Religie in de mensheidsgeschiedenis. Naar een model van de ontwikkeling van religieuze regimes in een lange-termijnperspectief

Samenvatting

Religion in Human History: Toward a Developmental Model of Religious Regimes. Some general characteristics of the origins and development of religious configurations in the history of mankind are described and analysed in terms of a process model, based on the sociology of Norbert Elias, Johan Goudsblom and Mart Bax. Religion (including witchcraft and sorcery) is seen as a response to high levels of insecurity. It is argued that the basic explanations for religious change are to be found in the changing relations of interdependence among human beings as well as between humans and non-human nature. The crucial significance of the great ecological transformations from the gatherer-hunter to the agrarian and later to the industrial stage is pointed out. Whereas no religious specialization and domination could develop in gatherer-hunter bands, religious as well as military specialists developed in agrarian societies and came to dominate the peasantry. Religious domination by an elite was however never total; local religious specialists established a certain amount of autonomy with respect to elite control. More recent religious developments, from the rise of Protestantism in Europe to the present, are also interpreted in terms of changing relations of interdependence; more specifically, the extension of social networks through commercialization and, later, industrialization, and the decreasing direct dependence on non-human nature are regarded as basic trends. In some modern welfare states, the relatively high level of physical and economic security has brought about an unprecedented weakening of religious needs, and a concomitant loss of power for religious organizations. Still, insecurity continues to provide opportunities for religious specialists. New sources of insecurity, such as growing ecological problems, may even lead to new forms of religious awareness and organization.