Rethinking Religion
Rethinking Religion
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反思宗教
DOI：
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发表时间：
2019
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Brian Steensland
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文献类型：
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作者：
Brian Steensland
如果社会学家头脑中对宗教有一个有效的定义，那很可能是埃米尔·涂尔干的。宗教是一种信仰和实践的体系，它以神圣为导向，将人们整合到一个道德共同体中。使用这一定义的大学教师总是回答学生的问题，比如职业足球、兄弟会和姐妹会、购物或马克思主义是否也可以被视为宗教。涂尔干的定义有意地撒下了一张大网。他预见了有组织的宗教的消亡，并为理解现代道德团结的新来源奠定了分析框架。在他的新书《宗教》中：它是什么，它是如何工作的，为什么它很重要，克里斯蒂安·史密斯试图彻底改革，如果不是推翻，几乎每一个方面的标准社会学处理宗教，包括涂尔干的。这本书的副标题显示了它的雄心。也就是说：宗教的定义应该集中在寻求获得超人力量的实践上;它不应该集中在“神圣”上。对宗教的解释应该通过人们对人类繁荣的渴望以及他们实现这一愿望的有限能力来运作;解释不应该贯穿于社会对道德整合或宗教次要影响的需求。在可预见的未来，宗教将是人类社会的一个持久特征;它不会在现代化的浪潮中消失。宗教本身就值得理解;学者们经常误解宗教，因为他们根据宗教对政治、行动主义或社会态度的影响来正交地解释宗教。史密斯写了大量关于宗教超过25年，但他从来没有解决宗教的核心方面如此直接。虽然这本书有一些弱点，但它的洞察力和本书超越理性选择和世俗化范式的目标超过了这些弱点。斯密的观点是多年来关于宗教的实质和研究的最持久的社会学声明。他同时缩小和深化宗教的定义范围，确定宗教的运作和影响的机制，并寻求重新定位我们的理论和元理论的宗教方法。对宗教哪怕只是一瞥兴趣的学者都应该阅读并反驳他的分析。
If sociologists have a working definition of religion in their heads, it is likely Émile Durkheim’s. Religion is a system of beliefs and practices oriented toward the sacred that integrates people into a moral community. College instructors using this definition invariably field questions from students about whether professional football, fraternities and sororities, shopping, or Marxism can also be considered religions. Durkheim’s definition intentionally cast a broad net. He anticipated the demise of organized religion and laid out an analytic framework for apprehending new sources of moral solidarity in the modern age. In his new book, Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters, Christian Smith seeks to overhaul, if not overturn, nearly every facet of standard sociological treatments of religion, including Durkheim’s. The book’s subtitle telegraphs its ambitions. To wit: The definition of religion should center on practices that seek access to superhuman powers; it should not focus on the ‘‘sacred.’’ Explanations of religion should operate through people’s desire for human flourishing and their limited capacities to attain it; explanations should not run through society’s needs for moral integration or religion’s secondary effects. Religion will be a durable feature of human society for the foreseeable future; it will not dissolve on the tides of modernity. Religion warrants understanding for its own sake; scholars too often misapprehend religion when they interpret it orthogonally in light of its influences on politics, activism, or social attitudes. Smith has written prolifically about religion for over twenty-five years, but he has never addressed the core aspects of religion so directly. Though the book has some weak spots, they are outweighed by its insights and the book’s aims to move the field beyond the rational choice and secularization paradigms. Smith’s is the most sustained sociological statement on the substance and study of religion in years. He simultaneously narrows and deepens the definitional scope of religion, identifies mechanisms of religion’s workings and influence, and seeks to reorient our theoretical and meta-theoretical approach to religion. Scholars with even glancing interests in religion should read and contend with his analysis.