When it comes to religion and politics, theories abound of secularisation and modernity, however, an absolute separation between the spheres of religion and politics has never been fully actualised and is not even possible according to the works of theorists such as Emile Durkheim, Robert Bellah, Edward Shils, and Emilio Gentile. The utopian secular modern society forecast by John Locke in his theories of the social contract and toleration ([1689], 2012) and asserted by the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote from prison in 1944 that man had already become “radically religionless” (p.180), have not come to fruition or been embraced globally.
There are two main arguments in the study of religion regarding theories of secularisation, one …show more content…
112-120). It should be noted that for Locke a church is a free society of members voluntarily uniting, further suggesting that “as membership of a church society is free and spontaneous it has the right to make its own laws or to those whom the society by common consent authorises thereunto” (p. 121). In effect the Church and the state while separate would work together from their different spheres of public and private life and create a utopia of man free from the conflicts of religion according top …show more content…
Durkheim hypothesizes that parts known as rites, determined by modes of actions, and parts known as beliefs, found in collective representations, connect the phenomenon of the sacred with social life (pp. 50, 54, & 412-417).
In regards to Locke’s assertion of religion as salvation of a soul and focus on the otherworldly Durkheim instead argues that “religion is more than the idea of gods and spirits “further specifying that religion cannot be defined exclusively by them (p.412). Religion to Durkheim was not static and only tied to the supernatural or otherworldly, instead religion according to Durkheim could transform and new forms of the sacred would emerge during this transformation of collective consciousness.
The relationship between rites, the object, and beliefs is what leads to Durkheim’s (1995) hypothesis of a common characteristic of all beliefs, the supposition of distinction by man over what is real and ideal, sacred or profane. He posits that the sacred is manifested through powers and authority that are presented as “guardians of physical and moral order, as well as dispenser of life, health, and all the qualities that men value.”
There are two main arguments in the study of religion regarding theories of secularisation, one …show more content…
112-120). It should be noted that for Locke a church is a free society of members voluntarily uniting, further suggesting that “as membership of a church society is free and spontaneous it has the right to make its own laws or to those whom the society by common consent authorises thereunto” (p. 121). In effect the Church and the state while separate would work together from their different spheres of public and private life and create a utopia of man free from the conflicts of religion according top …show more content…
Durkheim hypothesizes that parts known as rites, determined by modes of actions, and parts known as beliefs, found in collective representations, connect the phenomenon of the sacred with social life (pp. 50, 54, & 412-417).
In regards to Locke’s assertion of religion as salvation of a soul and focus on the otherworldly Durkheim instead argues that “religion is more than the idea of gods and spirits “further specifying that religion cannot be defined exclusively by them (p.412). Religion to Durkheim was not static and only tied to the supernatural or otherworldly, instead religion according to Durkheim could transform and new forms of the sacred would emerge during this transformation of collective consciousness.
The relationship between rites, the object, and beliefs is what leads to Durkheim’s (1995) hypothesis of a common characteristic of all beliefs, the supposition of distinction by man over what is real and ideal, sacred or profane. He posits that the sacred is manifested through powers and authority that are presented as “guardians of physical and moral order, as well as dispenser of life, health, and all the qualities that men value.”