Religion, culture and society
Religion, culture and society
This domain tests the sociology of religion: secularisation and its critics, church-sect typology, civil religion, inculturation and popular piety.
Secularisation and its critics
- Weber: disenchantment and the rationalisation of the world.
- Wilson and Bruce: the secularisation thesis - religion loses social significance.
- Casanova and Berger's 'desecularisation': religion returns to the public sphere.
- Davie: 'believing without belonging'; belonging and belief can diverge.
Types and culture
- Troeltsch: church (inclusive, tied to society) versus sect (voluntary, exclusive, in tension with society).
- Niebuhr: denominations as settled, socially accommodated bodies.
- Civil religion (Rousseau; Bellah's American case): national symbols and rituals with religious force.
- Inculturation: the Gospel rooting itself in a culture; popular piety (festi, processions) as genuine religiosity.
Worked example
A new charismatic group meets in a garage, imposes a strict moral code and rejects wider society. Reasoning: by Troeltsch's typology this is a sect - voluntary membership, exclusive boundary, tension with society, charismatic authority. If it acquires buildings, educates its clergy and accommodates over a generation, it may drift toward denomination.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating secularisation as inevitable and universal.
- Confusing sect with cult.
- Equating civil religion with an established church.
- Dismissing popular piety as superstition.
- Ignoring Malta's Catholic-majority context when discussing pluralism.