In this weeks lecture, I learned about unchurched spirituality, religion and culture and how they influenced each other. Unchurched spirituality is simply spirituality outside the churches and beliefs not necessarily associated with organised religion. Although there are many debates over the true meanings of the terms “religion” and “spirituality”, I learned that spirituality is understood as having a more expansive meaning than religion. We were also introduced to three theorists, Max Weber, Karl Marx and Bruce Lincoln.
In the tutorials we discussed these theorists in further detail. Max Weber was a German philosopher, he argued that one religion, Christianity (Protestantism), contributed to formation and success of socio- economic issues in the Western world such as capitalism. According to Weber, Protestantism enabled the ideological atmosphere in which capitalism could thrive in Europe. Weber called this this idea the “Protestant Ethic”. In Weber’s eyes, religion was an agent of social change.
Karl Marx was also a German philosopher who developed the theory of international communism and was critical of religion. His ideas later developed into a political philosophy called Marxism and its followers being Marxists. He argued that religion gave false consciousness in people and that it is an unnecessary part of today’s society. He believed that God is “man made”, a human creation, therefore, religion was not necessary to him.
Bruce Lincoln agrees with Karl Marx to an extent. He believes that people should believe that religious claims and ideas are there, however not to accept them all. After reading in to these theorists, it has shown me that each of their views and ideas towards religion are slightly different. However, they all agree that religion has greatly impacted culture.
Overall, I found both the lecture and tutorial really interesting. After being brought up and attending both Catholic primary and secondary schools, this weeks lecture and tutorial group opened more area for thought upon religion. I find it a really interesting topic and I intend to do further reading on the topic of unchurched spirituality and the ways in which religion affects culture.
