The Social Reality of Religion
Berger, Peter L. 1967. The Social Reality of Religion. New York: Faber and Faber.
Rating:
9
Summary:
Building on his earlier works, “The Sacred Canopy” and “The Social Construction of Reality,” Berger extends his theories about religion by taking a very broad view of religion, from defining it to exploring its past, current, and future states. He notes at the beginning that he is not trying to write a “sociology” of religion, but despite his claim, he touches on key issues that would make up the bulk of such a text – at least from his particular theoretical framework.
The book builds on the notion that religion is a social construction, just like the rest of society. In fact, Berger states this idea rather explicitly, “… the point is that the same human activity that produces society also produces religion, with the relation between the two products always being a dialectical one” (p. 48). What he means here is that society is a social construction that is reified (objectivated) by the shared belief in it. Seldom do people consider that society and reality do not exist apart from the individuals (us) who make it up, but instead act as though society is a tangible, separately existing third party. Berger, who made this point in The Social Construction of Reality with Thomas Luckmann, argues that religion, just like society, is a creation of man, “Put differently, whatever else the constellations of the sacred may be “ultimately,” empirically they are products of human activity and human signification – that is, they are human projections” (p. 89). Berger kind of hedges his bets here – in true agnostic fashion – by saying there may be “something more,” but as understood by a social theorist, religion can only be understood as something created by man.
Having developed this idea, Berger then explores why this understanding has serious portends for religion generally. First, as is the case with any social construction, it is, “… produced and reproduced by man. Its structures are, therefore, inherently precarious and predestined to change” (p. 6). This means religion, like other social constructions, is in a tenuous position in that the legitimations for it must continuously be reinforced. Even so, religion, unlike other social constructs, has found certain ways to bolster this tenuous position. For instance, socialization functions to internalize the objectivated social world, “Socialization achieves success to the degree that this taken-for-granted quality is internalized. It is not enough that the individual look upon the key meanings of the social order as useful, desirable, or right. It is much better (better, that is, in terms of social stability) if he looks upon them as inevitable, as part and parcel of the universal “nature of things”” (p. 24). In other words, socialization is most effective if people are unaware of the fact that they have been socialized. Once people become aware of the fact that socialization is a process by which the rules of group membership are taught (be it a poker club or living in U.S. society), they can question those rules and the process. A good example of this is the political situation in modern China. The Chinese government doesn’t want its citizenship to learn more about democracy because, if it can socialize its citizens into a particularly nomos (or worldview), the people will not only not question the existing system but not realize that they should question the structures of their society (however futile that struggle may be with the internet today).
Berger illustrates that religions are very good at socializing adherents. But, in addition to socialization, religions have another tool: alienation. While it is unfortunate that Berger uses this term differently than Karl Marx did (possibly leading to confusion), his application of the idea is quite brilliant. Berger argues that one of the best ways to legitimate an objectified (or socially constructed) world is to “[immunize] them against the innumerable contingencies of the human enterprise of world-building” (p. 87). This effectively creates, “The world as an opus alienum (of the gods, of nature, of the forces of history, or what not) [that] is seemingly everlasting” (p. 87). In other words, by using legitimations that are unfalsifiable and beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, the powers that be are able to create legitimations of the objectified world that prevent them from being questioned. For example, the classic rationale that “god told me to do it” is difficult to debate because god is a referent to an unknown and unknowable force outside the realm of naturalistic science. The use of such a legitimation results in a nomos that is incredibly difficult to disrupt. As this relates to religions, Berger argues that, “… religion has been one of the most effective bulwarks against anomy throughout human history. It is now important to see that this very fact is directly related to the alienating propensity of religion. Religion has been so powerful an agency of nomization precisely because it has also been a powerful, probably the most powerful, agency of alienation.” (p. 87).
Having developed his arguments concerning the nature of religion, Berger then moves to changes in religion over time. He points out that the formal organization of Christianity (as Catholicism initially, but then with the Protestant Reformation) actually started the process of secularization (which is the separation of things from religion). I had never considered that the organization of the Catholic Church as an institution separate from other institutions was actually the beginning of secularization in that religion now had an exclusive position in society and did not permeate all of society. Berger argues that this was one of the first steps. With the Protestant Reformation and the advent of capitalist economic systems, secularization was furthered by introducing religious pluralism. As Berger ultimately argues, religions cease to be mysterious and sacred (in the Durkheimian sense) once pluralism becomes a factor (pluralism being the legal co-existence of different religious groups in a single society). Once pluralism takes hold, “… the religious ex-monopolies can no longer take for granted the allegiance of their client populations. Allegiance is voluntary and thus, by definition, less than certain. As a result, the religious tradition, which previously could be authoritatively imposed, now has to be marketed. It must be “sold” to a clientele that is no longer constrained to “buy.” The pluralistic situation is, above all, a market situation. What happens here, quite simply, is that the religious groups are transformed from monopolies to competitive marketing agencies” (p. 137).
Ultimately, religious pluralism returns Berger’s discussion full circle to the nature of religion, “… the demenopolization of religion is a social-structural as well as a social-psychological process. Religion no longer legitimates “the world.” Rather, different religious groups seek, by different means, to maintain their particular subworlds in the face of a plurality of competing subworlds. Concomitantly, this plurality of religious legitimations is internalized in consciousness as a plurality of possibilities between which one may choose. Ipso facto, any particular choice is relativized and less than certain. What certainty there is must be dredged up from within the subjective consciousness of the individual, since it can no longer be derived from the external, socially shared and taken-for-granted world”(p. 152). This also ties this book into Berger’s earlier book, The Sacred Canopy, in which he argues that in order for religions to continue to exist they need to maintain “plausibility structures” that reinforce the objectified nomos of the individual. Without strong plausibility structures, such worlds collapse, leading to personal-level secularization (or religious switching).
Included in this rather erudite discussion of the sociology of religion are several chapters on theology that read very much like Greek to me. I’ll touch on those chapters a bit more below, but they seem to be included more because of Berger’s personal interest in theology than to bolster the arguments he develops in this text.
Review:
My only complaint with this book is that it includes several chapters and appendices on theology that, while I probably should be familiar with them, were completely foreign to me. Perhaps I will eventually pick up the ideas of Christian theology as I read more and more books that touch on it here and there (the names are starting to sound familiar now), but it just isn’t my cup of tea at this point. I could also potentially argue that the author doesn’t clearly lay out where he is going with this book from the beginning, but then, as is the case with most of Berger’s books, the style of writing and depth of thought are so complex that he may have done so and I just missed it. But that is a minor point.
All in all, I think this is a brilliantly insightful book that takes two of Berger’s earlier ideas, the social construction of reality and plausibility structures, and applies them to a historical and theoretical understanding of religion. I’m actually amazed this book isn’t referenced more by sociologists of religion as it makes so many good points and develops such clear theories. Perhaps I’ve just been reading the wrong papers, but I’m certainly going to keep my eyes peeled for references to it now.
In addition to developing some profound theories of religion (all outlined above), this book develops some theories that secular critics of religion would likely find useful. For instance, Berger develops a clear explanation for why religion has so often played a role in legitimating violence, “Killing under the auspices of the legitimate authorities has, for this reason, been accompanied from ancient times to today by religious paraphernalia and ritualism. Men go to war and men are put to death amid prayers, blessings, and incantations. The ecstasies of fear and violence are, by these means, kept within the bounds of “sanity,” that is, of the reality of the social world”(p. 45). In other words, religious legitimations of violence make it okay, even though it clearly is not in other circumstances.
Another clear example of the function of religion is detailed in a hypothetical scenario that I found particularly insightful and relate here in its entirety for your reading pleasure, “If one imagines oneself as a fully aware founder of a society, a kind of combination of Moses and Machiavelli, one could ask oneself the following question: How can the future continuation of the institutional order, now established ex nihilo, be best ensured? There is an obvious answer to the question in terms of power. But let it be assumed that all the means of power have been effectively employed – all opponents have been destroyed, all means of coercion are in one’s own hands, reasonably safe provisions have been made for the transmission of power to one’s designated successors. There still remains the problem of legitimation, all the more urgent because of the novelty and thus highly conscious precariousness of the new order. The problem would best be solved by applying the following recipe: Let the institutional order be so interpreted as to hide, as much as possible, its constructed character. Let that which has been stamped out of the ground ex nihilo appear as the manifestation of something that has been existent from the beginning of time, or at least from the beginning of this group. Let the people forget that this order was established by men and continues to be dependent upon the consent of men. Let them believe that, in acting out the institutional programs that have been imposed upon them, they are but realizing the deepest aspirations of their own being and putting themselves in harmony with the fundamental order of the universe. In sum: Set up religious legitimations” (p. 33). Brilliant!
Overall, this book is a must read for anyone interested in the theory behind religions and their origins. Why this book is not more popular among sociologists of religion, I’m not certain (it could be the theology stuff!). But it should be more popular. Oh, and if you’re wholly uninterested in the social construction of reality and the origins of religion, well, you can skip this book.