luckmann_sociology and religion

Luckmann, T. (1967). Religion, Church and Sociology. In T. Luckmann, The Invisible Religion. The problem of religion in modern society (pp. 17!"). #e$ %ork& The 'acmillan Co mpany. The new sociology of religion badly neglected its theoretically most significant task: to analyze the changing social—not necessarily institutional—basis of religion in modern society. In developing the thesis that, for sociological theory, the problem of personal existence in society is essentially a uestion of the social form of religion, we can count on little direct help from the new sociology of religion. The thirties and forties were lean years for the sociology of religion. ! whole generation of sociologists grew up in an intellectual climate in which religion was regarded as a system of beliefs which had performed certain inte grating functions i n primitive society, if not as a prehistoric stag e in the evolution of human reason, whose institutional survival in contemporary society offered little research interest to the sociologist. The demand for usable research results on the part of church institutions and the absence of theory also had conseuences for the methodology of the new sociology of religion. The exclusion of matters of "faith# from research, the pragmatic orientation of most research and the absence of theory in the definition of problems combined to encourage the adoption of research techniues which were "handy#—but not necessarily appropriate to the study of religion. Thus, for example, methods of institutional descripti on were transferred to the analysis of church organization in a rather naive fashion. $ven more characteristic, however, of the new sociology of religion was its uncritical, on occasion primitive, use of opinion research techniues. Interestingly enough, there is hardly another sociological discipline as completely dominated by a narrow "positivistic# methodology as the recent sociology of religion. %n the other hand, historical and ethnological analyses of religion are not yet euivalent to a systematic sociological theory of religion& $liade, '.%tto, (oachim )ach. The main assumption—which also has the most important conseuences for research and theory in the sociology of religion —consists in the identification of church and religion. %n occasion this assumption is explicitly formulated as a methodological principle: religion may be many things, but it is amenable to scientific analysis only to the extent that it becomes organized and institutionalized. *ost other assumptions are intimately linked with this main assumption or are directly derived from it. 'eligion becomes a social fact either as ritual +institutionalized religious conduct or doctrine +institutionalized religious ideas. -reuently it is assumed that, on the part of the individual, religious "needs correspon d to the ob/ective social facts of religion—which latter satisfy the former in some manner. It is then left open whether the historical varieties of religious institutions such as churches and sects, satisfy somewhat different individual "needs, whether socio0historic circumstances account for different organizational forms, whether "religion is the sum of all of these or whether it is their common denominator. The identification of church and religion fits into the dominant view of sociol ogy as the science of social institution s—the latter term understood narrowly. It is also congruent with theoretical positivism. In the traditional positivistic view religion

luckmann_sociology and religion

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