Topic 4: Religion renewal and choice

• New forms of religion: from obligation to consumption


  Davie argues in today’s late modern society were seeing a major change in religion away from obligation towards consumption or choice

  • In the past churches, such as the church of England and the Catholic Church could oblige people to go to church and to believe certain things and behaving certain ways
  • This is no longer the case, religion is no longer inherited or imposed but a matter of personal choice
  • E.g. in England and France infant baptism was once seen as obligatory right of passage but now only in minority of babies are baptised
• New forms of religion: believing without belonging

  Davie religion is taking a different more privatise form not to declining, people are increasingly reluctant to belong to organisations whether these are churches, political parties or trade unions but despite this people still hold religious beliefs

  • Just because people attend church, donate money etc doesn’t mean they truly believe, it might just be to catch up with friends/keep appearances
• New forms of religion: vicarious religion, the spiritual health service

  davie notes a trend towards vicarious religion, meaning religion practice by an active minority (the professional clergy and regular churchgoers) on behalf of the greater minority religion at secondhand

  • Engage vicariously through others
  • davie in Europe the major national churches are seen as public utilities or sort of spiritual health services like the NHS, it’s there for everyone to use when they need to in times of national tragedy/mourning such as the death of Princess Diana in 1997 or terrorist attacks
• New forms of religion: vicarious religion, the spiritual health service


  Davie compares vicarious religion to the tip of an iceberg and sees it as evidence of believing without belonging, beneath the surface of what appears to be only a small commitment (few people attend church regularly) lies are much wide commitment

  • People remain attached to the church as an institution that provides ritual and support when needed and they continue to share at some level its beliefs
• New forms of religion: vicarious religion, the spiritual health service

  Davie argues secularisation theory assumes that modernisation affects every society in the same way, causing the decline of religion

  • Davie questions this assumption, instead of a single version of modern society she argues there are multiple modernities
  • Britain and America are both modern societies, but with very different patterns of religion, especially in relation to church attendance, it’s high in America, low in Britain but accompanied by believing without belonging
• New forms of religion: neither believing nor belonging

  voas and Crockett don’t except Davies claim that there’s more believing than belonging

  • Evidence from 5750 respondents show that both church attendance and belief in God are declining together
  • If davie was right We would higher levels of belief
  • Bruce adds that if people are not willing to invest time in going to church, this is reflects the declining strength of their beliefs
• New forms of religion: neither believing nor belonging

  2011 consensus showed that 63% of people identified themselves as Christian which supports Davies claim of believing without belonging

  • However, Abby day found very few ‘Christian’s’ she interviewed mentioned God or Christianity
  • The reason for describing themselves as Christian was not religious but simply a way of saying they belong to a white English ethnic group
• New forms of religion: spiritual shopping

  hervieu-leger Argues, there’s been a dramatic decline in institutional religion in Europe with few and fewer people attending church in most countries

  • This is because of what she calls cultural amnesia or a loss of collective memory of religious traditions and beliefs used to be like
  • For yrs, kids used to be taught religion in the extended fam and church but weve lost the religion that used to be handed down from generation to generation because a few parents now teach their kids about religion instead they let kids decide themselves what to believe
• New forms of religion: spiritual shopping


  Nowadays, kids can decide for themselves what they want to believe and they’ve become spiritual shoppers

  • They have no fixed religious identity, but that doesn’t mean that religion has disappeared entirely it has simply changed its form
  • Religion has become a personal, spiritual journey where we choose the elements we want to explore and the groups we wish to join within a spiritual marketplace
• New forms of religion: spiritual shopping

  Hervieu-Leger identifies 2 religious types emerging:

  • Pilgrims, follow their own individual path to self discovery Eg exploring new age spirituality by joining groups or through individual therapy. The demand is created by today’s emphasis on personal development.
  • Converts, Join religious groups that offer a strong sense of belonging, e.g. Evangel movement all the churches of minority ethnic groups
• New forms of religion: spiritual shopping


  As a result of these trends

  • religion no longer acts as the source of a collective identity but it does still continue to have influence on societies values
  • EG, the values of equality and human rights have their roots in religion
  • hervieu-legers views can be related to the idea of late modernity the notion that in recent years some of the trends within modern society had begun to accelerate E.g. the decline of traditional and increasing individualism
  • This explains the weakening of traditional institutions such as the church
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion

  Lyon agrees with Davie that believing without belonging is increasingly popular, he argues that traditional religion is giving way to a variety of new forms of religion that demonstrate its continuing vigour

  • He explains this in terms of a shift in recent decades from modern to post modern society
  • He argues postmodern society has a number of features that are changing the nature of religion, including globalisation, the increased importance of media and communications and the growth of consumerism
• New forms of religion: post-modern religion, globalisation, the media and religion

  Globalisation refers to the growing interconnectedness of society which is led to greatly increased movements of ideas and beliefs across national boundaries

  • This is due to the media and information technology which saturates us with images and messages from around the globe, compressing time and space to give us instant access to the ideas and beliefs of previously remote places and religions
  • Religious ideas become diembebbled, the media lift them out of churches and move them into a different place + time
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion, globalisation, the media and religion


  For example, the electronic church

  • TV programmes/websites present a preacher and religious services online so that believers no longer need to attend the church to express their faith they do it via media
  • In the USA, there’s 1064 religious radio stations this grows one per week
  • Religions become de-industrialised , removed from its original location/institution and is floating in cyberspaces
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion, online religion and religion online


  The Internet that creates a range of opportunities for religious organisations and individuals to exploit

  helland distinguishes between two kinds of Internet activity

  • Religion online- is a form of top down communication where religious organisations uses the Internet to address members and potential converts, this is an electronic version of the traditional, higher article ation of churches to their members, communicating only the officially approved ideas
• New forms of religion: post-modern religion, online religion and religion online

  Helland

  • Online religion- cyber religion which may not exist outside the Internet, It is a many too many form of communication that allows individuals to create non-hierarchal relationships and a sense of community where they can visit virtual worship or meditation spaces, explore shared spiritual interest and provide mutual support
  • Postmod see online religion as a radical new alternative that may be replacing religion in order to suit individualistic needs
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion- religious consumerism


  Postmodern Society involves the growth of consumerism, especially the idea that we construct our identities through what we choose to consume

  • as hervieu-leger emphasises this is also true of religion as we act as spiritual shoppers choosing religious beliefs and practices to meet our individual needs from the vast range available in the religious marketplace
  • We no longer have to sign up to specific religious traditions instead we can pick and mix elements of different faiths to suit our taste and make it part of our identity
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion- religious consumerism

  Lyon- argues religion has relocated to the sphere of consumption, while people may have ceased to belong to religious organisations, they have not abandoned religion instead they’ve become religious consumers making conscious choices about which elements of religion they find useful
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion- religious consumerism


  the American Christian fundamentalists in Nancy ammermans study makes use of a number of churches without giving strong loyalty to any of them, one family attended Methodist church and behave counselling at Baptist Church while taking their kids to another church for daycare

  • What effect of having a great variety of religious products to choose from is a loss of faith in meta narratives, theories or views that claim to have the absolute authoritative truth
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion- religious consumerism


  People now have access to a wide range of different and contradictory religious beliefs Berger this weekend traditional religions that claim a monopoly of truth and that try to oblige people to believe them

  • This is because exposure to many competing versions of the truth makes people sceptical that any of them is really the truth
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion- religious consumerism


  however Postmodernists such as Lyon argue the decline of traditional churches doesn’t spell the end of religion. He argues many new religious movements and now springing up that religious consumers can sample and from which they can construct their own personal belief system.
• New forms of religion: postmodern religion, self religions and the new age


  Many of the new forms of religion or spirituality that lyon refers to our new age beliefs and practices

  • New age spirituality rejects the idea of obligation and obedience to external or authority and found in traditional religions
  • Instead it emphasises the idea of life as a journey or discovery, personal development, autonomy and connecting with ones in her self
• New forms of religion: post-modern religion- self religions and the new age


  Individualism links personal development and connecting with ones in a self together

  • Individualism links this together the notion that every individual is free to decide what is true for themselves e.g. by engaging in spiritual shopping, for this reason beliefs and practices have been called self spirituality or self religion
• Postmodern religion- re enchantment of the world

  Lyon criticises secularisation theory for assuming that religion is declining and being replaced by traditional scientific world view

  • To Webber prediction of increasing rationalisation and disenchantment of the world, Lyon argues that we now in a period of enchantment with the growth of unconventional beliefs, practices and spirituality
  • Although traditional forms of religion has declined, especially in Europe lyon points to the growing vitality of non-traditional religion in the west and it’s resurgence elsewhere in the world
• A spiritual revolution


  Sociologist argue a spiritual revolution is taking place in which traditional Christianity is giving way to a holistic spirituality or new age beliefs and practices emphasise personal development and subjective experience

  • Increased interest in spirituality can be seen in the growth of a spiritual market with an explosion in the number of books about self-help and spirituality, and the many practitioners who offer consultations courses and therapies ranging from meditation to crystal healing
• A spiritual revolution

  In heelas and woodheads kendal study in Cumbria they investigated whether the traditional religion has declined and if so how far the growth of spirituality is compensating for this, they identified two different groups

  • The congregational domain of traditional and evangelical Christianity
  • The holistic milieu of spirituality and the new age
  • They found that in 2000, a typical week, 7.9% of the population attended church and 1.6% took part in the activities of the holistic mileu
• A spiritual revolution


  With the congregational domain, the traditional churches were losing support, while evangelical churches were holding their own and fairing relatively well, although fewer were involved in the holistic milieu it was growing. Heelas and woodhead offer an explanation for these trends:

  • New Age spirituality has grown because of a massive subjective turn today’s culture involving a shift away from the idea of doing your duty and a banging external authority to exploring your inner self by following a spiritual path
• A spiritual revolution

  Heelas Woodheads explanation for these trends

  • As a result, traditional religions which demand duty and obedience are declining
  • Evangelical churches are more successful than the traditional churches, they both demand discipline and duty, but the Evangelicals also emphasise the importance of spiritual healing and personal growth through the experience of being born again
  • In the spiritual marketplace, the winners are those who appealed to personal experience as the only genuine source of meaning and fulfilment rather than the teachings of traditional religion
• The weakness of the new age

  Many sociologists argue that there is no general trend towards secularisation, and their religion is not declining but rather changing its nature or form however critics challenge this trend. Bruce makes the following points:

  • The problem of scale, even if new age forms of industrialised religion are spring up, this would have to be on a much larger scale if if it was to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional industrialised groups
• Weakness of the new age- Bruce 


  Example of the problem of scale-

  • in Kendal in 1851 about 38% of the population of attended church every Sunday, to match that today they would need to be 14,500 churchgoers instead of the 3000 who actually attend church, the 270 people involved in the holistic Milieu in the town come nowhere near to making up the shortfall
• Weakness of the new age – Bruce

  Socialisation of the next generation- for a belief system to survive it must be passed down to the next generation

  • however in Kendell only 32% of parents who were involved in the new age said their children shared the same spiritual interests, yet to maintain the same number of believers in the next generation a typical couple with two children would have to socialise both of them into new age views
  • Furthermore- women in the holistic milieu more likely to be childless and in 3/4 of marriages with women in the holistic milieu the husband doesn’t share view
• The weakness of the new age

  Weak commitment, glendinning and Bruce found that although many people dabbled in meditation, alternative medicine, astrology ect , serious commitment to new age beliefs and practices was very rare even among those who describe themselves as spiritual

  • Very few said that such practices were important in their lives
  • Bruce notes that most people in every democratic category show no interest in alternative spirituality
• Weakness of the new age- Bruce


  Structural weakness- new age spirituality is itself a cause of secularisation because of its subjective, individualistic nature, it’s based on the idea that there is no higher authority than the self

  • This means that unlike traditional religion, the new age:
  • Lack external power (like the church hierarchy) to extract commitment from the New Age participants against their wishes
  • Can’t achieve consensus about its belief cus everyone is free to believe what they wish
  • Can’t evangelise (persuade others of the truth) because it believes entitlement comes from within
• Religious market theory


  Stark and brainbridge are very critical of secularisation theory which they see is Eurocentric (focusing on the decline of religion in Europe and fails to explain explain its continuing vitality in America and elsewhere)

  • They also view it as putting forward a distorted view of the past and future arguing. There was no golden age of religion in the past nor is it realistic to predict a future endpoint of religion
• religious market theory


  stark and brainbridge

  • propose religious market theory which puta forward two assumptions
  • People are naturally religious and religion meets the human needs- therefore the overall demand for religion remains constant, even though the demand for a particular type of religion may very
  • It is human nature to seek reward and avoid costs- when people make choices, they weigh up the cost and benefits of the different options available
• religious market theory- compensators

  stark and brainbdidge arghie religion is attractive because it provides us with compensators

  • When real rewards are scarce or unobtainable, religion compensates by promising supernatural ones eg immorality is unobtainable but religion compensates by promising life after death
  • Only religion can provide such compensators, non-religious ideologies such as humanism or communism don’t provide credible compensators because they don’t promise supernatural rewards
• Religious market theory- compensators

  stark and brainbridge- the cycle of renewal

  • As an alternative to secularisation theory stake and Brainbridge put forward the concept of a cycle of religious decline, revival and renewal
  • They describe a perpetual cycle throughout history with some religions declining and others growing and attractive new members
  • E.g. when the established churches declined, they leave a gap in the market for sects and cults to attract new followers
  • From this view secularisation theory is one sided it sees the decline but ignores the growth of new religions
• Religious market theory- compensators

  Religious competition- according to stark and Brainbridge churches operate like companies selling goods in a market

  • Secularisation theory sees competition between religious organisations as undermining religion, religious market theorist take the opposite view arguing competition leads to improvements in the quality of religious goods on offer
  • The churches that make their product attractive will succeed in attracting more customers
• Religious market theory- America V Europe


  The demand for religion increases when there are different sorts to choose from, because consumers can find one that meets their needs

  • By contrast where there is a religious monopoly (one church with no competition) it leads to decline this is because without competition a church has no incentive to provide people with what they want
  • stark and brainbridge argue religion thrives in the USA because there has never been a religious monopoly
• Religious market theory America V Europe


  The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the separation of church and state and there’s always been a great variety of denominations to choose from which encourages the growth of a healthy religious market where religions grow or decline according to customer demand

  • In Europe it’s entirely different, most European countries have been dominated by an official state church which had a religious monopoly such as the church of England England, competition has been held back and the lack of choice has led to decline