Sociology 3301: Sociology of Religion
Overheads Lecture 2: Further Definitional Considerations
Today we will do two things:
(1) Consider the relationship between religion, on one hand, and magic
and spirituality on the other; and
(2) Discuss more squarely what it is that the sociology of religion does.
Religion vs. Magic:
 One issue that often comes up is the boundary between religion
and related social phenomena, like magic.
 It is important to clarify these distinctions, which, while not
always mutually exclusive, tend to have different emphases in
practice.
 Tilley (1972) arranges ideal typical differences between religion
and magic as follows:
(1) In religion, there is a sense of a “group” of common believers,
exemplified by a church, temple, or mosque; in magic no faith
community or “group consciousness” is involved;
(2) In religion a moral ethos, or system of ethics, guides adherents’
behavior; in magic there is no moral ethos or systematic pattern
of ethics present;
(3) In religion, rites are meaningful, reinforcing patterns of belief; in
magic, rites are not necessarily meaningful: they are used to cast
a spell or to make something happen;
(4) In religion, rites occur calendrically on a regular basis each
week, month, and/or year; in magic rites occur at critical (crisis)
times;
(5) Religion functions for both the individual and the social
structure; magic functions only for individuals, not for social
structure;
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(6) In religion, participation is open, and a leader leads the entire
group in performance of ritual; in magic, the leader is the only
one to know ritual and how to perform it: other present are
passive; and
(7) In religion, the worship of a transcendent being or power as
intrinsically worthy of one’s attention occurs; in magic,
manipulation of impersonal, transcendent power occurs for
utilitarian reasons.
* Again, this is a neat, tidy separation for analytic purposes, but in
specific cases sometimes things are a little messier. Thus they are
perhaps best seen as matters of emphasis.
Spiritual But Not Religious?
 Another issue that arises today is whether private systems of
belief can be called religion. Many people say “I’m spiritual, not
religious.” But what is spirituality?
 Wuthnow (1998) argues that spirituality consists of all the beliefs
and activities by which people attempt to relate their lives to the
divine or some other conception of a transcendent reality.
 Nothing in this is necessarily antithetical to religion, and
spirituality has been historically connected to religion (e.g.
Sufism in Islam, Kabbalah in Judaism).
 Hamberg (2009) calls what we see more often today “unchurched
spirituality – religious beliefs and practices that exist outside of
traditional religious institutions.
 But “unchurched” does not mean not social. Spirituality is not the
sole creation of individuals, but is shaped by larger social
circumstances, beliefs, and values present in the wider culture.
 We construct our spirituality out of the social toolbox of cultural
resources available around us – and many of these are actually
rooted in the major religious traditions.
 Hence, individual spirituality is never far removed from religion .
 Surveys show a lot of overlap: In a study of baby boomers by
Wade Clark Roof (1999), 60% of respondents claimed to be both
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spiritual and religious while only 15% claimed to be spiritual but
not religious.
 More recently, Newsweek and the Beliefnet website polled a
random sample of Americans and got similar results. A majority
of older Americans, including baby boomers, continued to see
themselves as both religious and spiritual, but this fell to 48%
among respondents under 40. Indeed, 30% of those younger
respondents claimed to be spiritual but not religious.
 Yet, generational changes notwithstanding, these results show the
difficulty of trying to separate religion and spirituality.
In the end, given the definitions and boundary issues above, we
must be aware that how we define a given phenomena has a great
deal to do with how we study it.
 Thus, throughout the course it will be important to reflect on:
(1) Your own assumptions regarding the definition of religion;
(2) The defining criteria used by social scientists; and
(3) The working definition of religion that we outlined last class.
What Do Sociologists of Religion Do?
What, exactly, do sociologists of religion do? Drawing upon the
work of Zuckerman, I outline this by considering 10 points:
1. Sociologists study social groups (e.g. congregations, study
groups, pagan solstice celebrations).
2. Sociologists study social interaction: sociologists pay careful
attention to the rich and dramatic varieties of social interaction
that compose religious phenomena (e.g. Christenings, bar
mitzphahs, etc.)
3. Sociologists study social institutions and social structures:
Sociologists of religion are interested not only in analyzing
religion as a social institution in its own right, but also in
understanding how religion influences, and is influenced by,
other major social institutions (e.g. the economy, social class).
4. Sociologists study social patterns: Do religious people divorce
less frequently than the nonreligious? Are people are more or less
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religious today than they were in the past? There are lots of social
patterns and trends that may be studied in relation to religion.
5. Sociologists understand that an individual can be truly
understood only within his or her socio-historical context: Many
people who claim “no religion” in the West today cannot be
understood outside of the social and cultural context they live in.
6. Sociologists are interested in the ways in which individuals are
shaped and influenced by their social environment: Sociologists
are fascinated by the effects of religion on various things like
people’s sex lives, political views, national identities, economic
activities, eating habits, career choices, marital relations, and,
conversely, how such things affect people’s religious identities.
7. Sociologists are fascinated by deviance, nonconformity, and the
ways in which people resist or change the social forces that
surround them: For example, every new religion was originally
deviant in a given social order. In such contexts, some individual
or group of individuals decided to go against the norm, to rebel
against the established order, to defy the authorities, and even the
law.
8. Sociologists are fascinated by “the social construction of
reality.” The sociological perspective opens up the unavoidable
possibility that religion may well be a social construction. When
studying the world sociologically, one must bracket the question
of whether religion is truly something received from Above. This
can lead to other useful insights worth knowing in their own
right.
9. Sociologists debunk: Debunking within sociology expresses itself
in 2 basic directions: (1) debunking “commonsense” views and
ideas about religion held throughout the wider society; and (2)
debunking various religious truth claims themselves.
10.Sociology entails a critical approach to understanding the world:
Sociologists always take a questioning, skeptical view of all
social phenomena – and that applies to our study of religion as
well. Hence, nothing is sacred. We do not shy away from
tackling difficult issues. We do not aim to expose or
sensationalize these things in our studies, but if we do find
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inconsistencies or improprieties, we certainly would not sweep
them under the rug.
Being an outsider to religion means that there are just some
crucial matters that we may never completely understand. But
this also applies to the insider: the profoundly religious are also
hindered in their understanding of some very important matters
that can only be grasped from the outside.
Neither the sociological (outsider) perspective nor the religious
(insider) perspective on religion has the monopoly on truth. Both
have their own particular insights. Both are important and
essential.
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