Religion and Social Change

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how although Marxist and functionalist sociologists both have very different views concerning the sociology of religion, they both see religion as a conservative force which discourages social change. It looks at how functionalists, such as Durkheim and Parsons, argue that religion is central to the reproduction and maintenance of social order in society and how by encouraging members to conform to the practices, values and beliefs of the religion, society is controlled. It shows how for functionalist sociologists the main role of religion is to socialize society's members into a value consensus and how functionalists argue that religion is a beneficial conservative force because it maintains consensus, integrates people into society and promotes social order.

From the Paper:

"Functionalism can be seen to completely ignore the dysfunctional consequences that are caused by religion and so their argument that religion contributes to a value consensus necessary for social order can be seen as an invalid claim. Both functionalism and Marxism have been criticized for failing to consider the process of secularization in their arguments. This consequentially makes their claims that religion has the power to repress social change be considered as implausible. A further criticism, which perhaps is the most important and can be applied to Marxism, functionalism and the feminist argument is that they completely ignore examples of religious movements which have brought about radical and social change in their arguments."

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