In order to understand the complexity of contemporary American society, a baseline or fundamental consideration of and identification of the major underlying constructs is necessary. Three of the most influential institutions of contemporary American society are religion, the economy, and the government of the United States. While all three of these institutions have a direct impact on the way people act, interact, think, feel, and communicate, the structure of the institution of religion has resulted in specific patterns of thinking, acting, and feeling in American society.
The structure of religion in contemporary American society is broad and highly varied. Religion can be defined in a general sense here as a set of beliefs in a system of behaviors that include worship, doctrine, and a belief in a higher power. The structure of religion in contemporary American society also encompasses spirituality that may or may not include belief in a higher power. Regardless of the definition, though, the implication for the impact of religion, however it is defined, and whether it is practiced by individuals or groups within American society is strong. A sociological analysis of religion in contemporary American society focuses on how religion affects how people act and feel through the lens of religion, it also ascribes how social forces place pressure on individuals and groups as well as the impact of how those individuals and groups act and feel, and it creates general patterns of behavior. Perhaps one of the most detrimental aspects of viewing contemporary American society through the lens of religion, however, is that it causes assumptions that individuals and groups make about the behavior of others.
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"Religion as a Social Force".
Unfortunately, these assumptions are often incorrect. These assumptions may be based upon extrinsic religiosity, or the outward displays of religion, or on intrinsic religiosity, which is how firmly an individual adhered to his or her beliefs. The level of both extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity in turn affect the behavior of individuals and groups as well as how they view others and are viewed by others. The system of beliefs about religion, or as many believe, the supernatural, includes a common starting point. Since the dawn of man, nearly every culture has developed a system of beliefs about the supernatural. This was a way to understand, explain, and reduce the fear about what could not be factually interpreted or proven. One theory about religion and society posited by the Functionalists, for example, believes that religion was necessary for social order or social survival. They believe that religion benefits everyone because it provides a social order and creates order in that society. The functions of religion give meaning to life, they answer questions that are otherwise unanswerable, they create and maintain social norms, and they create and maintain social unity. Through these four steps via religion, individuals and groups within society are able to predict the behavior of others, which is necessary for the stability of the social order. Religion, then, in this functional sense, is beneficial both to the individual in society and to groups in society as it gives rise to a collective conscience and emotional solidarity. A key function of religion, collective conscience gives society as a whole a sense of what is right and what is wrong. This is symbolized through a god. This god represents the sum total of what society values, even though it, in itself, is socially derived. This makes a god a social construct, and it makes religion an essential part of society. The type of religion really is not at issue here, as messages about how individuals and groups within a society should live life are remarkably similar in nearly all religions. Emotional solidarity creates cohesiveness within a society, and it also creates a construct where the group is elevated above the individual, or where the individual feels worthless in comparison with the group. An argument to the theories developed by the functionalists is a conflict perspective, which indicates that the ruling class of a society determines the religion for all, or at least the majority of, the rest of society. Conflict perspective determines that religion is not necessary to maintain social order; however, religion is necessary to maintain the power of the elite, or privileged of society. The conflict theorists, one of which was Karl Marx, believe that the way a country or society is governed is ordered by a god, so to oppose the government, which was ordered by god, is immoral. Marxists and those prescribing to the conflict perspective also believe that the most powerful in society are usually the people who benefit most from religion, and that people often feel that all they can do is simply go away because there is a power greater than they are. This theory also says that religion is used as a social control mechanism that encourages people to follow the rules, which benefits the ruling class. Thus, the theory of religion as a conflict does, indeed, carry some weight with how contemporary American society is currently acting, living,a and believing.
The structure of religion in contemporary American society has resulted in general patterns of thinking, acting and feeling by formulating certain general patterns that all who participate in an organized society must understand and recognize. These beliefs give life to those things that cannot be proven to be true or false, yet they are acted upon as if they are fact. One of the interesting aspects of religion in society is the variety of religions present and the counter to religion, or atheism, agnosticism, deism, and theism. Atheists do not believe that a god exists; agnostics are questioners, or non-committers; deists believe in a passive god, and theists believe that god controls and determines everything that happens. In contemporary American society, these groups of believers and non-believers often clash and even exchange violence. They clash about public policy issues such as abortion and prayer in school, and they often use the name of their god as the reason for the rightness or wrongness of social actions and interactions. Using the example of abortion, as it seems to be a hot button issue for nearly all religions in contemporary America, the question about whether it is right or wrong circles back to the earlier discussion of what science can’t prove, religion can fill in the gaps. Because science cannot tell society with any definite of when a life begins, society seeks answers from religion. Science can describe the process of cell mitosis and meiosis, fetal development, and probable outcomes for early births and subsequent survival rates; however, science cannot determine whether or not a fetus will live outside of the womb at 21 weeks or 25 weeks or even 15 weeks – each fetus and its set of circumstances are quite different, and some live and some die. SO, the question of abortion and when life begins becomes a religious one. It is also a legislative question, and in the early 1970s, the Roe v. Wade decision, made by the United States Supreme Court, decided that abortion is a right of privacy and not something that the state should be involved in. The complicated moral, or religious based and ethical, or non-religious-based standards of right and wrong have, in this case, spilled over into the government and asked it to make a decision for the people in contemporary American society.
Religion in contemporary American society is a complex, diverse, multi-cultural, and to some extent, a Constitutional issue. To understand the comprehensive nature of religion in contemporary American society, an individual or a group needs to consider a multitude of aspects of behavior, theories, and manifestations about the subject. Additionally, identification of the major underlying constructs of religion in contemporary American society is necessary. The structure of the institution of religion has resulted in specific patterns of thinking, acting, and feeling in American society.
