Marcus Moberg - Religion, Discourse, and Society: Towards a Discursive Sociology of Religion

This book focuses on the utility and application of discourse theory and discourse analysis in the sociological study of religious change. It presents an outline of what a discursive sociology of religion looks like and brings scholarly attention to the role of language and discourse as a significant component in contemporary processes of religious change. Marcus Moberg addresses the concept of discourse and its main meta-theoretical underpinnings and discusses the relationship between discourse and religion in light of previous research. The chapters explore key notions such as secularism and public religion as well as the ideational and discursive impact of individualism and market society on the contemporary Western religious field. In addition to providing scholars with a thorough understanding and appreciation of the analytic utility of discourse theory and analysis in the sociological study of religious change, the book offers a cohesive and systematized framework for actual empirical analysis.

Marcus Moberg is a Professor in the Study of Religions at bo Akademi University, Finland.

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First published 2022

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2022 Marcus Moberg

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ISBN: 9780367435752 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781032193632 (pbk)

ISBN: 9780367435837 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780367435837

Typeset in Sabon

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DOI: 10.4324/9780367435837-1

The sociological study of religion remains centrally concerned with ongoing processes of religious change across the liberal democratic societies of the West, and increasingly beyond. A wide range of different types of modern changes, transformations, and mutations in the religious field have been studied under this general and somewhat ambiguous rubric. These include (but are not limited to) progressive long-term institutional religious decline; the proliferation of individualized religious outlooks and alternative spiritualties; significant increases in the numbers of people who self-identify as non-religious; the growing public presence and visibility of religion; the increasing commodification and/or marketization of religion; and changes in the environments, spaces, and locations of religion following continuous developments in new media and digital communication and information technologies. While several additional developments could be added to the list, taken together, these processes clearly point to the ways in which the Western religious field has been and been perceived to have been in a continuing state of flux over the past five to six decades, if not for longer.

The sociological study of religion has for some time already found itself in a transitional phase, marked by the rethinking and increasing abandonment of

Religious change is, of course, not adequately understood as something that occurs in isolation from changes at broader societal and cultural levels. Rather, religious change constitutes a particular type of social change that, like all processes of social change, includes significant ideational and discursive components. As Norman Fairclough points out, from the perspective of discourse theory, Discourse is part of social change, and no satisfactory account of it can ignore relations between discourse and other elements of social reality.Fairclough point out,

It is an important characteristic of the economic, social and cultural changes of late modernity that they exist as discourses as well as processes that are taking place outside discourse, and that the processes that are taking place outside discourse are substantively shaped by these discourses.

Discourse and discursive practice therefore need to be viewed as part of society, and not somehow external to it and as conditioned by other (non-linguistic) parts of society.

When viewed in this light, all of the abovementioned processes of religious change have been As broader changes in language use and discursive practice leave their imprint on the ways in which religion is expressed, practiced, and understood, religious change needs, in no small part, to be understood as consisting of changes in discursive practices on and about religion.