Functionalist Views on Religion

Asses the functionalist view that religion benefits both society as a whole and its individual members. 33marks

The functionalist view of religion stems from Durkheim who said that society is like the human body. He argued that that religion reinforces collective conscience that leads to a unity within society as a whole and that each member of the society is joined in solidarity, therefore it acts as glue. It does so by reinforcing social norms and values that bring the community together. It allows people to accept that society is about more than just the individual. However this can be questioned as western societies such as Britain are becoming increasingly secular. This means that they don’t believe in religion as much, and therefore how can religion act as a collective conscience. People are turning to science as a way of life, theories which head down the evolutionary approach. It suggests that the theory is out of date.
Malinowski looked at the psychological function of religion. This looked at when things such as funerals and divorce occur. Religion acts as an act of hope which allows individuals to feel at ease when they are increasingly stressed out. They are brought together like a community within things like a funeral because it allows the individual to grieve but collectively with active members of the family and church/synagogue/mosque etc. At times of uncertainty and stress, religion helps people to gain control of themselves again, and community acts like funerals progress that. This is supported by the study of the Trobriand Islanders. The fisherman had a number of prayer rituals which they performed before going out to sea. They did this as a group of individuals to have a sense of a belonging to a community of fishermen. They would not perform these then they were sailing because of safety. Malinowski suggested that the threat of the open sea to them, was like a threat to the stability of their community and therefore they had to perform those prayer rituals to prevent that from happening. However Marxists would criticise this and say that actually religion teaches people social control. And actually when people have grieved at a funeral it doesn’t allow them to fully express their grief, they are socially controlled into “getting over it” which is morally wrong.
Parsons agreed with Malinowski and Durkheim, but went further and suggested that religion provided answers to unanswered questions about the meaning of life, and about things like death, it also prevented anomie. He agreed that religion promotes social solidarity, and agreed that it helps in times of stress. EG during the Second World War, people began to gather together in churches as a community as a source of comfort.
Bellah suggested that there were functional alternatives to religion known as “civil religion”, which brought whole countries together regardless of their faith but on behalf of a civil religion. He suggested that instead of religion facing secularisation it is facing transformation into isms such as Americanism. Uses religious images to promote national identity, EG in America having “God bless America” on coins or the Queen’s coronation in Britain. It is an act that allows the country to come together without questions of ethnicity, gender, religion etc.
The functionalist theory of religion benefits wider society and the individual through marriage, bar mitzvahs, christenings, pilgrimages to Mecca/Lourdes, praying the holy books – Quran, Bible, Torah, and things like hymns. Religion helps to bring communities together and also helps individuals who may not feel wanted, welcomed into religious practices. However, contemporary examples suggest that religion doesn’t bind people together at all; in fact it allows the complete opposite. For example, in Northern Ireland there is conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants, which suggests that religion doesn’t help equality between religious groups. And as functionalism is a consensus theory it is doing the actual opposite – allowing conflict.
Functionalism has been criticised because of today’s multicultural society. Theorists such as post-modernists are questioning whether religion can actually integrate a multi-faith society, where lots of small groups have different religious views. They would agree that Durkheim’s view of religion was accurate for a primitive society but not for a complex society such as today.
Many other theorists have criticised functionalists and their theories about religion. Marxists would argue that religion oppresses groups of women and the poor, so how can religion benefit the individual or society. If an individual is being separated due to his/her gender and class then how can religion allow them to fit into a community when the elites would look down upon them. People recognise that Bellah’s approach of civil religion begins to overcome the problem, but again can something like Americanism be considered as a religion, especially if there is no belief in the supernatural?
Some people would argue that religion is spread as a plan to spring hatred on one group of people. It benefits one group but puts down another. Today’s example would be of Pastor Terry Jones, wanting to burn the Quran. He brought about this plan to make Muslims angry, and therefore how can a group of Muslims be part of a community when someone in a position like his can provide such hatred for another religious group. It goes back to the question of integrating a multi-faith society. Granted that the church proposing this was small, but sometimes minority influence has an impact which is why it was all over the media. This provides evidence that religion isn’t able to benefit society or an individual because certain groups are always made to feel alienated, from a mainstream trend.
To conclude, religion is inevitably able to help people in terms of crises, and does prevent anomie, but on the other hand it does allow for social cohesion to break down, as hatred for religious groups grow subtly in countries.