Social Change Essay

PARTS OF THE ESSAY

Functionalism
Religion hinders Social Change.
Durkheim, Parsons, Malinowski, Bellah

Marxism & Neo-Marxism

Religion hinders Social Change
Marx, Maduro, Worsley

Weber
Acts as a Catalyst for Social Change
Weber, Bruce, Martin Luther King, Christian New Right

Global Context
Acts for and against Social Change
Weber, Nanda, Redding, Lehman
FUNCTIONALIST

Offers us hope and

(Afterlife)
confidence for the
the unanswerable
future
Offers us answers to

Religion...
trust.
Gives us shared giving stability and
norms and values Unifies people,
(Value Consensus)
THEORY'S
Durkheim
Look at Aborigines in Australia who saw Worshipped the totem = Worshipping
items as Sacred or Profane stable society,

Malinowski
Looks at The Trobriand Islanders who At times of potential risk women did
survived off fishing. religious rituals to protect husbands.

Parsons
Religion has a code of laws that have
Religion bonds us in times of trauma
to be followed for a passage to
e.g. funerals etc.
afterlife.
CIVIL RELIGION - BELLAH

t
hr is tiani
C he
y i s t of
faith ca
r
Ame i

Everyone
pledges
allegiance
to the flag
Being religious =
Being American.
Not so much a
belief just the
name and
identity.
1. Most people in the 1.London Bombings
Uk do attend prove religion can
Funerals to grieve. cause terrorism not
2. People turn to stability.
religion to deal with 2. Religion can
trauma (9/11) radicalise young men.
3. We use prayer to 3. Studies were small
give ourselves hope. scale
 Consciousness.
Limits social change Class
in capitalist It creates a False
societies.
Relgion...
the people It is a man made
It is the Opium of ideology made to
oppress the poor.
MARXISTS
THEORIES
God created a
Legitimating hierarchy in society.
Social Positions in church and
Hymns reinforce social
Inequalities status.
Religion explains
Disguising inequalities in
Supernatural terms
Exploitation God made inequality
not government.

Poverty is a virtue
Keeping Poor Scriptures reinforce
Passive the idea that being
poor is good.
 i i
Leach Church Of
England has a very Marxist theory fails to
upper class background recognize
and has lost touch with secularization
real people.

Hook The Pope has a Churches give a huge

very conservative amount of money to
stance and creates the poor (Oxfam,
poverty in Africa & AIDS Salvation Army etc)
NEO MARXISTS
Maduro Liberation Theory
He showed how Priests in South America
helped mobilise and free the poor using
church links
Worsley Millennium Movements
Looked at Cargo Cults during colonial times in
the west Pacific.
In the 1950s the people used group mentality
to overcome the authority.
Proletariat are aware that they are treated
unfairly by rich.
 They believe God had chosen them to be the elite and
in order to prove themselves they have to deny
3.
themselves pleasure and work hard.
This attitude is typical of a capitalist society.
He looked at the relationship between Calvinism and
capitalism in the west.
2.
Calvinist were ascetic churned all there money back
into business.
He believes that in some cases religion can act as a
1.
catalyst for social change.
WEBER
 Is the theory
relevant to
today?

Yes No

Religious Islam and

Pressure groups
terrorists are Catholics reduce
are big source of
attempting woman's powers
social change.
social change. in the church.
THE AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
He took the
moral high
ground and
mobilised public
opinion towards
black people Rosa Parks was
Used his religious influenced and
connections to refused to move
create bus for a white
boycott. person on the
bus.

Martin
Luther
King
 Want to
abolish
homosexuality

The New
Christian
Very
Anti -
conservative
evolution
beliefs

Right

Against stem
cell research
GLOBAL CONTEXT
Does religion create social
change?
Nanda looked Redding Looks Lehman looked
at India and at East Asian and at
found the new found that Post Pentecostalism
found wealth, Confucian that adapts, not
promoted by promotes a hard changes, the
their Hindu working ethos culture around
gurus, is used which led to the it. It uses media
for religious development of to spread the
rituals. capitalism. word.
 Weber
Religion
promotes
social change
Global Context
Who believes
what?
Marxists
Religion
restricts social
change.
Functionalists