Major Changes In The Way Sociologists Have Understood Religion During The 20th Century

The word religion is derived from the Latin noun religio, which denotes both earnest observances of ritual obligations and an inward spirit of reverence. In modern usage, religion covers a wide spectrum of meanings that reflect the enormous variety of ways the term can be interpreted. Religion in this understanding includes a complex of activities that cannot be reduced to any single aspect of human experience. It is a part of individual life but also of group dynamics. Religion is a sacred engagement with that which is believed to be a spiritual reality.Religion is a worldwide phenomenon that has played a part in all human culture and is so much broader, more complex category than the set of beliefs or practices found in any single religious tradition. An adequate understanding of religion must take into account its distinctive qualities and patterns as a form of human experience, as well as the similarities and differences in religion across human cultures. According to antiquity o f religious study, the first Western attempts to understand and document religious phenomena were made by the Greeks and the Romans.As early as the 6th century BC, Greek philosopher Xenophanes noted that different cultures visualized the gods in different ways. In the following century, Greek historian Herodotus recorded the wide range of religious practices he encountered in his travels, comparing the religious observances of various cultures, such as sacrifice and worship, with their Greek equivalents. Roman historians Julius Caesar and Cornelius Tacitus similarly recorded the rites and customs of peoples that they met on their military campaigns. By the end of the 19th century, scholars were making religion an object of systematic inquiry.German scholar, Friedrich Max Miller’s comparative approach, that every religion possessed some measure of truth, was adopted in many European and Japanese universities. In addition, field anthropologists had begun to compile firsthand ac counts of the religions of people who previously had been dismissed as savages. The study of tribal religions contributed a great deal to the general analysis of the role of religion in human societies. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scholars had begun to pose basic questions about the origin and development of religious ideas.Scholars questioned how religion began and the stages of its evolution. Some maintained that it originated with animism (belief in spirits), then evolved into the notion that there were many gods (polytheism), and ultimately emerged as the ideal of a single god (monotheism). Others held that religion began in a sense of awe at the impressive activities of nature, in a feeling of reverence for the spirits of the dead, or in an attempt to overcome mortality. Many other important questions about the nature of religion were addressed during this period: Can religion be divided into so-called primitive and higher types?Is religion a product of psycholog ical needs and projections? Is it a function of political and social control? Such questions have continued to generate a large number of theories. Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade, who taught at the University of Chicago from 1957 to 1985, emphasized that religious people experience the ordinary world differently from non-religious people because they view it as a sacred place. In Eliade’s view, believing in the divine foundations of life, transforms the significance of natural objects and activities.He believed that for the homo religious (Latin for â€Å"religious man,† a term used by Eliade to designate a person who lives according to a religious worldview), time, space, the earth, the sky, and the human body can all come to have a symbolic, religious meaning. Like Rudolf Otto, Eliade held that the study of religion must not reduce to something merely social or psychological, but must take seriously the idea that in the believer’s world the experience of sacre dness defines a distinctive reality. Modernity has posed acute challenges to traditional religions.In the 1906s membership in mainstream Christian denominations began to decline, and candidates for the priesthood were less numerous. For a large number of people in modern societies, religion is neither good nor bad but simply irrelevant, given the many alternative ways to find meaning in various forms of cultural pursuits, ethical ideals, and lifestyles. These challenges to religion are partly a result of the prestige of science. The sciences describe a universe without reference to deities, the soul, or spiritual meaning.In addition, critical studies of biblical history have demonstrated that the Bible is not unique among ancient religious and historical documents. For example, the biblical stories of the Garden of Eden and the Deluge (universal flood) are common to other ancient Middle Eastern religions. Other factors that have contributed to a decline in religious participation in the 20th century include the presentation of religion as a prescientific form of superstitious thinking, as a source of political control and divisiveness, as a confirmation of established patriarchal values, or as an emotional crutch.In addition, many families are no longer able to maintain stable religious traditions because they are disconnected from traditional, supportive religions or as a result of mixed or nonreligious marriages. Another influence has been the loss of community and social commitment that has followed in the wake of increased mobility. Frequent changes of location can result in a sense of impermanence or instability. This is particularly true of a move from town to city, which often results in the loss of stable community structure.Social uprooting can lead to religious uprooting because religious affiliation is closely related to social ties. Evangelicalism in its various forms, including fundamentalism, offers a different response to modernity. Conservative movements, which have appeared internationally in every major religious tradition, have gained vitality by protesting what they see as the conspicuous absence of moral values in secular society. In times of anxiety and uncertainty, such movements present scripture as a source of doctrinal certainty and of moral absolutes.Against the secularism of the day, evangelical movements have succeeded in creating their own alternative cultures and have acquired considerable political influence. For all its challenges to the traditional religious identity, modernity has at the same time created new spiritual opportunities. Thousands of new religious movements emerged in the 20th century, offering alternative forms of community to people otherwise removed from past associations and disenchanted with modern values.Collectively, these new religions offer a large number of options, and addressing virtually every conceivable type of spiritual need. In a sense, modernity has created needs and probl ems for which new movements are able to present them as solutions. Some offer ethnic revitalization; others, techniques of mediation and self-improvement; and still others, have the power of alternative or spiritual forms of healing. Buddhist- and Hindu-derived movements continue to have considerable followings among Westerners searching for truths beyond Judeo-Christian tradition.Further, in a world where home life has become less stable, an international movement such as the Unification Church emphasizes the holiness and divine restoration of the institution of the family. Currently, one of the most rapidly growing religious movements is Pentecostalism, which takes its name from the festival day when the first Christian community felt the power of the Holy Spirit pour out on them. Pentecostalism’s grass roots services provide direct, ecstatic spiritual experiences.A quite different but also widespread form of spirituality is that of the so-called New Age Movement, which off ers individuals the opportunity to reconnect with mystical dimensions of the self and thus with the wider cosmos-relationships that are typically obscured by secular culture and often are not addressed in biblical traditions. In summary, there have been many changes in the way religion is viewed in the 20th century, in all aspects of sociological templates, that is, historical, structural, cultural, and critical aspects.