1. Religion as a Model for Welfare
Martti Muukkonen
23RD NORDIC CONFERENCE FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
17. – Helsinki, Finland

2. Finnish reality in past years has been this ”Listen, if the bus doesn’t come soon, I resign from the church!”

4. Sociological theories have commonly expected disappearence of teligion – or at least its marginalisation

5. Beyond the eastern border it was for a long time like this

6. However, the times, they are changing.

7. In our eastern neighbour

8. Changing in good…

9. …and bad

10. As well as peacemakers…

11. …as war promoters

12. Religious leaders have became pop stars

13. The first set of Luther Playmobil –figure was sold in 72 hours

14. Party leaders speak about values

15. The theory of the death of the religion might be a bit hasty
How sociologists frame it?

16. Samuel Huntington framed that the cultural spheres are based on religions

17. Clifford Geertz
”Religion is a model of the society and a model for the society”

18. According to Geertz, religion is
”(1) a system of symbols which acts to
(2) establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by
(3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and
(4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that
(5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely real­istic. ”

20. Levels of religion Metaphysical level World view Epistemology
Personal level
Feelings and expriences
Meaning of life
Cultural level
Religion as a value memory of culture

21. Religion and welfare Esping-Andersen’s welfare regimes:
Nordic (= Lutheran)
”There should be no poor among you”
Luther created municipal poor relief
Pietism hasa project to eliminate poverty by education
Central and Southern European (=Catholic)
Subsidiarity principle
Focus on the centrality of the family
Anglo-Saxon (=Anglicanic-Methodistic)
Early leaders of the Labour Party were Methodists
Focus on the role of the voluntary associations

22. A model for the study of religion and welfare

23. Context Opportunity structures
Idea comes from theories of social movements
Are not determinants so that when A then B
Are like the rules of Chess: Define what moves are possible
The actor makes always the final decision
The analysis of the opportunyty structures seeks potentials – a bit like in SWOT analysis
The model asks: ”What kinds of potentials the context created for the forms of religion?”
E.g. ”Which kind of cosmology is a result of an irrigation farming in the midst of a desert?”

24. Context

25. Dimensions of religion

26. Religion / doctrine
Elements of religion are mostly defined by the situations of the period of its birth and/or significant crisis periods (see Berger & Luckmann’s routinisation thesis)
Religion gives an explanation of the reality
Durkheim’s famous dictum: ”In religion society is worshipping itself.”
Religion legitimates the deep values of the society (”Do not kill”, ”Do not steal” etc.)

27. Religion / cult Ritus is the acting of the myth
With rites the society is renewing the deep values
Official state cult (great tradition)
Rites of the state religion
Civil religion –rites
Upper class
Popular piety (great-/ small tradition)
Communal popular religiosity
Lower class, ethnic
Home religion (small tradition)
Family traditions, forefather cults

28. Religion / ethics Ethical systems Social ethics Personal ethics
Basic values in societies
Models for solving value conflicts
Social ethics
How the society is build?
What are the roles of society, different groups and individuals?
Personal ethics
How to live with your neighbor?

29. Aspects of welfare

30. Aspects of welfare How the prosperity is made and distributed?
Who has the responsibility of the welfare?
Who has the access to which services?
What is the attitude towards the weakest of the society?

31. Analytical tool
The reality is not, of course, so simple one way process.
There is feedbact from religion and welfare to context (e.g. religion has effects on economy)
This is just an analytical tool to check