular, he understands religion and the economic sphere to potentially be mutually constitutive. Despite his recognition that “not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men’s conduct” ( 1946 , p 280), he pays particular attention to the ways in which “the ‘world images’ that have been created by ‘ideas’ have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest” ( ibid .)—religion being an important source of these ideas. His most well-known example is that of “the Protestant ethic” and its role in the development of modern Western capitalism (Weber, 2011 ). He traces this ethic to specific Protestant ideas, particularly the Lutheran notion of vocational calling and the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, whose interplay fostered a form of “inner-worldly asceticism” that focused on the wealth accumulation necessary for modern capitalism even after the religious roots of these ideas had fallen away. As a result, he sees religious ideas as having an important influence on the highly rationalized, bureaucratized, and unequal nature of modern capitalist societies.

The example of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination that Weber emphasizes in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ( 2011 ) is illustrative of how this process works: since Calvinists had no way of knowing if they were among God’s elect, they looked to worldly success as confirmation of their salvation. In a departure from medieval Catholic teachings, poverty thus became a sign of God’s disfavor. Such doctrines legitimated social inequality; although Calvinism also included the notion of “brotherly love” (p 122), which included the imperative to care for the community, once these doctrines became divorced from their religious roots, it became easy to see the poor as undeserving, their poverty resulting from their own laziness, and ignore the structural factors that perpetuate inequality, an orientation that remains common among Calvinist-influenced societies and Reformed Protestant religious groups to this day (Emerson and Smith, 2000 ; Putnam and Campbell, 2010 ). As we can see, although Weber approaches the issue in a very different direction from Marx, he also sees religion as, in certain contexts, legitimizing and maintaining social inequality. However, this is not a necessary outcome in using Weberian methods. Instead, because Weber conceives of religion as a separate cultural sphere, he paves the way for understanding how religion is a more or less agentic entity with respect to social class, though the two are, at times, intertwined. This approach helps us better identify the points at which religion can positively intervene in mitigating the effects of poverty.

Weber ( 1946 ) also directly theorizes about the relationship between religion and social class, including an important additional dimension: the distinction between class and status. Class, he argues, is determined by economic position, but status is determined by status honor, and both have an elective affinity—that is, a degree of connection—with religious preference. He links specific classes and status groups to particular theodicies, suggesting that the social group within which a religion developed has a lasting impact on it ( 1993 ). For example, he argues those with high levels of class and status tend to develop theodicies of good fortune, which see wealth and status as a deserved blessing, thereby legitimating their own social position. By contrast, the less privileged have an elective affinity with theodicies of misfortune, which tend to see wealth and status as a sign of evil and that focus on the rewards to come in the eternal rather than temporal world. To be clear, Weber pushes back against purely materialistic explanations of religious preference, but he also works to avoid idealism as an explanation; instead, he sees ideas as grounded in the social world. Economics, social class, and status, in other words, are continually interacting and mutually influencing each other.

Finally, it is important to point out that Weber, unlike Marx, does not have a grand theory. His work is full of examples of how historical outcomes are often unintended and are instead contingent upon meaningful social action. To illustrate how this works, he thinks comparatively through ideal types and elective affinities to establish causal relations in particular cases, and then he compiles these cases to draw more general conclusions. Part of his utility for scholars of religion and poverty is the case-specific flexibility of his methods, which scholars also use to build generalizations from the analysis of specific cases. We see this utility at play in the studies covered in the next sections, which explore how religious ideas, styles of religious behavior, and the social structures of religious institutions can positively or negatively impact the poor in ways that do vary based on global location but that nonetheless show remarkable consistency across national, cultural, and religious lines.

Weberian studies of religion, poverty, and social class based in the West

Scholars have made good use of Weber’s theorizing on religion and its relationship to social class and poverty in studies of Western contexts. For example, comparative-historical research conducted in the Weberian tradition has shown that religious ideas, conceptualized as Weber did, continue to form “tracks” that direct action even in modern secular contexts where the religious roots of certain ideas have already been shed, as Weber found in the Protestant Ethic (Gorski, 2003 ; Grzymala-Busse, 2012 ; Morgan, 2009 ; Van Kersbergen and Manow 2009 ). Moreover, studies have found that this process often has profound unintended consequences for the poor, both positive and negative. For example, in studies of poverty policies in Western nations, Sigrun Kahl ( 2005 , 2009 ) explores how popular understandings of the poor as deserving or undeserving and variation in the ways that national poverty policies emphasize welfare and work can be traced back to the religious doctrines of most influential religious denomination in each nation. Predominantly Catholic countries such as France and Italy see the poor as deserving and emphasize welfare; Lutheran countries such as the Scandinavian nations see both individual and structural factors in poverty and emphasize a balance between welfare and work; while Reformed Protestant countries such as the United States tend to see the poor as undeserving and thus prioritize work in their poverty policies. As a result, the poor’s experience of public support varies widely from country to country for reasons that, in no small part, can be traced back to religious ideas. Such findings underscore Weber’s observation that there can be an elective affinity between religious ideas and today’s secular institutions and cultures.

In addition to drawing on Weber’s theorizing of the ways in which religious ideas influence a society’s social structures, scholars working the Weberian tradition also direct our attention to the ways in which religion, class, status, and power are intertwined. Indeed, the observation that one of the ways that class influences religion is through the development of class-specific religious behaviors, which in turn can reproduce the existing social structure, has long been a part of the study of religion and social class. In his influential work The Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929), H. Richard Niebuhr works in this vein to emphasize that social structures such as race and class impact the development and growth of religious movements, resulting in religious forms that reflect their social position. He draws particular attention to the role this plays for the poor: the disinherited do not find their needs met in the churches and thus form their own sects. Elmer Clark ( 1965 ), drawing on Niebuhr ( 1929 ) and Ernst Troeltsch’s ( 1960 ) church-sect typology, suggests that sects “elevate the necessities of their class—frugality, humility, and industry—into moral virtues and regard as sins the practices they are debarred from embracing” (Clark, 1965 , p 17, qtd. in McCloud and Mirola, 2009 , p 13). In Niebuhr’s view, such practices provide members with a religious discipline that lifts them out of poverty. However, once they have achieved a degree of cultural respectability, they neglect the poor that have taken their place, which leads this new body of the poor to develop their own sects as well, thereby continuing the cycle.

This question of what types of differences in religious behavior and organization are seen in churches that appeal to the working class versus those dominated by the middle or upper classes and how such divisions may serve to support or reproduce social inequality has continued to remain a subject of interest in different bodies of literature, including the community studies highlighted in the section on Marx and deprivation theory studies that tend to focus on the lower classes (see, e.g., Glock, 1964 , for an early sociological example). McCloud and Mirola ( 2009 ) summarize the conclusions of these various works:

1) There are class differences in denominational affiliation, 2) These affiliational differences foment divergent class cultures in local congregations, and 3) These class-cultural religious differences play out in religious beliefs, practices, styles and how they think about the dynamics of their community and world (p 8).

As they argue, such works show that class as Weber conceives it (one’s economic position) is not the sole determinants of the relationship between religion and social inequality; instead, cultural dimensions linked to one’s status also reinforce and maintain religious stratification (Coreno, 2009 ; Mirola, 2009 ; Nelson, 2009 ).

Much of the recent work on religion and class that continues to grapple with this issue of class-based differences in styles of religious practices now does so from a Bourdieusian perspective (see, e.g., McCloud, 2007 ; Nelson, 2009 ). Scholars have begun applying Bourdieu’s theory of practice, and in particular his concept of habitus , to better explore the relationship between religious styles and other cultural practices and specific class or status groups (Bourdieu, 1977 , 1984 ). Bourdieu’s theory dialogs with and builds upon both Weberian and Marxist theorizing, and he sees class as not just about income, education, or occupation, but also about habits, tastes, consumption, and even the way we move our bodies. Class, in short, involves boundaries, the way we distinguish between ourselves and others (see, e.g., Lamont, 1992 , 2000 ). Situating the concept in Bourdieu’s broader theoretical project, we know that class-based habitus and differential access to cultural capital is by nature exclusionary and thus reproduces social inequality. This process happens in multiple cultural fields, including the religious one: members of the same class not only have an affinity for the same styles of religious practice but also “feel hostile to, ridicule or reject the cultural choices of those unlike themselves” (Nelson, 2009 : p 53). People naturally sort themselves into different religious institutions where they can, as Nelson puts it, “be at ease with [their] kind”—and learn the types of behaviors and religious ideas linked to their specific class position. It is important to emphasize that the stratifying effects of habitus are often unconscious and unintended—a form of class unconsciousness rather than consciousness—which makes them difficult to counter, especially since, in Bourdieu’s view, one’s habitus is difficult to change. Footnote 3

Returning to Weber, scholars have also found aspects of his work that do not explicitly address religion, such as his theorizing on bureaucracies and organizational cultures, to be useful in evaluating the effectiveness of religious institutions in addressing poverty. Such research directs our attention to the ways in which the structures of religious organizations and the religious and interactional cultures within them can have unintended but dramatic impacts on an organization’s ability to, on one hand, recognize the needs of the poor in their community and, on the other, develop and successfully execute initiatives to help them. As this research shows, even when religious organizations identify a need in the community and make an effort to assist the poor, such attempts may go awry for reasons that have nothing to do with theology. Rather, their institutional or group culture may work against these efforts. Furthermore, as Mooney ( 2009 ) illustrates in her study of Catholicism and the Haitian diaspora in cities in three different Western countries, the broader social context in which religious organizations are operating, particularly local laws and cultural views of religion and ethnicity, plays an important role in fostering or constraining social action that religious groups organize on behalf of the underprivileged.

We highlight three strands of this work here: how religious institutions’ cultural orientations towards the poor condition the poor’s engagement with these organizations (Sullivan, 2011 ); how the institutionalized ideological orientations of religious institutions shape the congregations’ understanding of the poor in their community and the nature of their community involvement (McRoberts, 2003 ; Unruh and Sider, 2005 ); and how the culture and customs of interaction in religious groups working to relieve poverty or enact other forms of social change can, on one hand, provide valuable movement resources or, on the other, inadvertently derail even the most well-intentioned efforts (Harris, 1999 ; Lichterman, 2005 ; Morris, 1984 ; Patillo-McCoy 1998 ; Smith, 1996b ; Warren, 2001 ; Wood, 2002 ; Zald and McCarthy, 1987 ).

In her book on religion and mothers in Boston who are on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Susan Crawford Sullivan ( 2011 ) raises an important question that can bring religious institutions’ cultural orientations towards the poor to light: “How do [religious institutions] see the disenfranchised poor—as charity recipients or fellow congregants?” (213). In her own research and that of others who have studied religion among the urban poor in the United States (e.g., Laudarji and Livezey, 2000 ; Price, 2000 ; McRoberts, 2003 ), a key finding is that many churches, even those in poor neighborhoods, see the very poor as charity cases rather than potential fellow congregants. Both the church members and the marginalized poor draw on discourses of “respectability” to explain why the very poor are not viable members of the congregations that assist them through charitable action. As a result, even though Sullivan finds that religion plays a key role in the private lives of the poor single mothers whom she studies, and that many will go out of their way to make sure their children attend church, very few are involved with religious communities themselves. They feel excluded, which is an unintended result of churches’ cultural emphasis on respectability. Although these women are individuals who are often desperately in need of the support, sense of belonging, and social capital that religious communities can provide, they frequently feel ashamed of their circumstances and their failure to be respectable and thus avoid churches and other religious groups. In turn, many, although certainly not all, of the churches studied rarely make the effort to reach out to them as fellow Christians and potential members of their congregation.

Omar McRoberts ( 2003 ), in his study of churches in a poor African American-majority neighborhood in Boston, provides insight into the religious institutions’ perspective on why they might treat the very poor as charity cases rather than potential congregants. He shows us how the institutionalized ideological orientations of churches condition their view of and interaction with the poor in the local community. For these churches, many of which drew their membership from commuters from middle-class suburbs rather than the impoverished locals, “the street” outside the church walls was either something to avoid, convert, or serve or was some combination of the latter two; such understandings had theological roots but were not tied to specific denominations. In turn, such orientations helped shape the churches’ approach towards local “activism,” which in McRoberts’ view is determined not by common binaries such as worldly/otherworldly, church/sect, instrumental/expressive, or resistance/accommodation but rather a continuum based on whom they primarily serve (priestly/pastoral/prophetic orientations) and what kind of change they advocate (personal/socialization/social). The rare churches that actively engaged in the community were those with prophetic and social transformation orientations, a finding echoed by Unruh and Sider ( 2005 ), who show that churches with a holistic orientation that focus on meeting both the spiritual and social needs of the communities that they serve have the most successful missions. However, McRoberts does emphasize that congregations are dynamic organizations, and as such, their ideological orientations can change, which then, in turn, shifts their activism efforts. He finds that such adjustments are due not to large-scale political or economic changes (e.g., Davidson and Koch, 1998 ) but rather institutional shifts within individual religious organizations: leadership transitions and congregational growth. Unruh and Sider ( 2005 ) make a similar observation in the Anglo-American evangelical context: congregations draw on ethnic, denominational, and historical scripts to shape their mission orientation, but they also add in their own innovations in ways that continually renegotiate historical patterns.

Finally, even when religious institutions do recognize their distance from the community’s poor and make explicit efforts to bridge it, the culture and customs of interaction within the groups that are reaching out to the poor can either facilitate or hinder their efforts. Paul Lichterman ( 2005 ) shows how the efforts of religious institutions to bridge social divides can easily be derailed not due to lack of effort or declining interest but rather because the contexts in which they are doing this work reinforces taken-for-granted—and class-infused—modes of action that strongly limit their group’s reflexivity and thus their ability to make real connections with the poor they are hoping to serve. Out of nine middle-class Christian civic groups of various political orientation that he observes in the American city of “Lakeburg,” only one group succeeded in their efforts to build bridges with the poor. The process was fraught and required the group to reflexively evaluate and change the way they were operating, moving from an orientation of “helping” the poor to one of “partnership”—a change that harks back to Sullivan’s ( 2011 ) question of whether religious institutions see the poor as charity cases or potentially equal congregants. Even when it became clear that their well-intended efforts to build bridges with the city’s poor were faltering, the other groups shied away such reflexivity because it threatened their group norms, and as a result their initiatives all ultimately failed. This micro-level work illustrates how it may not be enough for a religious institution to identify poverty as a problem and create a program to address it; when groups involved in such efforts inevitably encounter problems—such as a clash between the class-conditioned expectations and modes of interaction on each side—the communications among group members may prevent them from making the changes necessary for the program to succeed. In this case, it is not a failure of religion to address poverty but rather a failure of the religious groups’ organizational cultures.

That being said, the extensive body of research on religion’s role in various movements for social change discussed in the section on Marx illustrates how successful movement organizations have cultivated specific interactional practices that help participants bridge a range of social divisions, including race, class, culture, and religious tradition, that often derail activist efforts. Prayer, for example, has been identified as particularly powerful, in that it adds a transcendent dimension to political action, sets an expectation for adherence to certain ethical values, and does important identity work (Wood, 2002 ; see also Braunstein, 2017 ). Other practices that Wood ( 2002 ) sees as important for the organizational success of the faith-based Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO) in Oakland, California, include one-to-one organizing, credentials, political conflict, and evaluation sessions. Just as certain religious interactional practices and organizational cultures can impede efforts to assist the poor, other ones—often consciously chosen to facilitate the development of social capital—strongly support such endeavors.

Weberian studies of religion, poverty, and social class in the Global South

As we saw with the Marxist literature, Weberian work on religion, social class, and poverty in the Global South illustrates basic similarities with the structures and dynamics found in the West while also further enriching our understanding of these processes. In particular, the works discussed here provide additional insight into, on one hand, the ways in which religion can exclude the poor through class and status-based behavior and through the structures of local religious institutions that allow the more powerful to reap the benefits of development aid. However, on the other hand, we also explore how religion can also strongly benefit the poor; this occurs when religious communities commit themselves to more egalitarian structures that empower the poor in the religious context.

Even though comparing the ways in which religious ideas shaped not only a society’s economic structure but also its bureaucracy and culture more broadly in societies as diverse as India, China, and ancient Judea was a vital component of Weber’s research agenda, this line of inquiry has received less attention in the context of the Global South than it has in the West. One exception has been Robert Woodberry’s ( 2011 , 2012 ; Woodberry and Shah, 2004 ) work on Christian missions around the world. He finds that locations that had Protestant missions in earlier eras now have more stable democracies than countries that did not. This association holds across countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. He argues that conversionary Protestants instituted programs and reforms, such as mass education and printing, an emphasis on religious liberty, and colonial reforms, that provided a “crucial catalyst” for “creating the conditions that made stable democracy more likely” (2012, p 244)—even after many of these programs had been secularized. A nation’s political system, in turn, can have a profound impact on the government’s ability to address poverty. Overall, however, this type of work has not been a major focus in sociological studies of religion in a global context; other issues and theoretical and methodological strands have been more important.

One of these strands takes up Weber’s focus on the elective affinity between religion and class and status as well as the dimensions of power inherent in this relationship; included here is also Bourdieu’s discussion of habitus and the ways in which it serves to build boundaries between people of different classes through the class-based nature of religious practice styles. Research in various global contexts illustrate that even if religious organizations do create communities that reach across class lines, the power dynamics of class and status do not remain at the doors of a church, temple, or mosque, often to the detriment of the less privileged. Returning to the example of Cao’s ( 2011 ) study of Christians in Wenzhou, China, he observes that many of the Christian rural migrants found that the prejudice and discrimination that they faced as outsiders in Wenzhou followed them into the church community, where native local believers doubted the reality and quality of their spirituality. Some converts had hoped that their religious involvement would provide them with the opportunity to network with local Christians, but they tended to remain in subordinate positions within the church community and had few opportunities to access important institutional resources such as intensive Bible training. As such, although they valued their faith and found it personally meaningful, Cao uncovers little evidence that their religious involvement helps to substantively improve their lives in any economic or social sense.

In terms of the role of class-specific religious cultures and styles impacting the poor’s inclusion in or exclusion from certain religious communities, anthropologist John Burdick ( 1993 ) provides a good example of the unintended and unforeseen effects of instituting specific styles of religious practice on the poor in Brazil. Burdick examines why the progressive Catholic church failed to expand its constituency among the poorest in the community but instead remained a largely middle-class movement. He finds that liberationists emphasized literacy and middle-class status symbols such as clothing and home furnishings in their community and small-group interactions, leaving the poor and illiterate feeling uncomfortable and excluded. Many of the poor found the local evangelical Protestant groups to be more welcoming and less judgmental. These churches also helped them solve their individual life problems, such as providing networks for decent jobs or otherwise improving their life chances, in ways that the Catholic church did not.

Furthermore, research outside of the West also shows us that religious institutions’ bureaucratic organization and institutional cultures can have far more profound effects on vulnerable populations than simply failing to engage with the poor or successfully execute poverty assistance programs, as is often the case in the West. Political scientist Timothy Longman ( 2010 ) provides a stark example in his study of Christianity and the Rwandan genocide. He presents case studies of two Presbyterian parishes to show how the social structures and theologies of churches, who are frequent conduits for development aid for the poor, can affect the degree to which those most in need are able to receive it. He shows that some parishes can be patrimonies and may distribute resources in a paternalistic or clientelistic fashion. In the case of Kirinda parish, this meant that those most favored by the pastor were chosen for parish jobs—a source of a more secure living than enjoyed by most in the parish—and that the businesspeople in the community likewise secured a prominent place in the parish. They headed committees that made decisions about workers on development projects and distribution of development aid to people, and they used this power to create clientelistic relations with those to whom they gave aid. This process included a focus on their own self-benefit, often through forms of corruption including kickbacks. The poor who did not have the ability to enter into such relationships were critical of the leadership but could do little to change the system. Moreover, this structure did not just disadvantage the poor; it also had deadly consequences: Longman argues that such structures ended up dividing the parish and facilitating the genocide.

By contrast, a poor rural parish located not far away in Biguhu was led by a pastor with a strong commitment to liberation theology and had a more egalitarian social structure that resisted hierarchies among those belonging to the church. Instead, the parish encouraged community involvement among all its members. In terms of its benefits for those living in the most abject poverty, the parish empowered its poor by positioning those most in need in leadership positions in cooperatives and small development projects. They were encouraged to see themselves as working in unity with others and did not create or support distinctions with those who were better off. They empowered the poorest among them. As a result, this was (to use the expression a bit idiosyncratically) a “rising tide that lifted all boats.” Importantly, in contrast to the patrimonial structure found in the Kirinda parish, this structure made genocidal killings, which mostly happened when Tutsi fled to what they thought was a safer location, more difficult to accomplish at Biguhu parish.

If we link the success of liberation theology at the Biguhu parish back to its failure to help the poor in the Brazilian context, we can see a clear difference in religious style and culture, which in turn has important implications for whether the poor feel excluded: the Biguhu parish did not emphasize literacy, as did the liberationist Catholics in Brazil. Instead, Rwanda’s history and living culture of oral storytelling permitted the illiterate to participate as equals. At a time when the global middle class is growing rapidly (Heiman et al. 2012 ) and studies of middle-class religious culture in very different global locales find, as Weber leads us to expect, remarkable similarities in their rationalized and text-oriented style of religious practice (Burdick, 1993 ; Koehrsen, 2016 ; Madsen, 2007 ; Rogers, 2017 ), such works sensitize us to the fact that there is a danger of middle-class religious styles becoming the normative expectation, to the detriment of the poor, even as the increasing wealth and political confidence of these religious communities fosters new avenues of charitable outreach (Koesel, 2014 ; Madsen, 2007 ). Rogers ( 2017 ), for example, compares the religious styles of middle-class Buddhists and Protestants in urban China and finds that both groups exert their moral authority as educated and cultured persons to delimit appropriate forms of religiousness, a process that serves to draw and reinforce class boundaries, as well as religious ones. Such attempts, regardless of whether they are conscious or inadvertent exercises of power, play out not only at the individual level but also, as Longman ( 2010 ) shows, at the institutional level as well. These global findings highlight points that McRoberts ( 2003 ) and others made in the Western context: just as class and status can foster certain styles of religious practice and bureaucratic organization, religious groups’ institutional structures and cultures can condition their expression and the ways in which they impact the poor.

As we have shown in this essay, social science has demonstrated that while religion can and does often aid in producing social and economic changes that benefit those living in poverty, it can also be implicated in shoring up social and economic inequalities that have adverse effects upon the poor. On the positive side, religion often offers structural benefits to those in poverty and can assist people in navigating their everyday lives. These benefits include, for instance, the services that religious institutions provide for the poor, the personal and communal meaning people from all classes derive from religion, and the fact that religious organizations remain a key building block of civil society in countries around the world. At the same time, religion can sustain and even promote class divisions and inequalities that are inimical to the values and ideals of many religious traditions. Religion can, for example, uphold the status quo in various ways, be it by legitimating social inequalities, bringing society’s power dynamics into the religious field, or reinforcing class-specific behaviors or ideologies. When and how religion either benefits or inhibits those in poverty is not simply a function of theology, though theology can play an important role, but also one of religious leadership, organizational dynamics, cultural contexts, and the broader social structures of local society. However, when religion can be activated to aid the poor, it is often a powerful force for change. Importantly, such findings are, within limits, applicable not only to the Western contexts in which sociology developed but also the world more broadly.

At the same time, it is important to note that despite our focus on social class in this piece, we recognize that for all the influence it has on the relationship between religion and poverty, it is not the only mediating factor at play. Other social inequalities, particularly race, ethnicity, and gender, also intervene in this process, and there remains much room for work on the interplay of these different factors. In a recent Annual Review of Sociology article, Melissa Wilde and Lindsay Glassman ( 2016 ) introduce the concept of “complex religion,” which involves recognition that religious affiliation is deeply entwined with structural inequalities such as race, class, and gender. They draw the idea of “complex inequality” (McCall, 2001 ) from intersectionality literature to develop the concept, although unlike most intersectionality research, which tends to remain at the micro level of analysis, Wilde and Glassman are particularly interested in “how these structures [of inequality] profoundly overlap with religious group membership” (408). Their focus is on religion and American politics, but we suspect that complex religion provides a fruitful starting point for research on other topics and in other locals, including religion, class, and poverty in a global context.

To conclude, as sociologists, we have primarily worked within the sociology of religion literature to explore the question of whether religion always helps the poor, with additional input from related works in other social science disciplines such as political science and anthropology. For many who work on religion and poverty, these insights confirm much of what they already know from their own engagement in fields as diverse as theology, religious studies, and development studies: that religion can be a powerful source for social change but that religious congregations have weaknesses when it comes to addressing the needs of the poor and that empowerment takes hard work. However, we hope that this brief review of some of the theoretical and empirical insights that sociology has to offer helps practitioners situate their own knowledge in the global context as they encounter the new challenges that arise in our increasingly globalized world.

Data availability

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

We recognize that the definition of social class is highly variable and remains contested in the sociological literature. Providing a definition is beyond the scope of this essay, and we instead work with the concept as broadly conceived by Marx and Weber. See Lareau and Conley ( 2010 ) for a recent compilation of sociological thinking on the topic.

Even in the post-Mao era, China remains a highly atheistic society. Most Chinese do not identify with a religion, so the majority of Christian rural migrants in Wenzhou converted after moving there, often due to the evangelizing efforts of boss Christians.

Recent literature that dialogs with Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in religious settings complicates this picture, however. Mahmood ( 2005 ), Rao ( 2015 ), and Winchester ( 2008 ) all show how religious actors actively deploy specific religious practices to inculcate desired religious dispositions.

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Rogers, M., Konieczny, M.E. Does religion always help the poor? Variations in religion and social class in the west and societies in the global south. Palgrave Commun 4 , 73 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0135-3

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Essay on Religion’s Impact On Society

Students are often asked to write an essay on Religion’s Impact On Society in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Religion’s Impact On Society

Introduction.

Religion is a big part of many people’s lives. It gives them a sense of purpose and rules to live by. It also has a big impact on society. This essay will look at some of the ways religion affects society.

Unity and Community

One big way religion impacts society is by bringing people together. People who share the same religion often form close communities. They support each other and work together. This can create a strong sense of unity and cooperation.

Moral Guidance

Religion also provides moral guidance. Many religions have rules about what is right and wrong. These rules can influence how people behave. This can shape society’s values and norms.

On the other hand, religion can also cause conflict. Different religions have different beliefs. Sometimes these beliefs clash, leading to disagreements or even wars. This can cause division in society.

In conclusion, religion has a big impact on society. It can bring people together, provide moral guidance, and sometimes cause conflict. Understanding this can help us see how religion shapes our world.

250 Words Essay on Religion’s Impact On Society

Religion is a big part of many people’s lives. It is like a guidebook for how they should live and behave. It can have a big impact on society, both good and bad.

Unity and Harmony

Religion often brings people together. People who follow the same religion often feel a sense of unity and harmony. They help each other and share common beliefs. This can make society stronger.

Values and Morals

Religion teaches values and morals. These are rules about what is right and wrong. Many people learn these rules from their religion and then follow them in their daily life. This can make society better, as people try to do what is right.

Conflicts and Division

On the other hand, religion can also cause problems. Sometimes, people who follow different religions do not get along. They can argue or fight because they have different beliefs. This can cause division and conflict in society.

In summary, religion can have a big impact on society. It can bring people together and teach them good values. But it can also cause division and conflict. It is important for everyone to respect each other’s beliefs, so we can all live together in peace.

500 Words Essay on Religion’s Impact On Society

Religion is a big part of many people’s lives. It helps them understand the world and gives them a set of rules to follow. But religion doesn’t only affect individuals. It also has a big impact on society as a whole. This essay will look at some of the ways religion influences society.

Religion and Morals

One of the biggest ways religion impacts society is through morals. Most religions teach people what is right and wrong. These teachings often shape the moral code of a society. For example, many religions teach that stealing is wrong. As a result, societies with these religions often have laws against stealing.

Religion and Unity

Religion can also bring people together. When people share the same beliefs, they often feel a sense of community. This can lead to strong bonds and unity within a society. For example, religious festivals and celebrations can bring people together and create a sense of belonging.

Religion and Conflict

On the other hand, religion can also lead to conflict. When people have different religious beliefs, it can sometimes cause disagreements or even wars. For example, many of the world’s conflicts have had religious differences at their core. This shows that religion can create divisions in society as well as unity.

Religion and Social Change

Religion can also lead to social change. Some religious teachings encourage people to work for justice and equality. This can inspire people to fight for social change. For example, many religious leaders played a big role in the civil rights movement in the United States.

Religion and Culture

Finally, religion plays a big role in shaping culture. Many aspects of culture, such as art, music, and literature, are influenced by religion. For example, many famous works of art depict religious scenes or themes. This shows how religion can shape the cultural landscape of a society.

In conclusion, religion has a big impact on society. It shapes morals, creates unity and conflict, leads to social change, and influences culture. While the impact of religion can be both positive and negative, it is clear that it plays a vital role in society. As we continue to live in a world with a variety of religions, it’s important to understand the influence they have on our societies.

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Critical Financial

17 Reasons Why Religion Is Good for Society

Posted: April 23, 2024 | Last updated: April 23, 2024

There is no doubt that religion has its problems. However, it hasn’t always been known for its negative effects. For centuries, it was the strongest pillar of society. In this article, we look at 17 reasons why religion can be a good thing for society, even today.

Promotes Ethical Values

Religions often advocate for high moral standards, encouraging people to act ethically. Almost all religions teach moral principles like honesty, kindness, generosity, and patience. Some go as far as saying that those who don’t follow these principles will be punished in this life or the next.

Strengthens Community Bonds

Religious communities create strong social ties and create a sense of togetherness. For many years, religion was a major form of identity that would strengthen community among people who belonged to the same religious institutions. This may explain why research shows that people who go to church live longer.

Supports Individuals During Hard Times

Religion can be a great pillar of support, offering solace and help in life’s difficult moments. Some churches even offer counseling and guidance for people going through hard times. Not to mention, the strong community one develops with other believers can be of great help.

Encourages Charitable Giving and Volunteering

Many religions emphasize the importance of helping those who are less fortunate. Discussed beyond financial giving, it also includes giving time, energy, and support. Every year, U.S. churches collect about $74.5 billion, which is used for many development projects such as schools, hospitals, and more.

Encourages Peace and Reconciliation

Religion can play a key role in promoting peace and resolving conflicts. For example, Christianity encourages forgiveness even for people who might not necessarily deserve it. If this mentality is encouraged in society, it can result in a more peaceful way of living where we don’t hold the past over each other.

Enhances Individual Well-being

Religious beliefs and practices can contribute significantly to personal well-being. Having faith keeps us going, even in times of desperate need. In addition to faith, practices like meditation and prayer, which benefit mental health, are also encouraged by religion. Many people say that religious practices in Buddhism have helped them through life’s toughest moments.

Influences Positive Societal Norms

In general, religion encourages us to be better people. A good example of this is the Ten Commandments of Christianity. If we all followed these commandments, there would be a significant reduction in how many crimes were committed. Some countries even use religious laws as constitutional laws. 

Encourages Respect for the Environment

Religion teaches people to care for the earth. It tells us to live in a way that doesn’t harm the environment and its resources. Many religious groups even participate in activities that protect our planet because they believe it’s their duty to look after the earth.

Promotes Family and Marital Stability

Religious teachings support strong family bonds and marriages. They teach the importance of staying committed to each other. Religion also encourages parents to raise their children with good values and gives advice on how to solve family problems. This helps keep families together and strong.

Supports Education and Literacy

For a long time, religion has played a big part in education. It has started many schools and promotes learning and good behavior. Religion also includes teaching right from wrong in school lessons. These efforts have helped many people learn not only school subjects but also how to be good people.

Enhances Cultural Identity and Diversity

Religion keeps old traditions alive and brings people of different backgrounds together to celebrate important religious events. These activities help everyone appreciate where they come from and the different ways people live. It makes our world more interesting to live in, despite our differences.

Provides Ethical Guidance in Business

In business, religion promotes being honest and making good choices. It teaches leaders to care about doing what’s right for their customers and employees. For example, Islam encourages honesty in business and even discourages charging high prices to customers in need.

Encourages Personal Responsibility and Discipline

Religion often encourages individuals to live disciplined lives and take responsibility for their actions. It teaches them to control themselves and live an honest life. By following religious teachings, people learn to be better and do what is right. This way, everyone can do their part in being a productive member of society.

Nurtures Artistic and Architectural Achievements

Religion has inspired beautiful art and buildings throughout history. It has made artists create wonderful paintings, music, and stories. Many famous buildings were built for religious reasons. For example, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, created from the religious devotion of the medieval period. 

Facilitates Healing and Personal Transformation

Religion can help people heal from within and change for the better. It has special ways and practices that help heal the mind and spirit. For those struggling with addiction or hurt from bad experiences, religion offers support and a path to recovery. 

Encourages Dialogue and Understanding Among Different Faiths

Modern religion also encourages people to talk and understand each other, even if they come from different faiths. It organizes events where people of various religions can meet, share, and learn from each other. A great example of this is interfaith dialogue initiatives like the Parliament of the World’s Religions , where leaders and followers of different faiths come together to discuss and address global issues, promoting peace and understanding.

Influences Positive Social Change

Religious beliefs have often been the catalyst for transformative social change. Mother Teresa, for example, called for the fair treatment of people, no matter where they came from. To this day, her teachings are remembered for championing the cause of uplifting those who are marginalized and oppressed.

Read More: Why People Aren’t Religious Anymore: 15 Simple Reasons

As society evolves, so does our approach to spirituality. This article looks at the subtle yet profound shift from traditional religious adherence to a more personal, evidence-based belief system.

Why People Aren’t Religious Anymore: 15 Simple Reasons

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