Religions
The three religions which are followed by nearly three-quarters of the world.
What are Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism?
Large bodies of people belonging to an established religious organization.
What is a church?
An activist Catholic religious movement that combines Catholic beliefs with a passion for social justice for the poor. Particularly active in Central and South America and Africa. In the US, associated with the Civil Rights Movement.
What is liberation theology?
A period, indicating rising secularization, during which the political influence of established religions is successfully challenged.
According to Philip Hammond, the US has experienced three historical periods: the Constitutional separation of church and state, the influx of members of new religious denominations (mainly Catholic), and the rise in influence of conservative (Christian) religious denominations.
What is (religious) disestablishment?
Believed that religion arises and is adhered to because people are alienated from their own actions and abilities and the world around them. They believe in God/gods to explain social order. Called religion "the opium of the people." Saw religion as a means to maintain inequalities, justifying them as natural or divinely ordered and/or pacifying or distracting the disempowered.
Who was Karl Marx?
Belief in a single god.
What is monotheism?
A religious sect that has lost its revivalist dynamism and become an institutionalized body, commanding the adherence of significant numbers of people (used to refer to different branches of the same religion such as Christianity or Islam).
What is a denomination?
A set of beliefs adhered to by the members of a community, incorporating symbols regarded with a sense of awe or wonder together with ritual practices.
What is religion?
The movement of a society away from religious beliefs and institutions, accompanied by a decrease in religious belief and involvement.
What is secularization?
Focused on religion much more than most founding scholars. Focused on the functions that religion served in society, mainly how religion cultivated social cohesion - binding people together - through shared values and practices. Defined religion as rituals, symbols, and objects representing the sacred. Viewed religion as an integral and functional element of society.
What was Emile Durkheim?
The fastest growing religion in the world, currently embraced by about one-quarter of the world.
What is Islam?
Fragmentary religious groupings to which individuals are loosely affiliated but that lack any permanent structure (often seen as overly zealous, exhibiting high control and isolation of members).
What is a cult?
A set of religious beliefs through which a society interprets its own history in light of some conception of ultimate reality.
What is civil religion?
A response to secularism in the US. A form of Protestantism characterized by a belief in spiritual rebirth (e.g., "born again") and a direct, personal, and emotional religious experience.
What is Evangelicalism?
Sees religions as organizations in competition with one another. This competition is over gaining followers. In turn, in a society with religious pluralism, individuals approach the multitude of religious options with a "market" mentality, choosing the option which they favor the most.
What is the Religious Economy perspective?
Belief in multiple gods.
What is Polytheism?
Religious movements that break away from orthodoxy (can become denominations).
What is a sect?
Focuses include social organization of religion, religion as a source of social solidarity, religion as it perpetuates social norms and values, social competition related to divergent religious memberships.
What are sociological studies of religion?
Amount of religious membership and practice, wealth, prestige, and general societal influence of religious leaders and organizations, and religiosity (how religious individuals believe they are).
What are measures of secularization?
Theorized about the effect of religion on social structure, specifically economic structures. Comparatively studied Hinduism in Indian and Confucianism in China. Focused mainly on the development of modern capitalism. Per the US: focused on the effects of Puritanism (Calvinism). Believed that religion could be a force for radical change as well as a stabilizing influence.
Who was Max Weber?
One of the first monotheistic religions and the smallest of the world's major religions.
What is Judaism?
Associations of people who join together to seek to spread a new religion or to promote a new interpretation of an existing religion.
Types include: world-affirming (focused on enhancing human potential through spirituality), world-rejecting (focused on isolation from the outside world), and world-accomodating (focus on the cultivating inner spirituality against worldly concerns).
What are New Religious Movements?
The linking of strongly held religious convictions with beliefs about a people’s social and political destiny. Often includes rejection of technological and economic modernization, tends to be anti-Western, and is on the rise globally.
Defined by highly anti-modern beliefs and strict codes of morality and conduct for adherents. Growing in the US in terms of adherents: from 42 to 49 million - 1 in 6 adults - between 1990 and 2008. Also growing in social and political influence.
Argues that classical sociological views on religion were limited by their focus on societies where one religion (denomination) dominated. Argue that sociology needs to take into account the multiplicity of religious practices (religious pluralism) in modern societies. Argue for a significant focus on secularization as a major influence on modern societies.
What is the Critical Perspective on the Classical View?