The Class
Sociology of religion: Healing
“Religion and Healing: The Four Expectations” by Martin E. Marty discusses healing and its relation to religious means. It talks about the two main aspects of healing which have always existed alongside but, at the same time, contradicted each other. The first one refers to the notion as a medical term while the second one refers to it as to faith or credence. There have been many changes in the understanding and interpretation of healing during the recent centuries. At a time, the connection between religion and healing has weakened. Analysts started to define healing as a scientific phenomenon but not a belief or self-conviction. Nevertheless, both ideas have their reasoning and continue to exist till nowadays. What’s more, both scientists and religious philosophers started to bind the two ideas together. A great desire to heal has also prevented patients from rejecting any of the two beliefs.
Research determines four main groups or categories of people according to their understanding of healing. The author suggests that these categories help to find the answer to the question what people really mean when they refer to faith as to the healer. The first group is called autogenesis. Its representatives believe in being the only masters of their fate, in the interaction between the spirit and the body and look for the like-minded company. The second category is called synergism. It refers to the connection of two activities, in particular, natural and supernatural. People who belong to this group believe that religious resources imply better material and spiritual condition. The next group is called empathy. This category sees God as a cause of many happenings which take place in their lives. People who profess this idea dedicate and trust their fate to God. The last category, or monergism, ascribes everything to God and considers a prayer to be the most effective medicine.
The Class
Sociology of religion: Foucault
“Sexuality and Power”, a conference paper at the University of Tokyo originally published in 1978 talks about the history of sexuality. The author states that psychoanalysts constantly fail to consider all aspects of sexuality in their teaching and analysis. He also argues that scientists have never paid enough attention to the development of the compound and comprehensive theory of sexuality.
Analysis sketched in the series books about the sexuality and its history suggest that it depends on many factors. In the West, for example, people did not learn about pleasure, making love or devoting themselves to the enjoyment. On the other hand, Western philosophers had a great need for a sexual science. It seems like people have been more interested in knowing the origin and the scientific explanation of the sexuality rather than getting pleasure from it. Christianity was one of the factors that prevented people from enjoying the sexuality fully. Only after a long time boundaries began to disappear. The author of the work questions the adopted scheme and the role that the Christianity played in the history. He wonders about the main concerns of Christianity, in particular, in Roman society. The religion, perhaps, found a way to balance opposite aspects in order to control an individual. It established morality and partially determined the pace and conditions of the sexuality development. Indeed, it contributed to the history of sexuality by establishing a scheme alerting people one to another, taking sexuality inside the subjectivity of human flesh and body. The Christianity has never rejected sexuality. In the opposite, it combined it with control, knowledge and power which could be one of the greatest contributions in the formation and establishment of the above-mentioned notion.
The Class
Sociology of religion: Popular religion
“Spirituality and popular religion in Europe” by Hubert Knoblauch concentrates on religion and its mean in European countries. The reason why the author talks about religion in Europe is because it attracted attention as one of least religious and devotional continent. The assumption, perhaps, lacks convincing evidence and is, therefore, questioned in the article. Knoblauch also develops a number of arguments and conclusions on religion, its progress, and transformation. Dynamics of religion in Europe has its own peculiarities. One of them is a large number of movements or other forms of Christianity which, in this specific work, is complemented with a notion of “transcendence”. Spirituality as a part of religion is closely related to sociology and its aspects. The author rejects the idea that spirituality should be reduced to the secondary form. In the opposite, he argues that spirituality, in particular, in his assertions and claims, is aimed at destruction obstacles between religious and non-religious forms. Knoblauch tends to define modern culture as a mean of spreading the religion today. Such type of morality brings different views of religion closer and encourages their interaction. It prevents unnecessary distance and alienation. The most significant and important part of the religious transformation is the barrier dissolution which has long existed between public and private religious groups. The following restructuring directly influenced the whole society, not just the religion. It became more open to collectivism, communities and imposing socially important concepts on them. As a conclusion to his observation, the author suggests considering religiosity and spirituality as the transformation to modernity and globalized communication. He also highlights the role and effect of the transformation in the European countries which kept the religion organized in traditional forms that still distinguish from spirituality.
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The Class
Sociology of religion: Secularization
“Historicizing the Secularization Debate” by Philip S. Gorski is an agenda for research which discusses trends and variations that concern religion, in particular, Christianity in Western countries. Sociologists divided into two groups in their assumptions about the reason for a change in the meaning of Christianity. The first group follows the idea that decline of Christianity is a result of modernization while the second group has an opinion that the decline of the religion is caused by changes in the so-called religious market. The author of the article argues that neither the defenders of the secularization nor the religious economy theory are right. Instead, he suggests two alternative perspectives, sociopolitical and religiocultural. Evaluating the perspectives implies examining religious and nonreligious institutions. The author also sees into the history of the secularization theory which over the centuries gradually transformed into more modern and complex. Based on the history, decline of Christianity is a part of the overall reduction of the religious institution influence. Even though there are a few sets of objections against such interpretation, undoubted is the fact that attitude to religion changes depending on the region and the country. In his research, Gorski tries to explain this phenomenon. He partially refers to the findings provided by religious economy scholars. However, none of them pay enough attention to politics. He continues to develop the sociopolitical and religiocultural alternatives and comes to the conclusion that they are more reasonable because the first perspective or SPCM suggests that secularization could have been only an episodic circumstance rather than an inevitable trend. The second perspective or SCTM suggest that religion changes both in quantitatively and qualitatively. In a conclusion, the author encourages historians to pay better attention to the past and historical meaning of secularization.
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The Class
Sociology of religion: Capitalism
“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” by Max Weber addresses modernity and its difference from other social forms. It also examines the role of religion in its evolution. In his research, Weber is concerned with the connection between religion, politics and economics. He pays a lot of attention to modernization and cultural difference. Importantly, Weber perfectly mastered elucidation and interpretation which made his statements especially relevant and persuasive. The title of the book itself implies abstraction and understanding of the concept of capitalism. The term “spirit of capitalism” is closely related to the American culture described by Benjamin Franklin and Jacob Fugger. Capitalism which existed in other countries such as India or China doesn’t fall under the description of the notion by Weber. The capitalism arising from the teachings of the above-mentioned philosophers is making money and acquisition as the main purpose of man existence. The nowadays capitalism dominates the economic dimension. Modern capitalism conditions differ from the doctrine developed by Weber’s predecessors to a significant extent. In its study, the article refers to a number of sects and their influence on the formation of the notion of capitalism. Despite their role in the concept, modern capitalism largely depends on the religious basis. Together with ideas of Enlightenment, a need for fulfillment faded unless it was strengthened in spirit, culture and religion. The conceptions successfully established themselves in the modern society. Nevertheless, it doesn’t guarantee their immutability and permanence. Current theories might be very likely influenced by arguments emerged from the depths of history or assumptions which are unknown at the moment. Anyhow, Weber’s idea of capitalism being aroused from the Protestant ethic remains one of the most common ideas of the modern capitalism emergence.
