This weeks reading discussed how social groups used religion to ascribe meaning to daily life events and how individual religion is shaped. The first chapter, “The Provision of Meaning and Belonging”, covered the connection between belonging and the ascription of meaning to life that are aspects of religion. I was mostly interested in the discussion of how these two aspects provide order in the individuals life. Religion acts as a system that ascribes meaning to all the events a person may experience in their normal life, and acts as a form of social hierarchy. Religious meaning systems define social order and identify where an individual lies in the greater hierarchy. The discussion of this concept in the reading also described how legitimation is used to justify various forms of social order, such as monarchies, which makes social order seem as “greater” than just human convention. I found this concept fascinating because legitimation provides a precedent for what is considered normal behaviour and action within a group, so legitimation essentially shapes the course of future behaviour for individuals in a religious group.
The second chapter in this week’s reading, “The Individual’s Religion” discussed the more individual process of how multiple factors influence the individuals religious meaning system. Each individuals religious meaning system is slightly different because it is influenced by socialization and life experiences that are unique to the individual, meaning religious meaning systems can vary among practitioners of the same religion. The idea that social experiences define how the individual considers the world and daily experiences was interesting to me, because I had not considered this concept in the context of creating religion. As a whole the reading was thought provoking in the discussion of how religion works to define social order, and the influence of religious socialization on individual religious meaning systems. Furthermore, it is interesting on a larger scale to consider how just these concepts discussed provide insight into how religion has shaped so many aspects of modern society.

As we talked about in class last week, there are many different religions and different rituals that each religion decides to take part in. The sociological perspective helps people who don’t practice the same religion as someone view that religion in a more open-minded way with emphasis of understanding the religion and exploring other religions. Patterns begin to show that people are aware and unaware of. The 2^nd chapter of Religion titled, The Provision of Meaning and Belonging, says, “A community of believers maintain a meaning system and mediates it to the individual” (page 25). This reminded me of the first chapter that talked about how religion is individual and social at the same time. Being influenced by the social aspect of people who have the same beliefs as you plays a role in one’s individual decision in what to believe in.

Something interesting to me was the relationship between religious meaning and worldviews. Meaning is, “The interpretation of situations and events in terms of some broader frame of reference” (page 26). With everyone having the same worldview, having religious worldview is more complicated then that. “In modern society, religious meaning systems compete with many other worldviews. Individuals are less likely to use any single comprehensive meaning system but may apply religious meanings to segments of their lives.” (page 27) Meanings are chosen for certain things and have different meanings but all in all have the same norms. With social and individual religious decisions made every day for different people, overall, all meaning systems are based on an intersection of self and social group. (page 31) Meaning systems are everything in religion because whatever that ritual means is the way people will view you or the god that you worship views you. In essence, the emphasis of meaning is everything in religion and you have the be aware of everything you are doing and know the meaning of everything you are doing in religious practices.

After doing the reading by Meredith McGuire, something that stuck out to me the most was the point mentioned in Chapter 2, “…the communal aspect of religion…What does our understanding of religion tell us about society itself?” (25). I have grown up my entire life in a church and in a Christian household. I have seen how belonging to a church ministry becomes know as your “church family”. Personally, I have belonged to about 3 different churches throughout my life, always looking for the one that matched my family and I the most. When my parents became evangelical Christians 2 years after I was born, we went to the church that a lot of my family members went to. Obviously, they encouraged us to attend that certain location with them so that we could all be together, and my parents who were new Christians, felt that if my family liked it there then we would too. After going there for about three years, we felt that there would be a church better for us. We enjoyed the people there however, the church was so large that there was no personal aspect to it at all. The only family or community we had there was by blood, not personal connections we had made. I was still so young that I didn’t completely comprehend why we made the decision to leave until I had gotten older, yet even at the age of 5, I knew that church was missing something for my family. We then went to another church for about 12 years, and felt that we had found our “home”. This church helped my family through struggles like one of my parents losing their job and we felt that we owed them to continue going there, even though there were clearly other issues going on within that church. It was extremely political and judgemental of people who were in sin, even if they were working on their relationship with God and knew the way to get over sin was to get closer to God. After seeing so much judgement we felt the need to leave and find a different community. We received much backlash and still don’t talk to many of the “friends” we had gotten at the church. Finally, when I was around 18 we went to a small church with about 100-200 people there, compared to the thousands of people who were at our previous two churches. Here we felt we had finally found our community. People who loved God and also doted love on those who were working on their sin. They always say “God is love” and that was what we were looking for all along, people who loved us for who we are and knew that we are all human and make mistakes yet, as God forgives they forgive too. And this is why I felt such a large connection to finding a community and family amongst your fellow church members, and strive to live by loving people everyday, because no one is perfect.

The duration of the first week of class was spent introducing the subject of what religion is and the factors that play into how an individual views religion. Our experience in a certain culture, affects the image we perceive causing an effect on our story/memories that is connected to the community that surrounded or is surrounding ourselves currently. This chain reaction is explained further in the first section of assigned reading in McGuire’s text.  

McGuire describes a conversation that someone may have when visiting San Antonio, Texas. The conversation is most likely to start off with “What church do you go to?”. I was shocked by this being a popular topic of conversation during the first few minutes of being a conversation with a stranger. In San Diego California, where I grew up the conversation of what church someone may belong to or what religion they are affiliated with was hardly ever brought up in any conversation that I have been in. Even conversations with my own family members that was never discussed. A factor affecting this may have been that my family members and friends had various ideas of religion and who they were affiliated with and what religion meant to them or didn’t mean. When comparing this to McGuire’s description of San Antonio there is a vast difference. Religion can be from a certain perspective this unspoken factor in the world. Either people talk about it and won’t stop talking about it or hardly ever discuss their beliefs to others and stay to themselves. Therefore, when I read McGuire’s text and when other individual’s stories were shared in class, I found it interesting that even though many had not shared their experience before with their religion or past experiences to others before many of our stories were similar.
 

I was fascinated by the concept of anomie in chapter 2 of McGuire’s book. “Anomie means a crisis in the moral order of a social group” (McGuire 35). This crisis can cause members of the group to feel overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness and confusion because they have lost the comfort of a stable meaning system. I was reminded of my grandmother who abandoned Catholicism after losing her baby in childbirth. Followers of the Catholic religion proclaim that babies who die are sent to Purgatory. My grandmother was absolutely heartbroken at the idea that her child would be cursed to roam Limbo for eternity. She was very active in her faith precious to the incident, however, after the tragedy she questioned her place and meaning within the Catholic faith. It is for this reason that she abandoned Catholicism in search of another religion that would not condemn her baby. She is now a Jehovah’s Witness because she could not live without the social comfort of a religion, nor could she follow a faith that so drastically threatened her sense of security. My grandmother’s story is one of many Catholic mothers and families who could not accept that deceased children would be rejected by God. This anomie is an excellent, yet tragic, example of how trauma can affect one’s religious and world perspective for the worse. This example is more extreme than most examples of anomie seen today. “Rapid social change [also] leaves people unsure about where they “stand’” (McGuire 35). In addition, commodification of culture is also a cause for people to have crises of meaning. It was apparent that all three types of anomie were prevalent in people’s religious autobiographies and were the reasons behind many abandoning their faiths.

Reading about meaning and worldviews in Chapter 2 made me think about how my own meaning system was formed. I was not raised in any religion, and whenever we were talking to my parents about what happens after you die, they would tell us that nothing happens- you die and that’s it. If something bad happened, no meaning was applied to it- other than if there was something that could have been avoided by making a better choice. My parents do not believe in any higher power, and my mom would harshly dismiss any idea of a “God” or of things happening for a reason. My parents are also not ones to question the meanings of life, because, as they would say, who cares?
Although my parents instilled in us that life and the events that happen within it have no higher meaning, that in of itself is their worldview/ system of meaning. The purpose of their everyday actions is to improve their own lives and the lives of their children. The meaning/ purpose of my life, I think, is to maximize my happiness while I am alive. I do not really believe anything will happen after death, so most of the choices that I make are to make the time that I am alive the best it can be. As “all meaning systems are based on an intersection of self and social group,” I have developed a slightly different worldview than my family, which have not only come from within myself but also from different social groups, such as my friends (McGuire 31). Talking to friends growing up and participating in discussions in school caused me to question different meanings in the world instead of on impulse dismissing these topics as pointless to talk or think about.

A major element of the readings that resonated with me this week was McGuire’s discussion of “The Individual’s Religion” (McGuire 55), specifically how children may become exposed to religious worldview before actual involvement in a religious community. McGuire describes this as, “Especially for women and children, the family and home are central religious sites.” (McGuire 55). This was interesting for me to read because it is incredibly similar to my own religious experience growing up. While my time actually spent in church was limited, the basis of my religious experiences are rooted in private religious activity within my family. As a result, my self-identity was mostly based in my early childhood and family, rather than community. My religious identity was mainly developed through the desire of my mother to provide the religious environment that she grew up in, this was largely reflected in McGuire’s reference to religious studies where, “the most memorable aspects of growing up religious occur within families, especially through the daily routines and sacred objects, the holidays, and the intimate relationships of which families are composed” (Wuthnow qtd. In McGuire 54).

In this sense, I definitely connected my mother’s experience with religion and her subsequent choosing to expose me to Catholicism with McGuire’s observations of the development of self-identity. My mother’s experience in a Catholic Filipino family intersects with McGuire’s comments on ethnicity and religion, and the options for people to choose “which cultural elements to make personally meaningful” (McGuire 57). Ultimately, the readings this week were particularly interesting for me because I could really easily apply my own experiences with religion to McGuire’s understandings of how one cultivates a self-identity. Furthermore, McGuire’s discussion of ethnic self-identities was interesting to apply to my understanding of my mother’s interaction with religion, and how her self-identity influenced my initial exposure to religious life.

Upon my reading of Chapter Two of McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, I was struck by her analysis of the Individual. She comes to the conclusion that individuals do not, “construct a personal meaning system from nothing,” and that every personal meaning system is derived from those around them. This begs the question, however, does the individual even exist if McGuire’s conclusions are correct? If no individual has an entirely personal meaning system, and if meaning systems help make, “sense of one’s identity and social being,” then how can the individual exist? It seems to me that McGuire’s analysis of the individual when coupled with her concept of meaning systems concludes that the entirety of society feeds off of each other to  develop their personal identities. When I first began to seriously ponder these questions, I began to doubt the validity of McGuire’s claim. I could not understand how an individual could truly be an individual if their very meaning system was something taken from those around them, rather than personally developed within them.

As I continued to question, however, I began to understand more fully what McGuire was truly saying. She does not say that the individual’s meaning system was taken from those around them, but rather, she claims that the individual’s meaning system is influenced by those around them. The distinction is crucial. The individual uses the figures that are present around them to assess their personal identities. They compare and contrast their beliefs with the beliefs of the individuals they encounter, essentially placing their meaning system with theirs and scrutinizing them both intently. By exposing themselves to their family, friends, society, etc., they are able to learn from the meaning systems of others, as well as solidify aspects of their own meaning systems.