On Tue, 2 Nov 1999 08:38:51 +0000 (GMT) Greg Smith <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
> Steve Bruce is obviously right that there is a huge difference
> between NE Scotland and inner city areas. He also has a point that
> there is a substantial difference between theories that attribute
> religiosity purely to social conditioning and those that allow innate
> religiosity... although I don't think that disqualifies them as un-
> sociological.
>
Of itself,theories of innate religious needs need not be
unsociological. Stark-Bainbridge is pretty sociological (though also
pretty wrong). What tends to make them unsociological is that while
most otehr areas of human social life are taken to be culturally
conditioned and variable (expressions of sexuality or family
structure, for example), this one space - the God slot -is taken to be
constant. Which seems like a bad case of special pleading.
> What I think is interesting about the context of religious diversity
> in the inner city is that for some young people at least the result
> is not just head knowledge about religion but serious faith
> commitments and identity formation in which religious dogma is
> important. (Of course there are a lot of mixed up kids too)
> Anecdotally, judging from my own children at ages 6 or 7 they are
> and there Muslim friends are very aware of significant theological
> differences AND religious identities.
The big empirical question is the extent to which acceptance of the
equal validity of competing viewpoints is compatible with a shared
faith of sufficient dynamism to be successfully transmitted and
sustained. Berger, for example, now thinks that liberal religion can
endure. I would put my money on the early Berger's view that the
acceptance of diversity sufficiently weakens commitment that the
resulting faith loses the momentum it needs to be maintained and
transmitted. Hence the continuing plummet of the Christian
denominations in the West. Who a hundred years ago would have thought
we would be predicting the date when the last Methodist dies?
>
> Greg
>
>
> Greg Smith (Research Consultant)
> Aston Charities Community Involvement Unit
> Mayflower Centre
> Vincent Street
> London E16 1LZ UK
>
>
> tel 0171 474 2255 Email [log in to unmask]
>
> check out CREDO on our website
> http://www.newtel.org.uk/orgs/credo/credo.html
>
>
----------------------
Steve Bruce
Professor of Sociology
Sociology
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen AB24 3QY
Tel: 01224 272761 (work); 01467 671595 (home)
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