2. 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

3. Offers us answers to Offers us hope and
the unanswerable confidence for the
(Afterlife) future
Religion...
Gives us shared Unifies
norms and values people, giving
(Value Consensus) stability and trust.

4. 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 to Religion bonds us in times of trauma
be followed for a passage to afterlife. e.g. funerals etc.

5. Christianity
is the faith
of America
Everyone
pledges
allegiance
to the flag
Being religious =
Being American.
Not so much a
belief just the
name and
identity.

6. 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

7. It is a man made
It is the ‘Opium of
ideology made to
the people’
oppress the poor.
Relgion...
It creates a False Limits social change
Class in capitalist
Consciousness. societies.

8. • 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.

9. 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)

10. 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 1950’s the people used group
mentality to overcome the authority.
• Proletariat are aware that they are treated
unfairly by rich.

11. • He believes that in some cases religion can act as a
catalyst for social change.
1.
• He looked at the relationship between Calvinism and
capitalism in the west.
• Calvinist were ascetic – churned all there money back
2. into business.
• They believe God had chosen them to be the elite and
in order to prove themselves they have to deny
themselves pleasure and work hard.
3. • This attitude is typical of a capitalist society.

12. Is the theory
relevant to
today?
Yes No
Pressure groups Religious Islam and
are big source terrorists are Catholics reduce
of social attempting woman's powers
change. social change. in the church.

13. 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

14. Want to
abolish
homosexuality
The New
Christian
Very
Anti -
conservative
evolution
beliefs
Right
Against stem
cell research

15. 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.

16. Weber
Religion
promotes
social change
Global Context
Who believes
what?
Marxists
Religion
restricts social
change.
Functionalists