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the role of religion in politics
sociological perspectives of religion
sociological perspectives of religion
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In 1959, in his book The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills described a unique type of critical thinking as an awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society, both today and in the past. He called such thinking as sociological imagination. It enables an individual to see a bigger understanding on how they live their lives and one’s role in the society. Through this special type of thinking, we can see how our personal lives are connected to society.
The Philippine Archipelago is home to 90 million people. With about 92% of our population who are Roman Catholics, the Philippines only follows Brazil and Mexico as the largest Catholic nation in the world. Colonized by Spain for more than 300 years, Filipinos embraced the religion introduced to as by the Spaniards. With several presidents who professed to be devout Catholics, the Catholic Church greatly influences Philippine society and politics. One example is the People Power Revolution of 1986 that ended the Marcos regime. The country also recognizes special days in the Catholic calendar as non-working holidays. Moreover, Sunday is usually the off day of workers to spend the day with God, most especially, taking part in the Eucharistic Celebration.
One of the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses was to remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. As a Roman Catholic, it is a Christian duty to go to Church every Sabbath Day and celebrate the Holy Eucharist. This paper will assess the behaviour and characteristics of people attending the anticipated Eucharistic Celebration in the Malate Catholic Church on Saturdays, all from a presumable sociologist’s perspective.
It is worthy to say that there is less number of churchgoers in an antic...
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...ations.
We use sociological imagination to improve the lives of people by understanding what really causes societal issues and how it affects an individual and vice versa. We discussed the characteristics and behaviour of churchgoers in an anticipated mass in the Malate Catholic Church. As mentioned before, religion greatly influences the Philippine politics and society. But with the attitude and behaviour of Catholics inside the church, why is there still a growing social cancer in our country? The abovementioned mass participants may or may not sincerely practice their faith outside the Catholic Church. Perhaps, as a sign of respect inside the Lord’s dwelling, they abide by the prescriptions of the Catholic Church. Whether or not they continue on everyday with their Catholic upbringing, that is another societal concern left for us to discern and analyze.
The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.”
During the 20th century, the liturgical movement inspired widespread changes in different religions around the world. This liturgical movement changed how churches carried their traditions and faith. During this change, many churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Church and Anglican Communion, had to adapt to the reforms inspired by the 20th century liturgical movement.
Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-
The sociological textbook definition of the sociological imagination is “the ability to grasp the relationship between individual lives and the larger social forces that help to shape them.” However like most things, the sociological imagination is a bigger and more important concept than its definition. The sociological imagination allows one to have both a third-person and first-person view of the world. Being able to look through someone’s eyes while simultaneously knowing the forces that shape what they see and do, gives one a much greater understanding of someone’s life. That’s what the sociological imagination allows us to do, gain a better understanding. Whether through economic, religious, racial, or other social forces, the sociological
...ombia, the number of Catholics have seen a considerably slower decrease than other Latin American Countries. Their Catholic population has dropped by closer to thirteen percent over the past forty-five years.
This is the foundation of the Sociological Imagination Concept. According to C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination is developed when we can place personal problems in a social situation or environment such that they are no longer viewed solely as individual or personal problems, but instead as social problems. That is problems that are shared by enough peop...
huge part in the functioning of the emotional system of the church. If individuals in families and
Sociological theorist have provided two broad insights as to what exactly the sociology of religion can refer to. One concept acknowledges that “the nature of religion is part of a human condition” (pg 652) while the other concept is an applied school that focuses more on the statistics of who populated the religion and is concerned more about more technical details such as age, gender and social class and how “these interacted with the host of social, social psychological and sociopolitical outcomes in societies” (pg 652). Despite the two approaches of studying religions most theorists took the applied route or did observational work at the beginning of their careers.
The sociological imagination according to C. Wright Mills is an idea which gives an individual the ability to understand the connection between a problem and the history of that problem (Mills, 2000).He states that the sociological imagination is “A quality of mind that will help use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves” Mills (2000:5). The distinct different between the two terms lies upon the ideology that troubles are problems which are personal and directly affect an individual and their milieu (Mills, 2000)rather than issues which are “to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life “. Furthermore, the sociological imagination in a nutshell is a way of thinking which links the events that occur in people’s everyday lives to more than their individual surroundings and individual effects.
Father Redmon explained in our interview that each person is to join his or her voice in united faith. My observation was of people outwardly participating e.g., kneeling, crossing themselves but vocal participation was minimal or left to the choir. During my interview with Father Redmon, I mentioned my observation regarding the various responses and he emphasized the centrality of the Eucharist, saying “Worship of the Holy Trinity through the Eucharist is the purpose of the church” and it is through this that they grow both individually and as the Church.
In conclusion, we as individuals all need to look a t the world sociologically. Everyday we are confronted with conflicts and injustices. Social interaction gives us the tools to understand our personal self in relation to others in the world. In order to improve our world we must realize that we as individuals are influenced by the environment, time period, parents, and childhood and adult experiences. We are not just individual but part of the social world. In Sociological Imagination C. Wright Mills stated that, “sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.
According C.Wright.Mills (1959), sociological imagination enables one to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables one to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions. It is not only information that they need - in this Age of Fact; information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within them.
In 1959, American sociologist Charles Wright Mills wrote his influential book 'The Sociological Imagination'. In the book, Mills proposed that possibly the most assistive part of his sociological imagination theory was differentiating problems within society between 'personal troubles of the milieux' and 'public issues of social structure'. In his view, 'personal troubles' were individualistic and where 'an individual's character and with those limited areas of social life of which he is directly and personally aware'. By contrast, his thoughts on 'public issues' were that they were more general problems, out with the scope of an individual, and would affect more than just one person. He used the example of unemployment to explain his sociological viewpoint further. H...
The “sociological imagination”, therefore, was supposed to be used by sociologists, intellectuals and the public alike. It is a theory conceiving both individuals in society and society as a whole, and looking at the historical context in which society and individuals are placed. Mills wanted to merge the history of society with the biography of individuals, as he believed it was the job of sociology to understand both.
The sociological approach looks at religious belief and practice in relation to the society. Sociologists are interested in two themes, the centrality of religion in society and the diversity of forms it inhabits (Hamilton 1995/2001:1). It regards religion as a social fact subject to empirical observation, which produces empirical evidence (Dillon 2003:7). The sociology of religion is a product of the enlightenment, from which it inherited a tendency to dismiss religion as incompatible with rationality (Dillon 2003:6). This dismissal has had significant impact on the attitude towards religion and it is the basis for the most influential paradigm in the history of the field; secularisation. The secularisation theory claims that religion is or will be on the decrease in society. So profound was its impact that modern sociology often aims to account for the continued presence of religion in society and has generally held a rather negative view of religion as being an unworthy subject of study(Davies 2007:2).