Structural Functionalism Influences In Religion

Structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism give huge influences in religion. Approaches from each perspective allow people to see multiple aspects of religion- functionalists stress how it shapes individual’s behaviors and gives meaning to one’s life, conflict theorists point out the promotion of inequality by the religion, and symbolic interactionists accentuate how religious meanings are constructed in human interactions in daily lives. This essay explores how these theories apply to the religion and affects views of individual and society.

Structural Functionalism considers social institutions such as religion as collective means to meet individual and social needs. It sees society as a system of interrelated parts of social institutions and focus on functions of social institutions that leads to society’s prosperity. Functionalist definitions of religion range from seeing religions as legitimizing the social order to providing a basis for understanding and constructing cosmos (Kunin & Miles-Watson, 2006). Specific example of this view would be religion’s influence in creating individual’s morals and norms.

Many mainstream religions urge different roles between men and women. Some even have racist and phobia-based beliefs on certain subjects, supporting only one side of the issues. Conflict theory also focuses on change by impact of religion. Religious conflicts can contribute to social change, and the social conflicts can cause religious change. Conflict theory illuminates many ways in which self-interest affect perceptions and behavior- including religious ideas and (supposedly) religiously motivated behavior (Roberts & Yamane, 2014). In the sense of seeing the religion in macro-social perspective, it also has similarity with the