Abstract
Religion and Modern Society, written by Bryan S. Turner (a leading international sociologist of religion), is a new addition to the steadily expanding body of literature on the subject of religion and society. His book is actually a collection of essays and articles, the majority of which are revisions of previously published works. It is divided into two parts: the first treats religion from the perspective of influential social theorists such as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber and the second part is more empirically based. It examines religion in relation to contemporary themes such as multiculturalism, globalization, law and consumerism.
This is a fresh, intellectually stimulating – at times challenging – study of religion in its social context. Discussions about religion in the post-9/11 era often have to do with the threat to social order from religious extremism but Turner, to his credit, steers a different course, believing that the danger of radical religion is exaggerated. His focus is on popular, benign religious practices.
Turner’s understanding of religion, though, is paradoxical. On the one hand, he claims that religion is prospering. On the other, he implicitly rejects Casanova’s influential thesis that there is a “deprivatization” of religion occurring in modern society. The author’s explanation is that, in the interest of peace and order, modern states are successfully containing religions. Instead of a “deprivatization” of religion there is a “management of religion.” What is more, he sees religion conforming to society, rather than transforming it. Hence, much of what passes for religion today is “commercialized” and “commodified” products. Secularization, then, is not so much about the disappearance of religion as the assimilation of the secular into religion. “The modern world is secular, because religion is shaped by the dominant practices and values of a capitalist society which requires expanding consumerism to sustain the economy” (275). He uses the “Prosperity Gospel” of neo-Pentecostalism as an illustration.
He goes on to argue that both mass media and globalization are redefining religion. Globalization brings religions together, but it also spawns pluralism in religious belief and practice. It has caused the “triumph of heterodox … hybrid popular religion,” as indicated by the massive popularity of the novel The Da Vinci Code. The media have altered the way people experience religion and perceive it. There is probably no better illustration of this than the impact of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion.
When Turner refers to the growth of religion, he is in fact referring to the growth of spirituality, not organized, institutional religion. Yet the ascendance of spirituality is not a sign of better things. Indeed he makes the trenchant observation that spirituality is also dominated by the consumerist mentality. “Both the secular and religious markets promote the idea of the individual as the sovereign agent in charge of their own actions and emotions” (227).
Turner’s portrait of religion, as it is practiced today, is not very flattering. Nor is it very fair perhaps. He can be faulted for crass generalizations and for ignoring other worldly-minded religious believers. Still, there is no denying the accuracy in some of his observations of contemporary religion.
Turner is not a defender of secularism, however. Reflecting the influence of Durkheim, he believes religion has an important role in society. Yet he maintains that religion is not fulfilling its role, because, even though it flourishes, it is no longer grounded in the “sacred,” which, for Turner, is not only the basis of religion but also the basis for society. He contends that the “roots of the social are ultimately in the sacred” (296), although he does not define this sacred. Turner does not even indicate if his definition of “the sacred” refers to something immanent or something transcendent.
Turner claims that the roots of the social are being “eroded” by the globalization of commercial values and popular religion. Individualism is advancing in the stead of the social. Modern religion is really the cult of the individual. In pre-modern societies, which were rooted in the “sacred,” social life was “thick and sticky” (40). Joining a social group was difficult; abandoning it was even more difficult. In general, this is no longer the case as membership in social groups is “fluid rather than fixed” (40). In place of a strong sense of community, there is a strong sense of individual freedom. This explains why “low-intensity” religion is the dominant form today. This religion is “low on commitment, individualistic, highly subjective and post-institutional” (149).
Unfortunately, Turner has no answer for the withering of the sacred and the collapse, as a result, of community. There is a diagnosis of the socio-religious disease but no prescription for what ails society. Of course, as a sociologist he believes it is his job only to make sense of religion in today’s world – with the help of a “metaphysics of nostalgia” (297). This explains his call for a “sociology of comparative global religion and religions” (276). However, like his guides, Emile Durkheim and Alasdair MacIntyre, he is pessimistic about global society itself. He heralds the “end of the social.”
Turner believes that his definition of sociology of religion – one that posits the “sacred” – provides a bridge to a “political theology.” Turner does not elaborate on this alluring notion since this is, anyway, a task for theologians. Most Christian theologians would agree that the roots of the social are in the sacred, but for them the “sacred” is not merely an ineffable notion. It is the three-person God, and this provides the foundation for human society.
Anyone interested in the place of religion in modern societies is advised to read this book. It helps to restore the public debate about religion to a high intellectual level, and it helps readers to understand the precarious position of religion in our culture. There are some flaws in this book, largely attributable, I believe, to the fact that the book is a collection of essays. First, the book offers too many notions and arguments without expatiating on them. Second, in the maze of observations, secondary voices, insights, and empirical data, it is not easy to discern what the author’s overarching thesis is. Nonetheless, this book is a welcome scholarly contribution to the body of literature on the subject of religion and society.