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Two Currents In the Sociology Of Religion
By Paul M. Harrison

"It is widely assumed . . . that scholars of religion, especially historians and sociologists, should by some magic immunity stand aloof from the heady disputes that are splitting ministers into churchmen and non-churchmen and dividing the theologians into theists and dead-theists . . . But neither sociology nor history has yet developed a device that enables scholars to be at once deeply interested in their subject and perfectly disinterested with respect to the issues involved in it."

TWO recent books illustrate that the "science" of the sociology of religion is troubled by some of the same dilemmas confronted by theologians and professional clergy. The first, by Thomas Luckmann, is The Invisible Religion (Macmillan, 1967). It was originally published in 1963 in Germany under the title Das Problem der Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft. The second volume, edited by D. B. Robertson, is a collection of essays dedicated to the general subject of Voluntary Associations. The social ethicists and sociologists who contributed to this book evince all the faults clearly deplored by Luckmann.

It is very likely that the issues which separate Luckmann, and perhaps Peter Berger as well, from the majority of the American sociologists of religion go far beyond the problems and issues of sociology and merge into the arenas of philosophy, theology, psychology, and the sociology of knowledge.¹ It is widely assumed, however, that scholars of religion, especially historians and sociolo-

Paul M. Harrison is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Authority and Power in the Free Church Tradition (1959) and is currently serving as the Director of the United Church of Christ Study of Theological Education. His article, "Religious Pluralism and Social Welfare" (THEOLOGY TODAY, April, 1967), is being translated into German for the Zeitschrift für Strafvollzug.
¹ Berger and Luckmann recently co-authored a favorably reviewed study in the sociology of knowledge called The Social Construction of Reality, Doubleday & Co., 1966.

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gists, should by some magic immunity stand aloof from the heady disputes that are splitting ministers into churchmen and non-churchmen and dividing the theologians into theists and dead-theists. Thus Luckmann, in his Introduction to The Invisible Religion, says it "is one of the most important tasks for the sociologist" to recognize a problem and "to formulate it dispassionately and in a manner which permits the inspection of evidence." But neither sociology nor history has yet developed a device that enables scholars to be at once deeply interested in their subject and perfectly disinterested with respect to the issues involved in it. To be a sociologist of knowledge does not result in immunity from social effects; to be a competent critic of role-play involves one in playing a role.

The title of Luckmann's book suggests that religion is not necessarily exhausted by any of its particular forms, which is obviously true, but it also suggests that the essence of religious social reality is invisible. This may not offend orthodox theologians who have been seriously discussing the nature of the invisible church for centuries, but it is likely to offend orthodox American sociologists, who are traditionally more empirically oriented than their European brethren, and who view the church and other visible forms of religion with such great seriousness that they cringe at the apparently contradictory notion of an invisible social reality. But as every intelligent freshman quickly learns, one must never take course and book titles too seriously. This may be a case in point.

Luckmann's principal goals are very impressive and lend an excitement to the book not usually present in a sociological work. First, he strives to determine the essential nature of the relationship between the self, society, and religion, as based on G. H. Mead's social theory of the self. Second, in affinity with this effort, he seeks to determine the proper and essential task for the discipline of sociology of religion. The impressiveness of the goals themselves lends an authority and importance to this work, and the book is being favorably received in many quarters; but because I believe the author failed in significant ways to achieve his goals, it is important to critically analyze the work in some detail.

I

Luckmann says that recent sociology of religion is theoretically inadequate and regressive (pp. 18, 22). No names are mentioned

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and no distinctions are drawn between schools or types of sociologists. Apparently all are equally guilty. The reason is "the identification of church and religion" (p. 22). Contemporary sociologists are in error because they assume that religion "is amenable to scientific analysis only to the extent that it becomes organized and institutionalized" (p. 22). Thus Luckmann considers it important to distinguish between sociologists who define or describe religion exclusively as an institutional phenomenon, and sociologists, like himself, who claim that religion can also achieve social reality in non-institutional terms.

Analysis of formal institutional religion, he says, "completely neglects the central question of the sociology of religion" (p. 26). He poses the central question: "What are the conditions under which 'transcendent,' superordinated and 'integrating' structures of meaning are socially objectivated?" (p. 26.) This is a risky sentence for a sociologist to use simply because it has so many possibilities. From the standpoint of empirical disciplines "transcendent structures" could be viewed as a contradiction in terms, but we can assume this is not the author's intention. Perhaps his sociological conceptions have been influenced by Christian theology so that "transcendent structures" means revelation which, as traditionally conceived, paradoxically transcends history but achieves structured reality in specific historical events. He probably does not mean this because he would be as guilty as the ecclesiastical sociologists who, he says, identify religion with specific western phenomena (p. 41, passim). "Transcendent and superordinated" could mean invisible, but (despite the title of the book) Luckmann probably does not intend this because the invisible is not at all amenable to empirical sociological procedures, and he has some interest in these, at least in principle. He may mean, rather simply, that religious reality is not exhausted by institutional forms and those aspects of religion which, on an a priori basis, he does not consider institutional, he calls "transcendent."

The statement that "analysis of formal institutional religion completely neglects the central question of the sociology of religion," is not beyond debate. Those who do analyze institutional religion can, on a priori grounds, claim that the only conditions under which the transcendent can be socially objectivated are institutional conditions. They can further claim that, on both empirical and logical

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grounds, "socially objectivated" signifies visible regularities that definitionally denote institutionalization.

We can move on to another key sentence that contains even greater potential pitfalls. "Religious institutions are not universal; the phenomena underlying religious institutions or, to put it differently, performing analogous functions in the relation of the individual and the social order presumably are universal" (p. 43). Again, we are faced with a critically important sentence that is ambiguous and must be clarified. To say in this context that religious institutions are not universal is to infer that something else of a religious character or quality is universal. But to say that the "phenomena underlying" religious institutions is universal is not necessarily to say that anything religious is universal, or even existent. To put it differently, to say that something "performing analogous functions" [to religion] is universal, is not to say that anything religious is present at all. As every sociologist knows, alternative social structures can fulfill a variety of social functions and meet a variety of psychological needs. On a priori grounds, Luckmann may believe that there are human needs and social requisites that are specifically religious in character and that can therefore only be fulfilled by religious structures. If so, religion is assured a place in every society, in covert form at least, and it is the sociological task to discover and identify it. But since there are no perfectly objective or disinterested empirical sociological reasons for assuming this to be true, we can proceed to say that Luckmann at least believes that somethings religious exists at the social level that is more elementary than religious institutions. The question is the nature of this noninstitutional social religious reality.

The heart of Luckmann's interest may be discovered when he expresses the opinion that all institutional forms of religion are declining and then indicates that there is a strong possibility "that a new religion is in the making" (p. 40). No empirical evidence for support of this idea is offered, but Luckmann's positive interest in the possible coming event is indicated by his effort "to raise [this] from a purely speculative status to the status of a productive hypothesis in the sociological theory of religion" (p. 40). (Apparently a "productive hypothesis" has some kind of self-generative power which will protect it from being tested and found wanting as is the possibility in the case of ordinary mongrel hypotheses).

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His first step in raising his speculation to the level of a productive hypothesis is imaginative and may prove useful for future work in the sociology of religion. It will be useful to briefly outline his argument. He carries the philosophy of the Social Self developed by G. H. Mead and others a step further in suggesting that we may "regard the social processes that lead to the formation of Self as fundamentally religious." "It is in keeping with an elementary sense of the concept of religion to call the transcendence of biological nature by the human organism a religious phenomenon" (p. 49). But he vacillates on this point. He steps back, indicating that this universal human experience is not quite a religious event, rather it is "the universal anthropological condition of religion" that must occur before "religion becomes a distinct part of social reality" (p. 50). But then again he says, "socialization . . . is fundamentally religious." So, minimally, he is saying that the anthropological condition of religion is the development of individual consciousness in social process. This is "actualized in the internalization of . . . a world view" (p. 51). A world view is a "configuration of meaning underlying a historical social order." Thus it is necessarily the product of the social and religious history of a particular people. But it "transcends the individual in several ways" (p. 51). It provides the creative integrating power for the individualization and socialization of persons. Therefore, the world view "performs an essentially religious function" and we may "define it as an elementary social form of religion" (p. 53).

World views are universal and have "no special or distinct institutional basis" (p. 56). Within the world view there exists a narrower "domain of meaning … that deserves to be called religious" because it "consists of symbols which represent" an "inner hierarchy of significance" of the world itself. This justifies calling it religious (p. 56). The world view always clearly differentiates between the realms of the sacred and the profane. The "ultimate significance of everyday life and the meaning of extraordinary experiences are located" in the "sacred cosmos." The sacred cosmos "is taken to manifest itself in the profane world in some form . . ." (pp. 58-59). But, he says, the highly specialized and differentiated institutionalized and autonomous religious enterprises "emerged only in the Judaeo-Christian tradition of Western history" (p. 62).

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II

Luckmann introduced this book with the intention of seeking a redefinition for the nature of individual existence and the relationship between the individual and society. How "can a person maintain his autonomy in this society?" (pp. 10-11). The central role of religion can now be understood. The relationship between individual and society is religious, but Luckmann, unfortunately, does not begin to adequately explore the possibilities of his idea that development of Self in Society is a religious event. For example, is it a process that begins and ends relatively early in life, or is it a continually experienced process concluding only at death, but continuing eternally and everywhere in the experiences of the living? Does the socializing religious process have demonic as well as creative and positive qualities, so that individual nature is sometimes distorted by the socializing experience?

Luckmann does not ask these questions. He clearly holds a positive view of the socializing process just as he positively evaluates "religion" in its "elementary forms." The basis for his negative evaluations of organized religion is clearly stated throughout the book, but the reasons for his positive assessment of the elementary socializing processes and identification of these with elementary religious forms are not given. "Elementary" religion is identified with these processes and it apparently is always creative and functions positively for society and for the individual. Given this presupposition, it is quite correct to say that "religion is present in nonspecific form in all societies and all 'normal' (socialized) individuals." There even exists "a religious dimension in the 'definition' of individual and society but [it] is empty of specific empirical content" (p. 78).

Two important things have happened. An ordinary and universal social process has been identified as the elementary form of religious life. Secondly, since it is devoid of specific empirical content, it cannot be amenable to empirical sociological procedures and can therefore be identified by the sociologist as a religious phenomenon only on a priori grounds. It is by this procedure that Luckmann can determine the essentially religious character of the creative process of the development of the social self.

One can fully agree with Luckmann's view that the religious phenomenon is not exhausted by official or traditional institutional types.

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It is important, as he says, to discover and to analyze "the world views of contemporary industrial societies," to discover the "sacred cosmos" of these societies, to analyze the religious values and assumptions resident in non-religious social institutions (p. 91). But Luckmann's fundamental error, in my view, is to assume that since religion is manifested in social forms other than the official and traditional institutions (churches, sects, etc.), these alternative social manifestations are not institutional. This is tantamount to saying that the religious ideas of the politicians, the industrialists, and the laborer, and the forms that these religious ideas assume as they are expressed in the secular social structures are not institutionalized.

I would argue that the non-ecclesiastical, social religious representations are as institutional as the ecclesiastical forms, even though their religious aspects are less formal and more covert. I would further argue that religion does not have the same function in its formal ecclesiastical manifestations and in its "secular" or "elementary" expressions. Analysis of the nature of these various functions is a continuing aspect of the sociologist's task, but we can briefly suggest that religious expressions in the political or economic realms probably have a different social effect, i.e., function, from that which they have in the ecclesiastical realm. That is, the non-priestly use of religion differs from the priestly. In general, the function of civic religion is to sustain the social order; the general function of traditional religion is to sustain the priestly order and the religious community. Neither religious expression is perfectly and consistently motivated by devotion to God or by love of neighbor. Neither religious expression is perfectly autonomous. The "world view" and the "sacred cosmos" of every society is expressed through its social institutions, both ecclesiastical and secular. The tremendous theoretical contributions of Durkheim and Weber were rooted in their effort to discover the relationship between religious ideas as expressed in the traditional religions and in the secular institutions. Weber was most interested in the relationship between organized religion and economic institutions and ideologies; Durkheim was primarily concerned with the basic social function of organized religion, for, as he wrote, "in all history, we do not find a single religion without a Church." (The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Free Press, n.d., p. 44.)

There are many important contributions and perceptive sugges-

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tions in this book that were overlooked in our concentrated effort to analyze Luckmann's critique of sociology of religion. Those who may have been stimulated in some measure by this part of the essay should recognize that it was stimulated by a basically exciting effort to break new ground.

III

The next volume to be considered in this critical essay is entitled Voluntary Associations: A Study of Groups in Free Societies (John Knox Press, 1966). The contributors demonstrate the validity of Luckmann's thesis that no coherent social theory guides the thought of Protestant scholars, but it contradicts the claim that Protestant sociologists and social ethicists are interested exclusively in institutionalized religion. The occasion for the book is the anticipated retirement of James Luther Adams, Edward Mallinckrodt Professor at Harvard Divinity School. There is no need to dwell on the fact that the book possesses the fault of every Festschrift. It is inevitable that some contributors are motivated more by personal devotion to a revered scholar and friend than by intellectual commitment to the chosen theme. These essayists do concentrate on the topic, however, but only a minority of them write from the vantage point of an explicit theory of society or theory of voluntary associations. The book would probably have been more useful if these former students and colleagues of Adams had utilized their mentor's own theories and related their contribution to his thought.

Adams can be called a "theological sociologist" who views human associations as social mediators of God's will. The nature of these collectivities is of critical importance because they are in important ways social determinators of the nature of man as a social being. The similarity to Luckmann's thesis is apparent, but Adams' effort is more explicitly theological. The theory is more balanced in that Adams was more deeply influenced by the Calvinistic theory of man and society. Thus his normative theory of associations is tempered by the recognition that all social expressions and forms, whether institutionalized or not, possess the potential for corruption as well as revelation.

Max Stackhouse, in an important biographical essay, says that Adams is critical of Protestant social theory, in part, because it is so often individualistic, rationalistic, and unduly reliant upon the

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spoken and written word. Contrary to Luckmann, Adams "came to the conclusion that language is insufficient…. It is concrete historical institutions that shape life most massively. Institutions, indeed, provide the nexus for preservation, transmission, and alteration of language and cultural memory …" (p. 347). Adams is described as a sort of "historical contextualist, taking the cultural epoch as his context, and always asking what principles are in operation therein and what view of being or becoming is implied by making one decision rather than another" (p. 351).

James Hunt contributes a chapter entitled "Voluntary Associations as a Key to History" in which he further explicates Adams' theory. History is to be understood chiefly "in terms of the interplay of various types of associations and institutions. . . . Man as a historical being is to be understood in terms of the type of associations (voluntary and involuntary, . . . in which he participates" (p. 360). Although Hunt does not mention it, this provides a foundation for a theory of the sociology of knowledge, as well as for a reconsideration of the nature of revelation in the Protestant community that has tended to view God's acts primarily in terms of individual human experience. At least one side of the Protestant traditions tends to slight history, the social context of thought, and the imperative commitment to life in associations. It is this aspect of the tradition which Adams deplores. As Hunt observes, his theory of the nature of man and revelation has more in common with Catholicism and classical Calvinism than it does with much in contemporary Protestant thought. But Adams' concept of the relation between the individual and associations does not result in a deterministic social theory. He favors a theology and sociology that must be classified as "voluntarism," which means "that will or creativity is the decisive factor in human nature and that this will is the ultimate constituent of reality." He follows Augustine's psychology of the will which affirms that "one becomes by reason of an act of the will, or decision." A voluntaristic interpretation of history is eminently political and "places questions of power at the center of interest." The decisive aspect of associations is power and the capacity to participate in making socially effective decisions. "Playing a variation on Lord Acton, Adams asserts that impotence also corrupts, making one become merely the object or victim of power" (p. 372). True piety is not powerless any more than true

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faith is the self-righteous individual declaring himself chosen by God (pp. 364-367).

Adams believed that it is only by participation in human association that man achieves any ability to act morally, despite the fact that he increases at the same time his capacity for acts of immorality. Thus Adams is intensely interested in the "crucial questions of the structure of organization, leadership, the assignment of responsibilities, policy decisions, and decisions regarding the implementation of policy. . . . The forms of association which exist in the society . . . are the forms of power in that society, and an effective social ethic requires the organization of power for its purposes.

James Gustafson, in his chapter, "The Voluntary Church: A Moral Appraisal," clearly demonstrates his indebtedness to Adams. First, Gustafson's work is always both sociologically and theologically informed, demonstrating by example that competent theology and sociology mutually contribute to each other. Second, Gustafson's theory is also explicitly normative. After offering fresh insights on some of the social sources of Protestant church organization and doctrine, Gustafson argues that despite all the contingencies and faults of the voluntary churches, it is imperative-given the nature of man -to organize the church in accord with voluntary principles. It is the voluntary church, striving to act as moral community, that best approximates the three fundamental aspects of the religious association in contemporary industrial society: (1) the objectivity given norms such as the Bible and tradition; (2) the members who have exercised their will to belong to the church; and (3) the leaders who define the purposes of the church and solicit the consent of the members.

In the hierarchical church the relationship of the leader and laity is more simple. Assent is the operational norm. But in the voluntary church the leader must learn how to gain the consent of the constituency. This has created many problems for the American churches and added to the difficulty of the minister's task, but, Gustafson says, "in the complexity given us precisely by the voluntary character of the churches lies the vitality of American Christianity" (p. 315). Thus American Protestantism faces head on the dangers of free diversity and the continual possibility of vocalized heterodoxy, but it also reaps the advantages of a situation in which the members are themselves morally responsible to internalize the

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traditional norms. The task of the minister is extremely complex because now he "becomes a person whose function it is to give guidance to a consensus-forming process, in and through which particular judgments (including his own) can be clarified and be brought to bear on the relevant points of action" (p. 317).

Gustafson emphasizes that "the first order of theological importance lies in God," not in the voluntary principle. It is God's sovereignty rather than the infallibility of the organizing principle of the church that is the legitimating motive for that principle. Therefore, acceptance of the voluntary church is a practical matter necessitated by theological affirmation. The principle of church organization must be taken seriously, but if taken too seriously it will corrupt the relation between man and God (p. 321).

W. Alvin Pitcher contributes another essay that is set within the framework of Adams' theory. Essentially it is itself a review article of William Kornhauser's The Politics of Mass Society. Mass society is a highly organized political form that isolates the people from the mechanisms of decision-making. Thus the people are unstable and unpredictable in their social acts and responsibilities because their knowledge of politics is so remote from their daily experience. A mass society is characterized by the weakness or non-existence of voluntary associations which function to exercise political pressure on the centers of economic and political decision-making. Democratization requires the existence of "independent" social groups and classes. "A pluralistic society is the best society-positively because it provides order (authority) and freedom in the greatest measures, and negatively because it is the best defense against totalitarianism." American society is in danger because social isolation stemming from the loss and threatened disruption of participation in intermediate associations is increasingly experienced by its people.

In this vein Pitcher discusses the implications of Kornhauser's thesis for the church. Intermediate associations offset personal isolation and curtail the appearance of mass society only when the local branches of the intermediate groups possess power. Yet increasingly, in all secondary social groups, including the churches, decisions are made at regional or national levels.

IV

Despite all of the troubles of the churches and all of the criticisms to be found in the essays written by the men thus far mentioned,

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none of them is attracted to the thesis of the Secular Gospel. To consecrate the "secular sacred" cosmos and to imply or declare that in some way in the modern age the secular has become the locus of the sacred does not appeal to these men who insist that sociological viability expressed in terms of structured associations is a prerequisite for any ideas that will function effectively in history.

It may be that all social forms of religion are anachronistic and that we are steadily moving to a stage in history when religion will be privatized, each autonomous individual "consuming" those items of belief, "religious" and "secular," that are most attractive to the framework of his own subjectivity. (Luckmann, pp. 103 ff.). But it so, religion itself will be functionally anachronistic and will gradually phase out of existence. It will persist in some proto-mystical or pseudo-religious sectarian "forms" that lack effectiveness and social viability.

The remaining essays in Voluntary Associations are for the most part contributions of high scholarship to particular theories of association or to analyses of associational movements in history. D. B. Robertson offers an article on "Hobbes's Theory of Associations" without relating his effort to anything else. The two most sophisticated articles in the book, in terms of the traditional criteria of massive footnotes and cross-referential data gathering were contributed, by Frederick S. Carney ("Associational Thought in Early Calvinism") and by George H. Williams (The Religious Background of the Idea of a Loyal Opposition"). These articles stand by themselves as being of great value for specialists.

But I have chosen to use those essays that most clearly confirm Luckmann's observation that American sociologists of religion are intensely interested in institutionalized religion, possibly because they are as guilty as I in believing, as Luckmann said, that religion "is amenable to scientific analysis only to the extent that it becomes organized and institutionalized."

Again Luckmann is correct in observing that sociologists of religion concentrate almost exclusively upon Western religion-Judaism and Christianity-and neglect other important unofficial forms of religion in our society. But the contributors to Voluntary Associations demonstrate a range of interest that is disconcertingly broad, as a listing of the remaining chapter titles indicates. "The Meaning of 'Church' in Anabaptism and Roman Catholicism" (Michael

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Novak); "The Voluntary Principle in Religion and Religious Freedom in America" (Robert Handy); "The Political Theory of Voluntary Association in Early Nineteenth-Century German Liberal Thought" (George Iggers); "Rausenbusch's View of the Church as a Dynamic Voluntary Association" (Donovan Smucker); "A Note on Creative Freedom and the State in the Social Philosophy of Nicolas Berdyaev" (Douglas Sturm); "Missionary Societies and the Development of Other Forms of Associations in India" (Richard Taylor); "The Communauté de Travail" (Verne Fletcher); "SANE as a Voluntary Association" (Homer Jack).

Only a minority of these authors can be classed as sociologists of religion, but the breadth of the concern of these Christian social philosophers, theologians, historians, ethicists, and sociologists is important to note. Equally important, the contributors with the most explicit sociological training display the greatest interest, and perhaps competence, in seeking for a unifying theory of history and society.