Religion: Definition, Characteristics and Functions

MacIver and Page: religion implies a relationship not merely between man and man but between man and some higher power.

The characteristics of religion

1. Belief in the supernatural or the sacred, however conceived.
2. A distinction between the sacred and the profane.
3. Ritual and practice, which are not incidental: religion is done as much as believed, and Durkheim thought the doing was the more important half.
4. A moral community, a body of adherents who are joined by their common relation to the sacred.
5. Symbols and sacred objects.
6. A body of doctrine or myth, explaining origins, obligations and destiny.
7. A moral code, prescribing conduct.
8. Sacred places and times.
9. Specialists, in most developed religions: priests, monks, teachers.
10. A relation to the emotions. Religion addresses fear, grief, hope and awe, and its practices are heavily emotional.

The social functions of religion

Give these as functions, then give the dysfunctions, then the conflict and Weberian readings. That structure produces a complete answer.

Functions, in the functionalist reading

Social solidarity and integration. Durkheim's central claim. Collective worship assembles people, generates shared emotion, and renews the common sentiments on which the group's unity rests. What is worshipped, he argued, is at bottom the society itself.

Support and consolation. Religion supplies meaning in the face of suffering, injustice and death, which is why its rites cluster at exactly the crises Malinowski named.

Social control. Religion prescribes conduct and backs the prescription with sanctions beyond the reach of any human authority. It is one of the most powerful means of informal control, as [Formal and Informal Social Control] sets out, and its power lies in reaching conduct nobody observes.

Socialisation. It transmits values to the young, as [Socialization] notes.

Legitimation. Religion sanctions the social order, giving existing arrangements of authority and rank the appearance of rightness. This function is claimed by functionalists as integration and by conflict theorists as ideology; it is the same observation valued differently.

Identity and belonging, particularly for minorities and migrants, for whom religious institutions are frequently the main organised community.

Welfare. Religious institutions have historically provided education, medical care, food and shelter, and continue to do so extensively in India.

Psychological support, reducing anxiety and supplying confidence.

Dysfunctions

An answer that gives only functions is incomplete, and Merton's point in [The Functionalist Perspective] is that dysfunction is a question for investigation.

Division and conflict. The same solidarity that binds a community sets it against others, which is the in-group and out-group mechanism of [In-groups, Out-groups and Reference Groups] operating on the strongest available identity.

Resistance to change. Sanctifying an arrangement makes altering it sacrilege, and religious sanction has been invoked against social reforms in every society including this one.

Legitimation of inequality. Where a hierarchy is given religious sanction, as caste was, religion sustains it.

Obstruction of enquiry, where doctrine is treated as settling questions of fact.

The conflict reading

Marx's account is the sharpest: religion is part of the superstructure resting on the economic base, it consoles the oppressed for a condition it does not change, and by promising redress elsewhere it reduces the pressure for redress here. His description of it as the opium of the people is usually quoted without its surrounding sentence, which also calls it the sigh of the oppressed creature and the heart of a heartless world, and a student who gives the fuller passage shows that Marx regarded it as an expression of real distress and not merely as a trick.

The Weberian reading

Weber's contribution is the opposite in direction and is essential for balance: religious ideas can cause social and economic change rather than merely reflect the economy. The Protestant ethic thesis in [Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism] is the demonstration.

Religion and law

The connection matters for this course and is worth its own short section.

Law and religion were once the same thing. In most societies the earliest law is religious law, and the separation of the two is a late development.

Religion remains a source of law in India, through personal laws governing marriage, divorce, adoption, guardianship, maintenance and succession for the different communities. This is legal pluralism in the strict sense and is taken up in [Legal Pluralism].

Religion is a subject of law: freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion; freedom to manage religious affairs; the protection of minority educational institutions; provisions on religious instruction; and the offences relating to promoting enmity between groups and to outraging religious feelings.

Religion is also a limit on law, in that a rule offending deeply held religious sentiment meets resistance disproportionate to any sanction, which is the practical form of the argument in [Law and Social Change].

A worked example

A community festival in a Mumbai neighbourhood, run by a mandal, lasting ten days.

The functionalist reading: it assembles the community, renews shared sentiment, transmits belief to children, and provides a structure through which disputes are avoided and status recognised. It also distributes food and organises charity.

The conflict reading: it displays and reinforces the standing of the families who fund it; the committee is a route to local political influence; and participation is not equally open to everyone in the locality.

The Weberian reading: it is not merely a reflection of interests, since it also carries ideas that shape how participants understand obligation, hospitality and duty.

The legal reading: it involves permissions, noise regulations, use of public space, and the possibility of communal tension, so the state is present throughout, regulating something it did not create and cannot forbid.

All four are true at once, and being able to hold them together is what studying religion sociologically means.

Quick revision

1. Durkheim's definition: a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, uniting adherents into one moral community. Three parts: beliefs, practices, community.
2. Sacred and profane: nothing is sacred by nature; the sacred is what is set apart and forbidden.
3. Malinowski: magic is instrumental and used where technique fails; religion is an end in itself and addresses life crises.
4. Characteristics: the sacred, ritual, a moral community, symbols, doctrine, a moral code, sacred places and times, specialists, and an appeal to the emotions.
5. Functions: solidarity, consolation, social control, socialisation, legitimation, identity, welfare, psychological support.
6. Dysfunctions: division and conflict, resistance to change, legitimation of inequality, obstruction of enquiry.
7. Marx: superstructure, consolation without change, the opium of the people, though also the sigh of the oppressed creature. Weber: religious ideas can cause economic change.
8. Sociology does not ask whether religious claims are true.

Test yourself

1. Give Durkheim's definition of religion and explain its parts. A unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is things set apart and forbidden, which unite into one single moral community all who adhere to them. Its three parts are deliberate: beliefs, which are the ideas held; practices or rites, which are what adherents do and which Durkheim thought the more important half; and a community, since religion is collective and not a private conviction. The definition avoids reference to gods so that it covers religions which have none.

2. Distinguish religion from magic. Following Malinowski, magic is instrumental: a technique employed to produce a definite result, resorted to where knowledge and skill are insufficient to guarantee the outcome. Religion is not a means to a further end; its rites are performed as ends in themselves, it addresses the great crises of life, birth, initiation, marriage and death, and it involves a moral community, whereas magic may be practised individually by a specialist for a client.

3. State six social functions of religion. It produces solidarity by assembling adherents and renewing shared sentiment; it consoles and supplies meaning in the face of suffering and death; it controls conduct, reaching behaviour that no observer sees; it socialises the young into the society's values; it legitimates the existing social order, making established arrangements appear right; and it supplies identity and belonging, especially to minorities and migrants, along with welfare provision such as education and medical care.

4. Give the conflict and the Weberian readings of religion, and say how they differ. On the conflict reading, associated with Marx, religion belongs to the superstructure resting on the economic base; it consoles the oppressed for a condition it does not alter and, by promising redress elsewhere, reduces pressure for redress here. On the Weberian reading, religious ideas can themselves cause economic and social change, as the Protestant ethic thesis argues. They differ in the direction of causation: for Marx religion reflects material conditions, for Weber it can help to produce them.

5. Why does sociology not ask whether religious beliefs are true? Because the question cannot be settled by any observation, and the discipline's claim to be empirical requires it to confine itself to what can be studied by evidence. What sociology can study is what people believe, what they do, how the beliefs and practices are organised, how they change, and what consequences they have for solidarity, control, stratification and law. Taking a position on truth would exceed its methods and would also make the study of other people's practices impossible.