Impact of Culture on the Church and Challenges in the 21st Century
Until the early 1980s, many sociologists were aware of the specific role that religion would take in the modern world. However, in the progression of Western modernization, every community was going through a practice of secularization. The church/religion did not disappear in the process but was set aside and privatized (Mortensen 20-23). Since differentiation results in relatively independent social settings, it freed people from the control of religion. This happened particularly to the disconnection of the state from the church and led to the surfacing of diverse institutional orders such as politics, secular culture, and financial systems, which were free to pursue their objectives and create their regulations devoid of being restrained by the church/religion. The occurrence of differentiation institutionalized the church/religion as a separate social field. This separation of religion from a power pervading the entire society to a sphere of its own has been the major aspect of secularization and has called for an undoubted need for the rise of justly modern societies.
The main concern that modern culture presents to the church/religion is that it is the outgrowth of a historic-cultural progression profoundly entrenched in the Christian faith. In numerous approaches, modern culture acts as an elevated, refined civilization, comprising of a great diversity of valuable anthropological perceptiveness and strengths that have surprising flexibility and receptiveness to absorb, elucidate, and unite. Nonetheless, in the present times, the modern culture appears, in most instances, as a culture that has no faith, willfully disjointed from the religious belief that gave it life and hence turning out to be a weak civilization. This has resulted in most of the people being influenced by occurrences in today’s world towards a general loss of religious belief and pathology of ungratefulness and eccentricity (Mortensen 22-24). This happens as they try to lead a life of segregation from their colleagues and not ready to recognize the world they live in and the privileges they have as gifts from God.
From the time that sexual abuse predicament hit the United States Roman Catholic Church at around 1985 where there were allegations of molestation of children by clergymen; critics have often compared the issues encountered by religion with the ones experienced in Europe. The problems in Europe occurred in the 16th century just a day before Protestant Reformation (Douthat par. 3-5). Such issues encompassed sexual laxity and embezzlement amid the priests and clerical disrespect for the concerns of temporality. The need for transformation has been increasingly urgent of late with exposure of extensive perverseness and foully delinquent practices in today’s world. Studies affirm that comparable, though less striking, issues have also been reported in New Orleans, Omaha, and many other bishoprics across the globe (Jenkins par. 1-4). The transformation process now being discussed within the churches in the United States entail notions of augmented lay contribution in governance. Such concerns were last talked of when Martin Luther King faced the Catholic orthodoxy of ancient times. Unlike in the past days, the Roman Catholic of today’s world is pondering the idea of allowing women to the priesthood, in addition to accepting the marriage of priests.
The Role that Religion Should Play in the World
Something intuitive inside humankind demands a belief system for appropriate functioning. This means that religion is essential to most people across the globe. There are thousands of religions internationally with some having just a few followers. However, even in today’s world where there is technological advancement, enhanced access to information and capacity to explore and comprehend the universe, increased secularism, and infringement of human rights, religion should play a pivotal role in society. Through its teachings and crusades, the church/religion ought to ensure that religious lessons and convictions continue to be the main support of the community’s moral ethos (De Gruchy and Moyse 23-25). Religion should not just teach good values but also affirm moral action. In this regard, religion ought to play a fundamental societal task necessitating exceptional deliberation. In America and other nations across the globe, the majority of people attend a church or mosque each week. While there, from their youngest years, religion should teach them to voluntarily follow the law, respect the properties of others, and obey God’s commandments (Bilgiç and Bilgiç 349-351). This way, people will follow the set rules because of the belief that even if the law enforcement officers do not catch them doing evil, God will punish them.
The greatest role that religion should play in the modern world is the regulation of behavior and provision of mental peace. The majority of the laws that people, even nonbelievers, follow are based on religious doctrines (Mojahed 5-8). Human life is riddled with worries because in most instances people have to struggle for their wellbeing amidst insecurities, harm, and fears, and this at times makes them feel helpless. In this regard, religion should undertake the vital role of encouraging and consoling people in times of crisis. Religion should offer shelter to people with great problems while giving emotional support to ensure that they have mental peace.
Works Cited
Bilgiç, Tuba, and Bestami Bilgiç. “‘Raising a Moral Generation’: The Republican People’s Party and Religious Instruction in Turkey, 1946–1949.” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2017, pp. 349-362.
De Gruchy, John, and Ashley Moyse. The End Is Not Yet: Standing Firm in Apocalyptic Times. Fortress Press, 2017.
Douthat, Ross. “Crises of Faith.”The Atlantic, 2007, Web.
Jenkins, Philip. “The Next Christianity.”The Atlantic, 2002, Web.
Mojahed, Azizollah. “Religiosity and Preventing Risky Behaviors.” International Journal of High Risk Behaviors & Addiction, vol. 3, no. 3, 2014, pp. 5-11.
Mortensen, Viggo. “What is happening to Global Christianity?” Dialog, vol. 43, no. 1, 2004, pp. 20-27.