Religious stratification is the division of a society into hierarchical layers on the basis of religious beliefs, affiliation, or faith practices.
According to Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, "[t]he reason why religion is necessary is apparently to be found in the fact that human society achieves its unity primarily through the possession by its members of certain ultimate values and ends in common". [1] Furthermore, Davis and Moore contend that it is "the role of religious belief and ritual to supply and reinforce this appearance of reality" that these "certain ultimate values" have. This is one possible explanation for why religion is one of the underlying factors which links various forms of inequality into a chain of stratification.
Broadly defined, social stratification is constituted by the division of a society into hierarchical layers of wealth, power, and prestige. These layers, or strata, have been related to a variety of social categories, such as:
Sociologists have paid attention to stratification based on race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Religion is closely tied to ethnic affiliation. Research suggests that religious stratification deserves more attention than it usually gets. It is a common development in religiously diverse societies. Once it becomes embedded in societies' laws, customs, and ideologies, it tends to persist. It also has societal consequences. Thus, it is important in its own right, but also in relation to other forms of stratification.
Sociologists James D. Davidson and Ralph E. Pyle (2011) argue that religious stratification emerged during America's colonial period, as a result of religious ethnocentrism, religious competition, and unequal resources. They show that Anglicans, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians were over-represented among the economic, political, and educational elites. Other Protestant groups, Catholics, Jews, and people with no religious preference ranked much lower in status.
The ranking of religious groups has changed in some ways over the course of U.S. history (Davidson and Pyle 2011, Pyle 1996). Most notably, Jews have risen into the upper stratum, while Catholics have climbed into the upper-middle stratum. However, religious stratification persists. For example, Anglicans (now Episcopalians), Congregationalists (now United Church of Christ), and Presbyterians remain in the upper stratum, and other Protestants groups such as Baptists (who ranked low in the colonial period) still have not experienced much upward mobility.
These developments are linked to inter-religious power struggles related to membership size, organizational capacity, and resources. The struggles affect societal laws, ideologies, and customs. In the colonial period, religious stratification was justified by law: Congregationalists were the "established" church in New England colonies; Anglicans were the "established" church in southern colonies. The First and Fourteenth Amendments, along with other civil rights laws, have knocked the legal foundation out from under religious stratification. The pro-Protestant ideology that emerged in the colonial period has been tempered somewhat by multiculturalism, but it remains an integral part of American culture. Religious groups that have adapted most to this ideology have experienced more mobility than other groups. Colonial elites also have developed a number of customs, such as church-sponsored preparatory schools, private colleges, universities, and legacy admissions that have perpetuated their prominence (Coe and Davidson 2011). Another custom has been the tendency to appoint other religious elites to political office (Davidson, Kraus, and Morrissey 2005). Jews and Catholics have developed customs of their own, such as parochial schools and business ownership, that have contributed to improvements in their social status.
Contrary to Davis and Moore's argument that stratification is functional for society, Davidson and Pyle (2011) argue that religious stratification destabilizes society. It produces social problems, like religious hate crimes, that would not otherwise exist.
According to Evelyn L. Lehrer religion has a significant impact on marital stability, the choice of marital partner, fertility, women's work at home and in the labor market, education, wages and wealth, and the timing of entry into first union and the choice of whether to cohabit. [2] In her research there are many instances in which stratification is the byproduct of religious faith practices. Stratification based on religion is evident specifically in the realm of economics.
One case in point is the presence of women in the work force. Lehrer explains "The Mormon and conservative Protestant faiths make a sharp distinction between male and female social and economic roles, encouraging the traditional division of labor within the household when young children are present" (713). Depending on the socioeconomic class of the family, the expectation of the woman to adhere to these traditional social roles could be a factor by which the economic advancement of the family is limited.
Cited within Lehrer's book are studies which examine levels of education, wages, and wealth among different religious faiths. Lehrer writes in her book, "A conservative Protestant upbringing may be associated with an authoritarian approach to knowledge and a rejection of critical inquiry and unconventional modes of thinking, implying lower levels of certain types of home investments in child quality" (716). This was derived from the work of Sherkat and Darnell published in 1999. Also based on the work of Sherkat and Darnell published in 1997, is Lehrer's assertion that conservative Protestant parents "often discourage their children from taking college preparatory courses, out of a concern that such courses may be harmful to them" (716). Lehrer, as a result, contends that children raised by conservative Protestant parents "often acquire less human capital in their formative years and may thus be less able to benefit from college" (716). So, as the topic is quite well developed, educational inequality is well researched and there is much evidence concerning the impact that an individual's level of education can have in terms of the hierarchy of stratification. It seems however that there can be seen another factor which should be allowed for in terms of determining the lines of stratification. Perhaps the significant impact that education plays in inequality can be even better understood when religion is controlled for.
Other works which have investigated religious stratification include that of Gaetano Mosca whose research was published in his The Ruling Class. Although this work was published in the late 1930s the concept that is brought forth is interesting to note and is perhaps still quite relevant in contemporary times. Mosca states that "In societies in which religious beliefs are strong and ministers of the faith form a special class a priestly aristocracy almost always arises and gains possession of a more or less important share of the wealth and the political power."
Fundamentalism usually has a religious connotation that indicates unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs. However, fundamentalism has come to be applied to a tendency among certain groups – mainly, although not exclusively, in religion – that is characterized by a markedly strict literalism as it is applied to certain specific scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, and a strong sense of the importance of maintaining ingroup and outgroup distinctions, leading to an emphasis on purity and the desire to return to a previous ideal from which advocates believe members have strayed. Rejection of diversity of opinion as applied to these established "fundamentals" and their accepted interpretation within the group often results from this tendency.
Inheritance is the practice of passing on private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time.
A social class is a set of concepts in the social sciences and political theory centered on models of social stratification which occurs in class society, in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. While there is not one agreed-upon way to categorize social classes, most sociologist believe that a persons membership in one can be dependent on many factors including, but not limited to: education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network.
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) are upper-class white American Protestants, usually of British descent. WASP elites dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States, maintaining a monopoly through intermarriage, inheritance, and nepotism. Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1940s, the group continues to dominate some financial and philanthropic fields and politics.
The Christian left is a range of center-left and left-wing Christian political and social movements that largely embrace social justice viewpoints and uphold a social gospel.
The history of religion in the United States begins in 1776 with the American Revolution. For religion in North America before that, see the histories of particular colonies or the traditions of the continent's diverse Indigenous peoples.
National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) is an international association of Christian communicators. While theologically diverse within the evangelical community, NRB members are linked through a Declaration of Unity that proclaims their joint commitment and devotion to Christianity.
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power. As such, stratification is the relative social position of persons within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit.
In political and sociological theory, the elite are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a society. Defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, the "elite" are "those people or organizations that are considered the best or most powerful compared to others of a similar type."
Class stratification is a form of social stratification in which a society is separated into parties whose members have different access to resources and power. An economic, natural, cultural, religious, interests and ideal rift usually exists between different classes.
The American upper class is a social group within the United States consisting of people who have the highest social rank, primarily due to economic wealth. The American upper class is distinguished from the rest of the population due to the fact that its primary source of income consists of assets, investments, and capital gains rather than wages and salaries. The American upper class is estimated to include one to two percent of the population.
Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It is the differentiation preference of access of social goods in the society brought about by power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class. Social inequality usually implies to the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized in terms of the lack of equality of access to opportunity. The social rights include labor market, the source of income, health care, and freedom of speech, education, political representation, and participation. Social inequality linked to economic inequality, usually described on the basis of the unequal distribution of income or wealth, is a frequently studied type of social inequality. Although the disciplines of economics and sociology generally use different theoretical approaches to examine and explain economic inequality, both fields are actively involved in researching this inequality. However, social and natural resources other than purely economic resources are also unevenly distributed in most societies and may contribute to social status. Norms of allocation can also affect the distribution of rights and privileges, social power, access to public goods such as education or the judicial system, adequate housing, transportation, credit and financial services such as banking and other social goods and services.
Ascription occurs when social class or stratum placement is primarily hereditary. In other words, people are placed in positions in a stratification system because of qualities beyond their control. Race, sex, age, class at birth, religion, ethnicity, species, and residence are all good examples of these qualities. Ascription is one way sociologists explain why stratification occurs.
Religion in Burundi is diverse, with Christianity being the dominant faith. According to a 2008 estimate in CIA Factbook, about 86 percent of the population of Burundi is Christian, 7.9% follow traditional religions, and 2.5 percent is Muslim. In contrast, another estimate by the Encyclopedia of Africa in 2010, states that 67 percent of the Burundi's people are Christians, 23% follow traditional religions, and 10% are Muslims or adherents of other faiths.
Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer was born in 1955. He currently holds the chairs of Protestant Theology and Sociology of Religion at the Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology and the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University. He is member and co-founder of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Society.
In the United States, evangelicalism is a set of spiritual principles practiced by Protestant Christians who believe in the necessity of being born again, emphasize the importance of evangelism, and affirm traditional Protestant teachings on the authority as well as the historicity of the Bible. Comprising nearly a quarter of the US population, evangelicals are diverse group drawn from a variety of denominational backgrounds, including Baptist, Mennonite, Methodist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Reformed and nondenominational churches.
The Davis–Moore hypothesis, sometimes referred to as the Davis–Moore theory, is a central claim within the structural functionalist paradigm of sociological theory, and was advanced by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore in a paper published in 1945. The hypothesis is an attempt to explain social stratification. As a structural functionalist theory, it is also associated with Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton.
Christianity was introduced with the first European settlers beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Colonists from Northern Europe introduced Protestantism in its Anglican and Reformed forms to Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Netherland, Virginia Colony, and Carolina Colony. The first arrivals were adherents to Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, Quakerism, Anabaptism and the Moravian Church from British, German, Dutch, and Nordic stock. America began as a significant Protestant majority nation. Significant minorities of Roman Catholics and Jews did not arise until the period between 1880 and 1910.
Following the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx outlined the workings of a political consciousness.
