The Sociology of Religion
M. Hamilton — Amazon $24
by Neil Elliot
I sometimes feel like I'm part of a secret society, It has secret knowledge and a secret way of looking at the world. I'm not talking about the church, but about my academic discipline – Sociology of Religion. And of course it's not secret at all. You have heard of Karl Marx's ideas about religion being the “opiate of the people”. You have heard of the “protestant work ethic”. But these are just two of the theories and perspectives that sociology of religion brings. It never ceases to amaze me that I was not taught about sociology of religion at seminary; that speculative theology (like the latest trend theory about who Jesus really was) gets people attention, but that people are ignorant of a significant science about the function of religion in our society. Rant over.
Sociology of religion aims to explain why we have religion, what place religion plays in our society. The discipline has its roots in the same growth in knowledge that brought us psychology, and it was a crucial part of the start of the discipline of sociology. Many people assume that all religions are basically alike; at least until they study them, then they discover that even when the same words are used, the meanings can be hugely different. Sociology of religion helps us to understand what is going on in religion, how it is different from magic, what are the benefits to both participants and society.
Hamilton's book is effectively “Sociology of Religion 101”. It starts with a peanuts cartoon. It talks about the major writers, Marx, Durkheim, Weber. It deals with the problems of defining religion. It looks at the contemporary religious landscape, and the issues of secularization and new religious movements (like “new age” groups). In a very accessible way it introduces all the main topics of the discipline – chapters are typically 10 pages long.
The two things missing from the book are the most recent developments in understanding – sacralization and fundamentalism. Secularization is the process of the sacred becoming less significant in people's lives, and thus of churches becoming emptier. Sacralization is the opposite of secularization and is only now being identified and studied. Broadly, sacralization is the growth of spirituality in our world alongside the shrinking of religion. Fundamentalism is a growing area of concern in sociology of religion because it appears to be a worldwide and all-religion reaction to the same issues, which are producing secularization – it is religion “fighting back”.
If you want to understand what is going on in our religious world, why you are in church and your neighbour isn't, then this book is a very good place to start. It is not going to give you “the answer”, but it will help you understand the questions and see what the possibilities are.
