Introduction to Religion

Religion is defined by its unique ability to provide individuals with answers to the ultimate
questions of life, death, existence and purpose. It is commonly said that there are only two
guarantees in life — death and taxes — but what can be more taxing than the prospect of one’s
own death? Ceasing to exist is an overwhelmingly terrifying thought and it is one which has
plagued individuals for centuries. This ancient stressor has been addressed over time by a
number of different religious explanations and affirmations. Arguably, this capacity to provide
answers for fundamental questions is what defines religion. For instance, under Hindu belief
one’s soul lives on after biological death and is reborn in a new body. Under Christian belief one
can expect to live in a heavenly paradise once one’s time runs out on earth. These are just two
examples, but the extension of the self beyond its physical expiration date is a common thread in
religious texts.

These promises of new life and mystifying promise lands are not simply handed out to everyone,
however. They require an individual to faithfully practice and participate in accordance to the
demands of specific commandments, doctrines, rituals, or tenants. Furthermore, despite one’s
own faith in the words of an ancient text, or the messages of a religious figure, an individual will
remain exposed to the trials, tribulations, and discomforts that exist in the world. During these
instances a theodicy — a religious explanation for such sufferings — can help keep one’s faith
by providing justification as to why bad things happen to good, faithful people. Theodicy is an
attempt to explain or justify the existence of bad things or instances that occur in the world, such
as death, disaster, sickness, and suffering. Theodicies are especially relied on to provide reason
as to why a religion’s God (or God-like equivalent) allows terrible things to happen to good
people.

Is there truly such a thing as heaven or hell? Can we expect to embody a new life after death?
Are we really the creation of an omnipotent and transcendent Godly figure? These are all
fascinating ontological questions — i.e., questions that are concerned with the nature of reality,
our being and existence — and ones for which different religious traditions have different
answers. For example, Buddhists and Taoists believe that there is a life force that can be reborn
after death, but do not believe that there is a transcendent creator God, whereas Christian
Baptists believe that one can be reborn once, or even many times, within a single lifetime.
However, these questions are not the central focus of sociologists. Instead sociologists ask about
the different social forms, experiences, and functions that religious organizations evoke and
promote within society. What is religion as a social phenomenon? Why does it exist? In other
words, the “truth” factor of religious beliefs is not the primary concern of sociologists. Instead,
religion’s significance lies in its practical tendency to bring people together and, in notable cases,
to violently divide them. For sociologists, it is key that religion guides people to act and behave
in particular ways. How does it do so?

Regardless if one personally believes in the fundamental values, beliefs, and doctrines that
certain religions present, one does not have to look very far to recognize the significance that
religion has in a variety of different social aspects around the world. Religion can influence
everything from how one spends their Sunday afternoon – -singing hymnals, listening to
religious sermons, or refraining from participating in any type of work — to providing the
justification for sacrificing one’s own life, as in the case in the Solar Temple mass suicide
(Dawson & Thiessen, 2014). Religious activities and ideals are found in political platforms,
business models, and constitutional laws, and have historically produced rationales for countless
wars. Some people adhere to the messages of a religious text to a tee, while others pick and
choose aspects of a religion that best fit their personal needs. In other words, religion is present
in a number of socially significant domains and can be expressed in a variety of different levels
of commitment and fervour.

The Sociological Approach to Religion

From the Latin religio (respect for what is sacred) and religare (to bind, in the sense of an
obligation), the term religion describes various systems of belief and practice concerning what
people determine to be sacred or spiritual (Durkheim, 1915/1964; Fasching and deChant, 2001).
Throughout history, and in societies across the world, leaders have used religious narratives,
symbols, and traditions in an attempt to give more meaning to life and to understand the
universe. Some form of religion is found in every known culture, and it is usually practiced in a
public way by a group. The practice of religion can include feasts and festivals, God or gods,
marriage and funeral services, music and art, meditation or initiation, sacrifice or service, and
other aspects of culture.

Defining Religion

There are three different ways of defining religion in sociology — substantial definitions,
functional definitions, and family resemblance definitions — each of which has consequences
for what counts as a religion, and each of which has limitations and strengths in its explanatory
power (Dawson and Thiessen, 2014). The problem of defining religion is not without real
consequences, not least for questions of whether specific groups can obtain legal recognition as
religions. In Canada there are clear benefits to being officially defined as a religion in terms of
taxes, liberties, and protections from persecution. Guarantees of religious freedom under the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms stem from whether practices or groups are regarded as
legitimately religious or not. What definitions of religion do we use to decide these questions?.

The problem of any definition of religion is to provide a statement that is at once narrow enough
in scope to distinguish religion from other types  of social activity, while taking into account the
wide variety of practices that are recognizably religious in any common sense notion of the term.
Substantial definitions attempt to delineate the crucial characteristics that define what a religion
is and is not.

Functional definitions define religion by what it does or how it functions in society. For
example, Milton Yinger’s definition is: “Religion is a system of beliefs and practices by means
of which a group struggles with the ultimate problems of human life” (Yinger, 1970, cited in
Dawson and Thiessen, 2014). A more elaborate functional definition is that of Mark Taylor
(2007): religion is “an emergent, complex, adaptive network of symbols, myths, and rituals that,
on the one hand, figure schemata of feeling, thinking, and acting in ways that lend life meaning
and purpose and, on the other, disrupt, dislocate, and disfigure every stabilizing structure.” These
definitions are strong in that they can capture the many forms that these religious problematics or
dynamics can take — encompassing both Christianity and Theravadan.

The third type of definition is the family resemblance model in which religion is defined on the
basis of a series of commonly shared attributes (Dawson and Thiessen, 2014). The family
resemblance definition is based on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ordinary language
definition of games (Wittgenstein, 1958). Games, like religions, resemble one another — we
recognize them as belonging to a common category — and yet it is very difficult to decide
precisely and logically what the rule is that subsumes tiddly winks, solitaire, Dungeons and
Dragons, and ice hockey under the category “games.” Therefore the family resemblance model
defines a complex “thing” like religion by listing a cluster of related attributes that are distinctive
and shared in common by different versions of that thing, while noting that not every version of
the thing will have all of the attributes.

The idea is that a family – even a real family – will hold a number of, say, physiological traits in
common, which can be used to distinguish them from other families, even though each family
member is unique and any particular family member might not have all them. You can still tell
that the member belongs to the family and not to another because of the traits he or she shares.

It is also possible to define religion in terms of a cluster of attributes based on family

resemblance. This cluster includes four attributes: particular types of belief, ritual, experience,
and social form. This type of definition has the capacity to capture aspects of both the
substantive and functional definitions.

It can be based on common sense notions of what religion is and is not, without the drawback of
being overly exclusive. While the thing, “religion,” itself becomes somewhat hazy in this
definition, it does permit the sociologist to examine and compare religion based on these four
dimensions while remaining confident that he or she is dealing with the same phenomenon.

Sociological Explanations of Religion

While some people think of religion as something individual (because religious beliefs can be
highly personal), for sociologists religion is also a social institution. Social scientists recognize
that religion exists as an organized and integrated set of beliefs, behaviours, and norms centred
on basic social needs and values. Moreover, religion is a cultural universal found in all social
groups. For instance, in every culture, funeral rites are practiced in some way, although these
customs vary between cultures and within religious affiliations. Despite differences, there are
common elements in a ceremony marking a person’s death, such as announcement of the death,
care of the deceased, disposition, and ceremony or ritual. These universals, and the differences in
how societies and individuals experience religion, provide rich material for sociological study.
But why does religion exist in the first place?
Evolutionary Psychology

“Blind Pharisee, cleanse first that [which is] within the cup and platter, that the outside of them
may be clean also” (Matthew 23:26, King James Bible);

“Let the (husband) employ his (wife)…in keeping clean, in religious duties, in the preparation of
his food, and in looking after the household utensils” (9:11, Hindu Laws Of Manu).

Despite the conflict that has accompanied religion over the centuries, it still continues to exist,
and in some cases thrive. How do we explain the origins and continued existence of religion? We
will examine sociological theories below, but first we turn to evolutionary and psychological
explanations.

Many psychologists explain the rise and persistence of religion in terms of Darwinian
evolutionary theory. For this argument, they provide a psychological definition of the core
religious experience or state of being common to all religion’s diverse social forms and settings.
Psychologist Roger Cloninger (1993) defines this core religious experience as the disposition
towards self-transcendence. It has three measurable components: self-forgetfulness (absorption
in tasks and the ability to lose oneself in concentration), transpersonal identification (perception
of spiritual union with the cosmos and the ability to reduce boundaries of self vs. other), and
mysticism (perception or acceptance of things that cannot be rationally explained ). The
argument is that because this is a universal phenomenon, it must have a common physiological
or genetic basis that is passed on between generations that enhances human survival.

According to Charles Darwin all species are involved in a constant battle for survival, using
adaptions as their primary weapon against an ever-changing, and hostile environment. Adaptions
are genetic, or behavioral traits that are shaped by environmental pressures, and genetic
variation. By dissecting religion to a core set of purposes, it can be categorized as an adaption
that increases the chances of human survival. All adaptions successfully passed on to future
generations aided at one point either in reproduction or survival because the genes that selected
for them were passed on. This is the rule of natural selection (Darwin, 1859).

Much of evolutionary psychology aims at explaining the possible environments in which certain
adaptions were selected. Although religion has the potential to cause unwanted side effects, such
as wars, it still provides much greater benefits, by responding to numerous survival problems
through collective religious processes. A very specific benefit, for example, is disease
prevention. Many historic religions placed an emphasis on cleanliness, comparing it to spiritual
purity. Consequently there is also an evolutionary benefit to this religious virtue. During a time
period where disease was a constant threat to survival, idealizing cleanliness helped minimize
communicable diseases from food, animals, and even humans.

Although disease prevention has been an important byproduct of religious practices around the
world, evolutionary psychologists argue that the main benefit religion has provided to human
survival is the mutual support provided by fellow members. More specifically, religion creates a
framework for social cohesion and solidarity, even during times of loss, and grief, which has
been a crucial competitive strategy of the human species. Rather than each individual being
exclusively concerned with their own survival — in a kind of “survival of the fittest” logic — the
religious disposition to self-transcendence provides a mechanism that explains the altruistic core
of religious practice and the capacity of individuals to sacrifice themselves for the group or for
abstract beliefs.

Dean Hamer (2005) for example describes a specific gene that correlates with the capacity for
self-transcendence. After his research team isolated an association between the VMAT2 gene
sequence and populations who scored high on psychological scales for self-transcendence,
Hamer noted these genes were connected to the production of neurotransmitters known as
monoamines. The effects of monoamines on the meso-limbic systems in the human body were
similar to many stimulant drugs: feelings of euphoria and positive well-being. Moreover, his
findings suggested that 40-50% of self-transcendence was heritable. What is striking about this
evidence is the implication that evolution has favoured genes that are often displayed in religious
populations. Hamer extends the evolutionary argument to suggest that religion, grounded
genetically in a neuro-chemical capacity for self-transcendence, provides competitive advantages
for the human species in the forms of community well-being (higher rates of reciprocity and
social welfare) and longevity (reduction of maladaptive behaviours and increased cleanliness).

Many similar effects can be observed in the present environment. Strawbridge, Sherna, Cohen,
and Kaplan, (2001) conducted a 30-year longitudinal study on religious attendance and survival.
Although they found that weekly religious attendance more often assisted in targeting and
reducing maladaptive behaviors such as smoking, it also aided in maintaining social relations,
and marriage (Strawbridge et al., 2001). Similar studies show correlations between religious
affiliation to Christianity, and the self-perceived happiness of German students (Francis,
Robbins, & White, 2003). Evolutionary psychology argues that these modern tendencies to feel
happiness during a church congregation to reduce maladaptive behaviours are innate, sculpted by
centuries of exposure to religion.

Evolutionist Richard Dawkins hypothesized a similar reason why religion has created such a
lasting impact on society. His theory is explained by the creation of ‘memes’. Comparable to
genes, memes are bits of information that can be imitated and transferred across cultures and
generations (Dawkins, 2006). Unlike genes, which are physically contained within the human
genome, memes are the units or “genetic material” of culture. As a vocal proponent of atheism,
Dawkins believes the idea of God is a meme, working in the human mind the same way as a
placebo effect. The God meme contains tangible benefits to human society such as answers to
questions about human transcendence and superficial comfort for daily difficulties, but the idea
of God itself is a product of the human imagination (Dawkins, 2006). Although a human
creation, the God meme is incredibly appealing, and as a result, has continually been passed on
through cultural transfusion.

The logic of evolutionary psychology suggests that it is possible for religion to be replaced by
another mechanism that is more beneficial to human survival. Just as Dawkins hypothesized that
religious memes colonized societies around the world, this process could also be applied to
secular memes. Modern secular countries provide public institutions that create the same social
functions as religion, without the disadvantages of “irrational” religious restrictions based on
unverifiable beliefs. The secularization thesis predicts that as societies become modern, religious
authority will be replaced with public institutions. As Canada, and other countries develop,
perhaps evolution will continue to favour secularization, demoting religion from its central place
in social life, and religious conflicts to history textbooks and motel night tables.

Karl Marx

Where psychological theories of religion focus on the aspects of religion that can be described as
products of individual subjective experience — the disposition towards self-transcendence, for
example — sociological theories focus on the underlying social mechanisms religion sustains or
serves. They tend to suspend questions about whether religious world views are true or not —
e.g., does God exist? Is enlightenment achievable through meditation? etc. — and adopt some
version of WI Thomas’s (1928) Thomas Theorem: “If men define situations as real, they are real
in their consequences.”

From the point of view of the classical theorists in sociology, Thomas’s theorem was already
implicit in the premise that the relationship to religion was a key variable needed to understand
the transition from traditional society to modern society.  Marx, Durkheim, Weber and other
early sociologists lived in a time when the validity of religion had been put into question.
Traditional societies had been thoroughly religious societies, whereas modern society
corresponded to the declining presence and influence of religious symbols and institutions. 
Nationalism and class replaced religion as a source of identity. Religion became increasingly a
private, personal matter with the separation of church and state. In traditional societies the
religious attitude towards the world had been “real in its consequences” for the conduct of life,
for institutional organization, for power relations, and all other aspects of life. However, modern
societies seemed inevitably to be on the path towards secularization in which people would no
longer define religion as real. The question these sociologist grappled with was whether societies
could work without the presence of a common religion.

Karl Marx explained religion as a product of human creation:  “man makes religion, religion
does not make man” (Marx, 1844/1977).  In his theory, there was no “supernatural” reality or
God. Instead religion was the product of a projection. Humans projected an image of themselves
onto a supernatural reality, which they then turned around and submitted to in the form of a
superhuman God.  It is in this context that Marx argued that religion was “the opium of the
people” (Marx, 1844/1977). Religious belief was a kind of narcotic fantasy or illusion that
prevented people from perceiving their true conditions of existence, firstly as the creators of
God, and secondly as beings whose lives were defined by historical, economic and class
relations.  The suffering and hardship of people, central to religious mythology, were products of
people’s location within the class system, not of their relationship to God, nor of the state of their
souls. Their suffering was real, but their explanation of it was false. Therefore “religious
suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.”

However, Marx was not under the illusion that the mystifications of religion belief would simply
disappear, vanquished by the superior knowledge of science and political-economic analysis.
The problem of religion was in fact the central problem facing all critical analysis: the
attachment to explanations that compensate for real social problems but do not allow them to be
addressed. As he said, “the criticism of religion is the supposition [or beginning of] of all
criticism” (Marx, 1844/1977). Until humans were able to recognize their power to change their
circumstances in “the here and now” rather than “the beyond,” they would be prone to religious
belief. They would continue to live under conditions of social inequality and grasp at the
illusions of religion in order to cope. The critical sociological approach he proposed would be to
thoroughly disillusion people about the rewards of the afterlife and bring them back to earth
where real rewards could be obtained through collective action.

The demand to give up the illusions about their condition is a demand to give up a condition that
requires illusion…. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chains not so that man
may bear chains without any imagination or comfort, but so that he may throw away the chains
and pluck living flowers . The criticism of religion disillusions man so that he may think, act, and
fashion his own reality as a disillusioned man come to his senses; so that he may revolve around
himself as his real sun. Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves around man as long as he
does not revolve around himself (Marx, 1844/1977).

Nevertheless, if Marx’s analysis is correct, it is a testament both to the persistence of the social
conditions of suffering and to the comforts of holding to illusions, that religion not only
continues to exist 170 years after Marx’s critique, but in many parts of the world appears to be
undergoing a revival and expansion.

Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim (1859-1917) explained the existence of religion in terms of the functions it
performs in society. Like Marx, therefore, he argued that it was necessary to examine religion as
a product of society, rather than as a product of a transcendent or supernatural presence
(Durkheim, 1915/1964). Unlike Marx, however, he argued that religion fulfills real needs in each
society, namely to reinforce certain mental states, sustain social solidarity, establish basic rules
or norms, and concentrate collective energies. These can be seen as the universal social functions
of religion that underlie the unique natures of different religious systems all around the world,
past and present . He was particularly concerned about the capacity of religion to continue to
perform these functions as societies entered the modern era in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Durkheim hoped to uncover religion’s future in a new world that was breaking away from the
traditional social norms that religion had sustained and supported (Durkheim, 1915/1964).

The key defining feature of religion for Durkheim was its ability to distinguish sacred things
from profane things. In his last published work, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he
defined religion as: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to
say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral
community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (Durkheim, 1915/1964). Sacred
objects are things said to have been touched by divine presence. They are set apart through ritual
practices and viewed as forbidden to ordinary, everyday contact and use. Profane objects on the
other hand are items integrated into ordinary everyday living. They have no religious
significance. From Durkheim’s social scientific point of view, it is the act of setting sacred and
profane apart which contributes to their spiritual significance and reverence, rather than anything
that actually inheres in them.
This basic dichotomy creates two distinct aspects of life, that of the ordinary and that of the
sacred, that exist in mutual exclusion and in opposition to each other. This is the basis of
numerous codes of behavior and spiritual practices. Durkheim argues that all religions, in any
form and of any culture, share this trait. Therefore, a belief system, whether or not it encourages
faith in a supernatural power, is identified as a religion of it outlines this divide and creates ritual
actions and a code of conduct of how to interact with and around these sacred objects.

Durkheim examined the social functions of the division of the world into sacrd and profane by
studying a group of Australian Aboriginals that practiced totemism. He described totemism as
the most basic and ancient forms of religion, and therefore the core of religious practice itself
(Durkheim, 1915/1964). A totem, such as an animal or plant, is a sacred “symbol, a material
expression of something else” such as a spirit or a god. Totemic societies are divided into clans
based on the different totemic creatures each clan revered. In line with his argument that
religious practice needs to be understood in sociological terms rather than supernatural terms, he
noted that totemism existed to serve some very specific social functions. For example, the
sanctity of the objects venerated as totems infuse the clan with a sense of social solidarity
because they bring people together and focus their attention on the shared practice of ritual
worship. They function to divide the sacred from the profane thereby establishing a ritually
reinforced structure of social rules and norms, they enforce the social cohesion of the clans
through the shared belief in a transcendent power, and they protect members of the society from
each other since they all become sacred as participants in the religion.

In essence, totemism, like any religion, is merely a product of the members of a society
projecting themselves and the real forces of society onto ‘sacred’ objects and powers. In
Durkheim’s terms, all religious belief and ritual function in the same way. They create a
collective consciousness and a focus for collective effervescence in society. Collective
consciousness is the shared set of values, thoughts, and ideas that come into existence when the
combined knowledge of a society manifests itself through a shared religious framework (Mellor
& Shilling, 1996). Collective effervescence, on the other hand, is the elevated feeling
experienced by individuals when they come together to express beliefs and perform rituals
together as a group: the experience of an intense and positive feeling of excitement (Mellor &
Shilling, 2011). In a religious context, this feeling is interpreted as a connection with divine
presence, as being filled with the spirit of supernatural forces, but Durkheim argues that in reality
it is the material force of society itself, which emerges whenever people come together and focus
on a single object. As individuals actively engage in communal activities, their belief system
gains plausibility and the cycle intensifies. In worshipping the sacred, people worship society
itself, finding themselves together as a group, reinforcing their ties to one another and reasserting
solidarity of shared beliefs and practices (Mellor & Shilling, 1998).

The fundamental principles that explain the most basic and ancient religions like totemism, also
explain the persistence of religion in society as societies grow in scale and complexity. However,
in modern societies where other institutions often provide the basic for social solidarity, social
norms, collective representations, and collective effervescence, will religious belief and ritual
persist?
In his structural-functional analysis of religion, Durkheim outlined three functions that religion
still serves in society, which help to explain its ongoing existence in modern societies. First,
religion ensures social cohesion through the creation of a shared consciousness form
participation in rituals and belief systems. Second, it formally enforces social norms and
expectations of behavior, which serve to ensure predictability and control of human action.
Third, religion serves to answer the most universal, ‘meaning of life’ questions that humans have
pondered since the dawn of consciousness. As long as the needs remain unsatisfied by other
institutions in modern social systems, religion will exist to fill that void.

Classical Sociology

Émile Durkheim on Religion

Durkheim’s father was the eighth in a line of father-son rabbis. Although Émile was the second
son, he was chosen to pursue his father’s vocation and was given a good religious and secular
education. He abandoned the idea of a religious or rabbinical career, however, and became very
secular in his outlook. His sociological analysis of religion in The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life (1915/1964) was an example of this. In this work he was not interested in the
theological questions of God’s existence or purpose, but in developing a very secular,
sociological question: Whether God exists or not, how does religion function socially in a
society?

He argued that beneath the irrationalism and the “barbarous and fantastic rites” of both the most
primitive and the most modern religions is their ability to satisfy real social and human needs
(Durkheim, 1915/1964). “There are no religions which are false,” he said. Religion performs the
key function of providing social solidarity in a society. The rituals, the worship of icons, and the
belief in supernatural beings “excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states” that bring people
together, provide a ritual and symbolic focus, and unify them. This type of analysis became the
basis of the functionalist perspective in sociology. He explained the existence and persistence of
religion on the basis of the necessary function it performed in unifying society.

Max Weber

If Marx’s analysis represents the classical sociological formulation of the critical perspective on
religion, and Durkheim’s the functionalist formulation, Max Weber’s analysis represents the
classical formulation of the interpretive perspective on religion within sociology. His approach
was to determine the meaning of religion in the conduct of life for members of society. Three
key themes concerning religion emerge from his work: the concept of theodicy, the
disenchantment of the world, and the Protestant Ethic.

One of Weber’s explanations for the origin and persistence of religion in society concerns its role
in providing a meaningful explanation for the unequal “distribution of fortunes among men”
(Weber, 1915 (1958)). As described earlier in the chapter, this is religion’s unique ability and
authority to provide a theodicy:  an explanation for why all-powerful Gods allow suffering,
misfortune and injustice to occur, even to “good people” who follow the moral and spiritual
practices of their religion. Religious theodicies resolve the contradiction between “destiny and
merit”(Weber, 1915 (1958)). They give meaning to why good or innocent people experience
misfortune and suffering. Religion’s exist therefore because they (successfully) claim the
authority to provide such explanations.

Weber describes three dominant forms of theodicy in world religions: dualism, predestination
and  karma. In dualistic religions like Zoroastrianism, the power of a god is limited by the
powers of evil–“the powers of light and truth, purity and goodness coexist and conflict with the
powers of darkness and falsehood” (Weber, 1915 (1958))–and therefore suffering is explained as
a consequence of the struggle between the dual powers of good and evil, gods and demons, in
which evil occasionally wins out.  The doctrine of predestination, which became very important
in Weber’s theory of Calvinism and the Protestant Ethic (see below), explains suffering as the
outcome of a destiny that a god has pre-assigned to individuals. God’s reasoning is invisible to
believers and therefore inscrutable. Therefore believers must accept that there is a higher divine
reason for their suffering and continue to strive to be good. Finally, the belief in karma, central
to religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, explains suffering as a product of  acts one
committed in former lives. Individuals must struggle in this life to rectify the evils accumulated
from previous lives. Each form of theodicy provides “rationally satisfying answers” to persistent
questions about why  gods permit suffering and misfortune without undermining the obligation
of believers to pursue the religion’s values.

Weber’s analysis of religion was concerned not only with why religion exists, but with the role it
played in social change. In particular, he was interested in the development of the modern
worldview which he equated with the widespread processes of rationalization: the general
tendency of modern institutions and most areas of life to be transformed by the application of
technical reason, precise calculation, and rational organization. Again, central to his interpretivist
framework, how people interpreted and saw the world provided the basis for an explanation of
the types of social organization they created. In this regard, one of his central questions was to
determine why rationalization emerged in the West and not the East. Eastern societies in China,
India, and Persia had been in many respects more advanced culturally, scientifically and
organizationally than Europe for most of world history, but had not taken the next step towards
developing thoroughly modern, rationalized forms of organization and knowledge. The
relationship to religion formed a key part of his answer.

One component of rationalization was the process Weber described as the disenchantment of
the world, which refers to the elimination of a superstitious or magical relationship to nature and
life.  Weber noted that many societies prevented processes of rationalization from occurring
because of religious interdictions and restrictions against certain types of development. He
describes, for example, the way Chinese geomancy interfered with the construction of railroads
in China because because building structures “on certain mountains, forests, rivers, and cemetery
hills”  threatened to “disturb the rest of the spirits” (Weber, 1966). A contemporary example
might be the beliefs concerning the sacredness of human life, which serve to restrict
experimenting with human stem cells or genetic manipulation of the human genome. In
modernity, the fundamental orientation to the world becomes increasingly disenchanted in the
sense that “mysterious incalculable forces” of a spiritual or sacred nature no longer “come into
play” in peoples understanding of it. Rather, “one can, in principle, master all things by
calculation.” When the world becomes disenchanted, “one need no have recourse to magical
means in order to master or implore the spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious
powers existed. Technical means and calculations perform the service” (Weber, 1919 (1958)).
For Weber, disenchantment was one source for the rapid development and power of Western
society, but also a source of irretrievable loss.

A second component of rationalization, particularly as it applies to the rise of capitalism as a

highly rationalized economic system, was the formation of the Protestant Ethic. This will be
discussed more fully below. The key point to note here is that Weber makes the argument that a
specific ethic or way of life that developed among a few Protestant sects on the basis of religious
doctrine or belief, (i.e. a way of interpreting the world and the role of humans within it), became
a central material force of social change. The restrictions that religions had imposed on economic
activities and that had prevented them from being pursued in a purely rational, calculative
manner, were challenged or subverted by the emergence and spread of new, equally religious,
forms of belief and practice. However, the irony that Weber noted in the relationship between the
Protestant sects and the rise of capitalism, was that while the Protestant’s “duty to work hard in
one’s calling” persisted, the particular beliefs in God that produced this “ethic” were replaced by
secular belief systems. Capitalist rationality dispensed with religious belief but remained
“haunted by the ghosts of dead religious beliefs” (Weber 1904 (1958)). 

Classical Sociology

Max Weber on the Protestant Work Ethic

Weber is known best for his 1904 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He
noted that in modern industrial societies, business leaders and owners of capital, the higher
grades of skilled labour, and the most technically and commercially trained personnel were
overwhelmingly Protestant. He also noted the uneven development of capitalism in Europe, and
in particular how capitalism developed first in those areas dominated by Protestant sects. He
asked, “Why were the districts of highest economic development at the same time particularly
favourable to a revolution in the Church?” (i.e., the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648))
(Weber 1904 (1958)). His answer focused on the development of the Protestant Ethic—the duty
to “work hard in one’s calling”—in particular Protestant sects such as Calvinism, Pietism, and
Baptism.

As opposed to the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church in which poverty was a virtue and
labour simply a means for maintaining the individual and community, the Protestant sects began
to see hard, continuous labour as a spiritual end in itself. Hard labour was firstly an ascetic
technique of worldly renunciation and a defense against temptations and distractions: the unclean
life, sexual temptations, and religious doubts. Secondly, the doctrine of predestination among the
Protestant sects believed that God’s disposition toward the individual was predetermined and
could never be known or influenced by traditional Christian practices like confession, penance,
and buying indulgences. However, one’s chosen occupation was a “calling” given by God, and
the only sign of God’s favour or recognition in this world was to receive good fortune in one’s
calling. Thus material success and the steady accumulation of wealth through personal effort and
prudence was seen as a sign of an individual’s state of grace. Weber argued that the ethic, or way
of life, that developed around these beliefs was a key factor in creating the conditions for both
the accumulation of capital, as the goal of economic activity, and for the creation of an
industrious and disciplined labour force.

In this regard, Weber has often been seen as presenting an interpretivist explanation of the
development of capital, as opposed to Marx’s historical materialist explanation. It is an element
of cultural belief that leads to social change rather than the concrete organization and class
struggles of the economic structure. It might be more accurate, however, to see Weber’s work
building on Marx’s analysis of capitalism and to see his Protestant Ethic thesis as part of a
broader set of themes concerning the process of rationalization: the general tendency of modern
institutions and most areas of life to be transformed by the application of instrumental reason—
rational bureaucratic organization, calculation, and technical reason—and the overcoming of
“magical” thinking (which we earlier referred to as the “disenchantment of the world”). As the
impediments toward rationalization were removed, organizations and institutions were
restructured on the principle of maximum efficiency and specialization, while older, traditional
(i.e. inefficient) types of organization were gradually eliminated because they could not compete.

The irony of the Protestant Ethic as one stage in this process is that the rationalization of
capitalist business practices and organization of labour eventually dispensed with the religious
goals of the ethic. At the end of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber
pessimistically describes the fate of modern humanity as an “iron cage.” The iron cage is
Weber’s metaphor for the condition of modern humanity in a technical, rationally defined, and
“efficiently” organized society. Having forgotten the spiritual (and other) goals of life, humanity
succumbs to the goals of pure efficiency: an order “now bound to the technical and economic
conditions of machine production” (Weber 1904 (1958)). The modern subject in the iron cage is
“only a single cog in an ever-moving mechanism which prescribes to him [or her] an essentially
fixed route of march” (Weber 1922 (1958)).

REFERENCES:

Introduction to religion

 Dawson, L., & Thiessen, J. (2014). The sociology of religion: A Canadian perspective.
Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.
Sociological approach

 Durkheim, Émile. (1964). The elementary forms of religious life. Translated by J. Swain.
Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Retrieved Dec. 20, 2015, from
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41360/41360-h/41360-h.htm (original work published
1915)

 Dawson, L., & Theissen, J. (2014). The sociology of religion: A Canadian perspective.
Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.

Sociological explanation of religion

 Durkheim, Émile. (1964). The elementary forms of religious life. Translated by J. Swain.
Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Retrieved Dec. 20, 2015, from
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41360/41360-h/41360-h.htm (original work published
1915)

 Dawson, L. L. & Thiessen, J. (2014). The sociology of religion: A Canadian perspective.

Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.

 Shilling, C., P. Mellor. (1998). Durkheim, morality and modernity: Collective

effervescence, homo duplex and the sources of moral action. The British Journal of
Sociology, 49(2): 193-209.

 Shilling, C. (2011). Retheorising Emile Durkheim on society and religion: Embodiment,

intoxication, and collective life. The Sociological Review, 59(1): 17-41.

 Weber, Max. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York:
Scribner. (original work published 1904)

 Weber, Max. (1958). ‘The social psychology of the world religions’ and ‘Religious
rejections of the world and their directions.’ In Hans Gerth (Ed.), From Max Weber:
Essays in sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1915)

 Weber, Max. (1958). Science as a vocation. In Hans Gerth (Ed.), From Max Weber:
Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1919)

 Weber,  Max. (1958). Bureaucracy. In Hans Gerth (Ed.), From Max Weber: Essays in
sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1922)