amazon.co.ukBeliefs in Society
Religion, science and ideology from Durkheim, Weber and Marx to secularisation debates and fundamentalism, with typologies, the postmodern challenge and 30-mark essay technique for AQA 7192 and OCR H580.
🎯 Learning Objectives
- Compare religion, science and ideology as worldviews, including Popper's falsification and Horton's open/closed systems (AQA 4.2.1)
- Set out Durkheim's functionalism, Weber's theodicy and rationalisation, and Marx's account of religion as ideology, with evaluation
- Classify religious organisations using Troeltsch and Stark & Bainbridge, and explain the church-sect trajectory
- Assess secularisation evidence (Wilson, Bruce) against supply-side and cultural-defence counter-arguments
- Explain the postmodernist account of religion (Lyon, Davie) and theories of fundamentalism (Giddens, Bruce)
- Deploy named studies and reached judgements in 10- and 30-mark answers (AO1/AO2/AO3)
📋 Key Definitions and Core Concepts
Sacred and profane: Durkheim's basic distinction: the sacred are things set apart and forbidden, inspiring awe; the profane are ordinary, everyday things. Religion is defined by this split, not by belief in gods.
Theodicy of disprivilege: Weber's term for religious explanations of suffering (e.g. reward in the afterlife) that appeal especially to deprived groups, making hardship meaningful and tolerable.
Disenchantment: Weber's description of the outcome of rationalisation: the magical and religious worldview is progressively displaced by scientific, calculated thinking; the world becomes 'disenchanted'.
Religion as ideology: Marx: religion is the 'opium of the people' - an illusion masking exploitation, promising compensation after death and legitimating class inequality as God-given.
Sect: A small, exclusive religious group that has split from a larger body (Troeltsch), demanding total membership, rejecting wider society and drawing mainly on the poor; often led by a charismatic leader.
Denomination: A religious body (Niebuhr) standing between church and sect: less exclusive than a sect, tolerant of other faiths, not tied to the state, with a middle-class following and a bureaucratic ministry.
Relative deprivation: Stark & Bainbridge: a subjective sense of being deprived compared with others or with expectations - explains why the relatively affluent as well as the poor join sects and cults.
Secularisation: Wilson: the process by which religious institutions, practices and consciousness lose social significance - declining participation, rationalisation and religion displaced from public life.
Belief without belonging: Grace Davie: a pattern in Britain where people hold religious beliefs but do not attend church - attendance falls faster than belief, so secularisation is partial.
Fundamentalism: A literal, uncompromising assertion of a single sacred text as the only truth (Giddens), typically a defensive reaction against modernity and globalisation; Bruce sees it as a product of modern society itself.
📌 Key Points
Durkheim (1912): religion = separation of sacred and profane; totemism shows society worshipping itself; religion has cognitive and integrative functions. Critique: Worsley - no sharp sacred/profane split in some tribes; works best in small-scale societies.
Weber (1905): Calvinist predestination and this-worldly asceticism produced the 'Protestant ethic', fuelling capitalism; rationalisation disenchant the world. Critique: capitalism predates Calvinism in Catholic Italy; multi-causal.
Marx: religion as ruling-class ideology, 'opium of the people'; Lenin's 'spiritual gin'. Critique: ignores the meaning religion gives the oppressed (Weber); religion can inspire resistance (liberation theology; MLK).
Typologies: Troeltsch (church, sect), Niebuhr (denomination), Stark & Bainbridge (audience/client/cultic-movement cults; sects from schism). Critique: ideal types that blur in reality (e.g. Mormonism fits no box).
Secularisation FOR: Wilson (contagion), Bruce (technological worldview; decline of community), attendance fall from ~40% (1851) to ~5-10%. AGAINST: Davie (belief without belonging), religious economy (America), cultural defence and transition (Bruce), Beckford - unsociological meta-concept.
Postmodernity: Lyon (Jesus in Disneyland; disembedding), Hervieu-Leger (spiritual shopping, pilgrims/converts). Fundamentalism: Giddens (defensive response to modernity; cosmopolitanism vs fundamentalism), Bruce (product of modernity).
Religion, science and ideology: the theories of religion
AQA 4.2, OCR H580 (Component 03) and Eduqas AC4.1 treat religion as one of three competing worldviews alongside science and ideology. Durkheim (1912) defined religion functionally by the sacred/profane split; his study of the Arunta's totemism argued that when people worship the totem they are really worshipping society - religion reinforces collective conscience and supplies categories for thought. AO3: Worsley found no sharp sacred/profane distinction in some tribes, and the theory fits small-scale societies better than complex plural ones; Mestrovic adds that modern social disorder makes Durkheim's integrative claim harder to sustain.
Weber (1905) began from meaning: Calvinist belief in predestination created 'salvation anxiety', answered by a theodicy of disprivilege and this-worldly asceticism - worldly success as a sign of election - which unintentionally fuelled the spirit of capitalism. Rationalisation then progressively disenchanted the world, displacing magic. AO3: capitalism developed in Catholic Italy before Calvin existed, so the causal arrow is contested; and Weber's own multi-causal method lets technology and state-building count too.
Marx treated religion as ideology: the 'opium of the people' dulls the pain of exploitation, promises pie in the sky and makes hierarchy appear God-given; Lenin called it 'spiritual gin'. AO3: this ignores the meanings the poor themselves attach to belief (Weber), and religion can inspire resistance - liberation theology in Latin America, the Black clergy in the civil rights movement (MLK). Feminists add that religion is patriarchal: El Saadawi saw veiling as an expression of male control, while Armstrong shows women have also found power within religion (e.g. medieval nuns). Science vs religion: Popper's falsification makes science an open belief system (Horton) that anyone may criticise, against religion's closed self-sealing claims; yet Kuhn (paradigms) and Polanyi (polyfactualism) show science itself rests on unproven assumptions.
Deepening Durkheim: Malinowski (1926) refined the functionalist account with the Trobriand islanders: religion deals with life crises (death rituals, canoe magic) where prediction and control fail, reinforcing solidarity at points of stress. Bellah (1970) adds civil religion - American civil religion sacralises the nation itself ('In God We Trust'), functioning as a unifying belief system even for the non-religious. Deepening science: Merton's CUDOS norms (communism, universalism, disinterestedness, organised scepticism) explain why science is institutionally open - knowledge is shared and every claim challengeable - while peer review polices fraudulent claims. AO3: closed systems are not confined to religion: Horton himself notes quasi-scientific dogmatism, and political ideologies (Lenin's Marxism) can be self-sealing too - so the open/closed boundary is blurred, and no worldview has a monopoly on irrationality.
Church, sect, denomination and cult: typologies and trajectories
Troeltsch (1912) distinguished churches from sects: churches are large, inclusive, universal, tied to the state, with a professional hierarchy and monopoly of truth; sects are small, exclusive, voluntary, hostile to wider society, with charismatic leadership and equality among members. Niebuhr (1929) added the denomination - a middle category, tolerant of other bodies, not claiming a monopoly, recruiting through birth rather than conversion. Cults are looser still: individualistic, without fixed membership. Stark & Bainbridge (1985) replaced the static typology with a spectrum of cult types - audience cults (loose consumer involvement, e.g. astrology), client cults (services for a fee, e.g. transcendental meditation) and cultic movements (full membership) - and argued sects arise by schism from existing churches.
Why sects and cults grow - and what happens next
Stark & Bainbridge explain growth by relative deprivation: even the materially comfortable may feel spiritually or status-deprived, and sects offer compensators for rewards this world denies. Weber's routinisation of charisma plus Niebuhr's 'the otherworldliness of upwardly mobile sect members' produce the classic trajectory: sect to denomination (Methodism is the textbook case), stable sect (the Amish), or death.
AO3: typologies are ideal types that blur in reality - the Church of England behaves denominationally, Mormonism fits no box, and NRMs cut across every category. Wallis (1984) classified NRMs instead by their relationship to the world: world-rejecting (e.g. the Unification Church), world-accommodating (e.g. Neo-Pentecostalism) and world-affirming (e.g. Scientology) - a functional rather than organisational grid that examiners reward as a refinement.
Refining the growth explanations: relative deprivation is not only material: the moderately deprived (affluent expectations unmet) are drawn to world-rejecting sects, while the very deprived may lack the resources to join at all; the privileged may experience relative spiritual deprivation (Wallis) - the New Age's world-affirming appeal to the affluent middle class fits this pattern. Heelas & Woodhead (2005) - the Kendal Project - found the traditional congregational domain declining while the holistic milieu (yoga, meditation, self-spirituality) grew: 'self-religion' replacing religion of the church. AO3: their own data show the holistic milieu remains a small minority pursuit, so the growth-of-the-New-Age claim should not be overstated; and sect membership statistics are unreliable because definitions of membership differ between bodies (Bruce), making trend claims contestable.
Secularisation in Britain - and the counter-evidence
Wilson (1966) defined secularisation as religion losing social influence, arguing it spreads by contagion: once one institution (school, welfare, state) is secularised, others follow. Bruce (2002) gives the strongest modern case: a technological worldview replaces religious explanations; the decline of community (rationalisation plus structural differentiation) removes the social settings where belief is practised; and churches have watered down doctrine to survive. Evidence for: Church attendance fell from around 40% in 1851 to roughly 5-10% today; baptisms, church weddings and Sunday schools have collapsed; clergy numbers fall; mainstream churches have softened doctrine on homosexuality and women priests - secularisation from within.
The counter-case: why some sociologists reject the claim
Davie (1994): 'belief without belonging' - belief falls far more slowly than attendance, and a residual cultural religion persists. Religious economy (Stark & Bainbridge): demand for religion is constant; supply is the variable - America's deregulated, competitive market keeps participation high (over 40% claim weekly attendance), so low British participation reflects a state-church monopoly, not secularisation. Bruce himself concedes: cultural defence (religion as a symbol of national or group identity, e.g. Poland's Catholic Church under communism) and cultural transition (religion for migrants) produce pockets of high religiosity. Beckford (2003): 'secularisation' is an unsociological meta-concept - observers project their own values and hold religion to a different standard of 'success' than other institutions.
AO2/AO3 for essays: the strongest answers treat secularisation as partial and uneven - declining for mainstream churches in Britain, but rising for world-affirming NRMs, megachurches and in contexts of defence and transition; relativise Wilson and Bruce against Davie, the religious economy and Beckford, then reach a judgement (e.g. secularisation is real for institutional religion, contested for belief and demand).
Deepening the evidence: Wilson's disengagement theme - religious institutions have lost their hold on wider society: education, welfare and politics are run secularly, and even the monarchy has de-sacralised. Structural differentiation (Parsons' own concept): religion's functions have been transferred to specialised institutions (schools socialise, the welfare state supports), leaving the church a residual role. British Social Attitudes surveys confirm the trend: those identifying as 'no religion' have risen from roughly a third to over half of adults, and church weddings are now a minority of marriages. AO3: identity statistics measure belonging, not belief or practice - Davie's point - and census wording varies, so the trend line is softer than raw numbers suggest.
Religion in a postmodern world; fundamentalism
Lyon (2000) - 'Jesus in Disneyland' - argues religion is being disembedded: electronic media lift beliefs out of their physical churches, so faith becomes a consumable choice, sprinkled across cyberspace and consumer culture rather than attached to one organisation. Hervieu-Leger describes spiritual shopping: 'pilgrims' follow individual spiritual journeys while 'converts' join intense revivalist groups; religion becomes a matter of consumption. Postmodernists therefore reject secularisation as a meta-narrative: religion has not vanished, it has been transformed - NRMs, New Age spirituality and healing all fit the consumer pattern.
Fundamentalism cuts against both the postmodern celebration of choice and the secularisation story. Giddens (1999) sees it as a defensive assertion of a single sacred text against modernity's cosmopolitanism, provoked by globalisation and uncertainty; fundamentalists reject the relativism the postmodern world celebrates. Bruce (2000) counters that fundamentalism is a product of modernity, not a pre-modern survival: where a whole society is fundamentalist (as in Iran) the cause is a third-world society's experience of modernisation; where it is a minority movement (the Christian Right in the USA) it is a reaction to rapid change and perceived secular decline. Davie notes the global pattern is mixed: a secularising Europe alongside resurgent religion elsewhere. AO3: Haynes argues 'fundamentalism' lumps together movements with different causes (Islamic, Hindu, Christian), and Bruce's own evidence shows fundamentalists use distinctly modern media and technology - consistent with Lyon's disembedding.
Deepening fundamentalism: Giddens pairs fundamentalism with cosmopolitanism - the reflective, tolerant openness of late modernity - and calls the two 'cousins': fundamentalism is itself a product of the same globalising forces, a reflexive retreat from uncertainty rather than a return to tradition. Davie's global pattern is threefold (European secularisation; American vitality; Pentecostal growth in the global South), and the worldwide growth of Pentecostalism suggests secularisation is regionally specific, not universal. AO3: the strongest answers avoid treating 'religion' as one thing: institutional decline in Europe, market vitality in the USA, spiritual consumption in postmodernity and fundamentalist reaction can all be true at once - Weber's multi-causal method is the template for holding them together.
💡 Worked Example
Exam-style: 1. Outline and evaluate the view that secularisation is taking place in Britain today. [30 marks]
2. Outline and analyse two explanations for the growth of new religious movements. [10 marks]
Mark-scheme logic: Q1 (30 marks): AO1 - define secularisation (Wilson), set out the case: Bruce's technological worldview and decline of community, structural differentiation, rationalisation (Weber), and the statistics - attendance falling from ~40% (1851) to ~5-10%, collapsing baptisms and church weddings, secularisation from within (softened doctrine). AO2 - apply each point to British religious life and named institutions. AO3 - evaluate against Davie's belief without belonging, the religious economy (America; Stark & Bainbridge), cultural defence and cultural transition (Bruce's own concessions), Beckford's meta-concept critique, and postmodern transformation (Lyon; Hervieu-Leger). Reach a weighed judgement: institutional secularisation in mainstream churches is real, but belief, demand and global religion complicate the claim - never 'both views have merit'. Q2 (10 marks): two developed explanations with application, e.g. relative deprivation - sects offer compensators for rewards the world denies (Stark & Bainbridge); individualisation - NRMs as consumer products answering personalised spiritual needs (Wallis; Lyon). Developed application only - no extended evaluation required.
❓ Practice Questions & Mark Schemes
Outline and analyse two functions religion performs for society. [10 marks]
Answer: Mark-scheme logic: two developed points with application. (1) Integration: Durkheim (1912) - shared worship of the sacred reinforces collective conscience and binds members into one moral community; in modern societies functional equivalents (nation, sport) can do similar work. (2) Meaning and coping: Weber - theodicies of disprivilege make suffering intelligible and tolerable, so deprived groups cope with hardship (e.g. Calvinist salvation anxiety). Accept any two functions (cognitive, emotional support, socialisation), each worth up to 5 marks with development.
Outline and evaluate the Marxist view that religion is ideological. [30 marks]
Answer: AO1: Marx - religion as 'opium of the people', masking exploitation, promising compensation, legitimating hierarchy; Lenin's 'spiritual gin'; Althusser's ideological state apparatuses. AO2: apply to class (hierarchy made God-given), to family and education, and to how the oppressed accept inequality. AO3: Weber - ignores the meanings the poor attach to belief; religion inspires resistance (liberation theology; the Black clergy and MLK); feminists note religion is patriarchal (El Saadawi) yet can empower women (Armstrong); functionalists credit integration. Conclusion must weigh ideology against meaning and resistance with a reached judgement.
Outline and analyse two differences between churches and sects. [10 marks]
Answer: (1) Relationship to society: churches are inclusive and tied to the state, claiming a monopoly of truth (Troeltsch), whereas sects are exclusive, voluntary and hostile to wider society. (2) Membership and leadership: churches recruit through birth and run a professional bureaucratic hierarchy, whereas sects demand total membership, prize equality and are led by a charismatic figure whose authority is later routinised (Weber), pushing the sect towards denomination (Niebuhr). Each point developed to 5 marks with application.
Outline and evaluate the view that religion in a postmodern society is a matter of consumption. [30 marks]
Answer: AO1: Lyon (2000) - disembedding, 'Jesus in Disneyland', belief sprinkled through media; Hervieu-Leger - spiritual shopping, pilgrims and converts; NRMs and New Age as a spiritual market; Stark & Bainbridge's religious economy. AO2: apply to online worship, self-help spirituality, megachurches and the New Age marketplace. AO3: secularisation evidence still stands for mainstream churches (Wilson; Bruce's technological worldview); fundamentalism rejects consumer choice (Giddens; Bruce); belief is still socially inherited through Hervieu-Leger's own 'chain of memory'; Beckford - meta-concepts mislead. Conclusion must judge how far consumption captures religion, with a weighed statement.
Outline and analyse two reasons why fundamentalism has grown. [10 marks]
Answer: (1) Reaction to modernity: Giddens (1999) - globalisation and rapid change create uncertainty; fundamentalists respond by asserting one literal, certain truth and attacking cosmopolitanism. (2) Experience of modernisation in third-world societies: Bruce (2000) - where a whole society is fundamentalist (Iran) the cause is imposed or failed modernisation; where it is a minority (the Christian Right in the USA) the cause is perceived secular decline and cultural threat. Each developed with application to 5 marks.