Chapter 10: Getting Religion: Faith in the Modern World 181
As much peace and happiness as religion has brought to people, as much as religious ceremonies and rituals are among the most treasured moments in people’s lives, it’s also true that (sincerely held, if distorted) religious values have served as the basis for some of the worst atrocities in human history — from the 15th-century Inquisition to 21st-century suicide bombers.
Religion in Theory . . . and in Practice
When studying religion, sociologists distinguish between the religious beliefs that people hold and the organizations that they form to facilitate their religious practices. In this section, I first explain how sociologists think about religious beliefs, then I explain how sociologists study religious organizations.
Religious ideas, ideology, and values
For any one individual, personal religious beliefs are often at the core of their religious experience — often, indeed, at the very core of everything that’s important to them. They may feel a deep and true connection to a larger world than that which we can see here on Earth. This is true of sociologists as well, most of whom are people of faith and practice some form of worship with their families in private.
When they put on their sociological lab coats, though, they must acknowledge that questions about the hereafter can’t be answered empirically. That’s what separates religious beliefs from other beliefs: they are matters of faith or philosophy rather than matters that can be tested with empirical observations. (See Chapter 4 for more on sociological research and empirical observations.) To study religion from a sociological standpoint, you need to focus on aspects of religion that can be observed in the here and now.
You can’t, of course, directly observe someone’s mind — or, if you prefer, soul. What you can observe is what they say, what they write, what they read, and what they do. Early sociologists like Marx, Durkheim, and Weber were interested in history and anthropology; they spent a great deal of time studying how religious beliefs had changed over time and varied across different societies in their own times.
What they found — and what many other sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and other scholars of religion have found — is that religious beliefs and values, intensely personal as they feel to any given individual, are generally shared by people in particular times and places. Further, they change over time in a way that doesn’t seem to be random. So why do they change over time? Why do they vary among different societies?
182 Part III: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World
Though they disagree about specifically why religious beliefs and values vary over time and among different societies, sociologists agree that those changes are typically related to changes in society.
Marx believed that religious values change to suit the interests of the powerful.
Durkheim believed that religious values change naturally as societies grow and become more complex.
Weber believed that religious values, as propagated by charismatic religious leaders, both influence and are influenced by social change.
It might be disorienting to think that religious belief and values have anything to do with society. After all, many people of faith believe that religious belief is a kind of antidote to social change, providing a compass for the faithful to sail by regardless of which way the prevailing cultural winds are blowing.
That belief is not inconsistent with a sociological view of faith. After all, the essential reason sociologists are interested in religious values is precisely because they do influence action. If religious belief were an entirely personal matter that had no affect whatsoever on anyone’s actions, it would clearly be beyond the scope of sociological study.
What makes religious belief a matter of interest to sociologists is the fact that people’s religious values do — or, at least, can — influence their actions. For many people, religious beliefs do provide a compass that acts like, to use Weber’s terms, a “switchman on the tracks” that influences what they will do in a given situation.
In Weber’s example of the “Protestant Ethic,” this meant that people who might have worked only as hard as they needed to get by day to day decided, instead, to work as hard as they could, to scrimp and save and to amass wealth. In your life, a religious belief that stealing is wrong may influence your decision not to take advantage of a situation where you could steal something and get away with it.
So for this reason (plus out of simple curiosity), sociologists are interested in why and how religious values change — and they have discovered that religious values do change, and change in ways related to changes in society.
You may believe it should not be the case that religious values change; you may believe that there is a single truth — whether it be found in the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, or elsewhere — that applies to all people, in all times. That may well be the case, but sociology studies the world as it is, not as anyone believes it should be, and the empirical reality is that religious beliefs are not constant.
Chapter 10: Getting Religion: Faith in the Modern World 183
Open the church: Religious organizations
When you were a kid, someone might have taught you the game where you clasp your hands together and recite the rhyme, “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people,” wiggling your fingers to represent the congregation. Although religion is for many people a purely
personal experience, most people — whatever their religious beliefs — gather with others for worship, mutual support, and perhaps to work together for goals consistent with their faith.
This means that in large part, the sociological study of religion is the study of religious organizations. Whereas members of religious organizations are united by faith rather than by the desire to make a profit, play a sport, or save the whales, religious organizations share many of the characteristics of organizations like corporations, teams, and nonprofits. (In fact, in most countries they are considered nonprofit organizations.) They have rules and bylaws, they set goals, create budgets, raise revenue, and elect or otherwise choose leaders.
As I mention earlier in this chapter, in centuries past (and in many societies today) religious organizations essentially were governments, taking direct responsibility for not just holding worship services but also managing the economic system, waging war, and enforcing laws. In most societies today religious organizations are separate from governments, and the primary task of many religious organizations is simply to maintain places of worship and offer religious services every day or week.
Many, though, set more ambitious goals. Churches and religious groups have been, and continue to be, directly instrumental in many aspects of society.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a minister, and churches were deeply involved in the American Civil Rights Movement.
In almost every country, religious groups are among the most important groups offering aid to the needy through shelters, food shelves, and economic assistance.
Many religious groups run schools that offer secular instruction in reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic along with religious education.
It’s common for religious groups to advocate for one side or another of a civic political issue — anything from health care to international relations — and to mobilize support for that position.
This important role that religious groups play in society is yet another reason sociologists appreciate that religion is an integral part of society.
184 Part III: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World
Cops, churches, and the “Boston Miracle”
In the 1990s, violence — especially youth violence — in the city of Boston plummeted. In 1990, there were 152 murders in Boston, but in 1999 there were just 31; for a period of two and a half years in the late 90s, there were exactly zero teenage homicide victims in Boston. This amazing development became known as the “Boston Miracle.”
Why did this happen? The Boston Police Department points with justifiable pride to a unique program that began in the early 1990s, where cops joined forces with AfricanAmerican religious leaders to fight youth violence. Inner-city churches held community meetings where ministers and police officers stood side by side to form a united front, telling young gang members that their behavior was destructive and had to stop. Many of the kids got the message, and many of those who didn’t were apprehended and imprisoned — with the cooperation of people in the communities they were terrorizing.
Sociologist Christopher Winship has been studying crime and policing in Boston neighborhoods
for decades, and he agrees that the cop-church partnership played an important role in reducing violence in Boston — though he points out that violent crime dropped in many U.S. cities in the 1990s, suggesting that in some ways Boston was simply part of a national trend. What Winship thinks may be most impressive about the Boston partnership is the way that it’s helped to minimize specifically racial violence in a city that saw terrible racial tension the 1970s and 1980s. The fact that black ministers have been seen publicly working with the police, Winship believes, has helped the entire community focus on fighting crime rather than pointing fingers at people because of the color of their skin.
The success of the Boston partnership — which continues, successfully, to this day — shows the continuing importance of religious organizations, especially in communities where other civic organizations are mistrusted. Because the Boston ministers had the trust and respect of their communities, they were able to help the police make those communities safer.
In the lives of believers, religious organizations may play a role well beyond facilitating worship. It’s common for religious communities to host meals and social gatherings, as well as to provide opportunities for members to engage in public service or recreation together. Recent decades have seen the rise of suburban “megachurches,” massive structures housing huge congregations. Members of these congregations may visit church every day whether to worship, study the Bible, relax at the coffee shop, watch a movie, or even work out on the church’s exercise equipment. Especially for people who feel that their values aren’t reflected in mainstream culture, it can be very satisfying to have a place to gather where they know they will be surrounded by people who share their beliefs.
Even when religious organizations don’t have an official role in governance, they can virtually define neighborhood communities. My father grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he still talks about the city not in terms of neighborhoods