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Emile Durkheim: Religions
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Durkheim was born at Épinal, in the Lorraine region of France. He decided against following the family tradition of becoming a rabbi and saw his vocation as developing sociology. He defined sociology as “the science of institutions, their genesis and functioning”. He understood by the concept “institution” a set of beliefs and practices that had become normative (obligatory) and that were focused on a recurrent or continuous social concern—for example, the institutions of the family, education, religion, or the law. After graduating from the elite École Normale Supérieure (Paris) in 1882, he had a brief spell teaching philosophy in secondary schools. In 1887 he was appointed to teach social sciences and pedagogy at the University of Bordeaux, where he introduced the first course in sociology in France.
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In 1912, Durkheim declared that the teachings of no religion are immortal, and that human beings are likely to create new ways of expressing their fundamental religious nature. But then he added that it is not possible to know in what symbols "...the new faith will come to express itself"70 A living religion arises out of the enthusiasm of revolutionary events, developing spontaneously from fought-for ideals such as independence, father-land and liberty. Religion is the name we give to that inspiration which spurs patriots to self-sacrificing action.71 As a consequence of some collective trauma during "historic times", men under-fire bond together and become something other than the individuals they once were in a fading reality. Durkheim refers to the special excitement that is in the air on the eve of promise and despair. Ordinary human beings live on the edge of certainty and death, and cling to the camaraderie of total commitment to one another and a cause worth dying for. "People live differently and more intensely than in normal times.
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In this chapter Durkheim defines religion. In the first two sections, he sets forth definitions of religion which are erroneous, in order to assist readers in freeing their minds of misconceptions. to begin with he argues that the supernatural is not a characteristic of the religious (39). in order to say something is supernatural, it must happen out of the natural order of things (41). However, the idea of a necessary order did not exist before the construction of the positive sciences. Furthermore, religion's main goal is to explain every day events.
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Durkheim's sociology of religion is not limited to these general considerations, which, in fact, are contained in only a few pages of his monumental work on The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. The bulk of the book is devoted to a close and careful analysis of primitive religion, more particularly of the data on primitive Australian forms of cults and beliefs. Here, as elsewhere, Durkheim is concerned with elucidating the particular functions of religion rather than with simply describing variant forms. In a well-known critique, the Durkheimian scholar Harry Alpert conveniently classified Durkheim's four major functions of religion as disciplinary, cohesive, vitalizing, and euphoric social forces. Religious rituals prepare men for social life by imposing self-discipline and a certain measure of asceticism. Religious ceremonies bring people together and ... serve to reaffirm their common bonds and to reinforce social solidarity.
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Durkheim believed that “society has to be present within the individual.” He saw religion as a mechanism that shored up or protected a threatened social order. He thought that religion had been the cement of society in the past, but that the collapse of religion would not lead to a moral implosion. Durkheim was specifically interested in religion as a communal experience rather than an individual one. He ... says that religious phenomena occur when a separation is made between the profane (the realm of everyday activities) and the sacred (the realm of the extraordinary and the transcendent); these are different depending what man chooses them to be. An example of this is wine at communion, as it is not only wine but represents the blood of Christ. Durkheim believed that religion is ‘society divinised’, as he argues that religion occurs in a social context.
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Parsons intends this chapter as an update to his material on Durkheim in The Structure of Social Action (1937, see pp.640-96). Parsons attempts to reassess Durkheim's contribution to the study of religion, especially in light of Bellah's influential essay on "Durkheim and History." Parsons speculates that the near future will see a "rediscovery" of Durkheim. This revival of interest is indicated by the important contributions of R. Bellah, K. Burke, P. Berger and C. Geertz. While these thinkers are not "Durkheimians," they are developing the lines of thought that Durkheim intended.
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