Religion, Belief and Faith | OCR A-Level Sociology (H580)

Religion, Belief and Faith

104 questions
12 subtopics
Component 03: Debates in contemporary society
Component 03

Religion, Belief and Faith is examined on component 03 of OCR Sociology, Debates in contemporary society.

It is one of the three Section B options on that paper, of which a student sits one. 104 recall questions across 12 subtopics.

Sample questions from Religion, Belief and Faith

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Defining religion, faith and belief, churches and denominations

What is meant by a functional definition of religion?

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It defines religion by what it does — the functions it performs for the individual or for society, such as integrating people or supplying meaning.
Sects, cults, new religious and new age movements and fundamentalism

Why are new age movements often described as privatised spirituality?

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Authority rests with the individual seeker rather than an institution or creed, so the practice is personal and largely detached from any congregation.
Functionalist and Marxist views of the role of religion

According to Durkheim, what are worshippers really venerating when they honour the sacred?

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Society itself, because the sacred symbol represents the power of the group over the individual and renews the collective conscience.
Neo-Marxist, Weberian, feminist, phenomenological and postmodern views of religion

Explain Berger's phenomenological concept of the sacred canopy.

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Religion throws an overarching canopy of meaning over social life, making the world seem ordered and purposeful and protecting people from the terror of meaninglessness.
Class and gender patterns in religiosity

How would a Marxist explain higher religiosity among poorer groups?

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Religion compensates for material deprivation by offering hope of reward beyond this life, so its appeal is greatest where exploitation is felt most sharply.
Women's changing religiosity and ethnic and age patterns

What is the general relationship between age and religiosity in the UK?

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Religious belief and attendance rise with age, with the oldest groups the most religious and the youngest the least.
Defining secularisation and evidence of religious decline

What evidence suggests religious practice has declined?

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Regular attendance and formal membership have fallen over decades, and far fewer marriages and funerals are conducted with religious rites.
Pro- and anti-secularisation theories

How does the idea of religious renewal challenge secularisation?

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As established organisations become worldly, sects and new movements emerge to supply the intense religion their members want, so religion renews itself rather than dying out.

The 12 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Defining religion, faith and belief, churches and denominations	Recall questions on substantive, functional and social constructionist definitions of religion and their weaknesses, the distinction between faith and belief, and churches and denominations in the church-sect typology.	8
Sects, cults, new religious and new age movements and fundamentalism	Recall questions on how a denomination differs from a church, sects and cults and the difference between them, Wallis's world-rejecting, world-accommodating and world-affirming new religious movements, new age movements as privatised spirituality, religious fundamentalism, and Giddens on why fundamentalism has grown in a globalising world.	10
Measuring religiosity and believing without belonging	Recall questions on religiosity and the problems of measuring it through attitude surveys and attendance statistics, Davie's believing without belonging and vicarious religion, Voas and Crockett's challenge, belonging without believing, and why religiosity is hard to compare between faiths.	8
Functionalist and Marxist views of the role of religion	Recall questions on functionalist views of religion, Durkheim's sacred and profane and the worship of society, Malinowski on religion for the individual, Parsons on social order, Marxist views of religion as ideology and the opium of the people, and Gramsci's hegemony.	8
Neo-Marxist, Weberian, feminist, phenomenological and postmodern views of religion	Recall questions on Maduro on the relative autonomy of religion, the Weberian approach and the theodicy of disprivilege, feminist views of religion as patriarchal and their qualifications, Berger's sacred canopy and plausibility structures, and the postmodern view of the role of religion today.	9
Religion, social change and whether religion is positive or negative	Recall questions on functionalist, orthodox Marxist, neo-Marxist and Weberian views of religion and social change, the Calvinist beliefs Weber linked to the spirit of capitalism, arguments that religion is positive or negative for society, and evidence that religion is a conservative force or a force for change.	9
Class and gender patterns in religiosity	Recall questions on social class and religious participation, Weber's theodicy of disprivilege and sect membership, Marxist explanations of religiosity among poorer groups, the middle-class appeal of new age movements, the gender pattern in religiosity, socialisation explanations, Davie on birth and death, and the risk-aversion argument.	8
Women's changing religiosity and ethnic and age patterns	Recall questions on women in new age and holistic movements, the decline in women's religiosity, religiosity by ethnicity, cultural defence and cultural transition explanations, religiosity across migrant generations, the relationship between age and religiosity, and the ageing and generational explanations of age differences.	9
Age cohorts, global religious trends and resurgence	Recall questions on why cohort and ageing explanations predict different futures, exceptions to low religiosity among young people, the global trend in religion's significance, Pentecostal growth in the global South, the United States puzzle, existential security theory, religious resurgence, evidence of decline in Britain, and cautions about global affiliation figures.	9
Defining secularisation and evidence of religious decline	Recall questions on defining secularisation, evidence for and against the decline of religious belief, practice and influence in Britain, Weber's disenchantment, structural differentiation, and Bruce's argument that religious diversity causes secularisation.	10
Pro- and anti-secularisation theories	Recall questions on individualism in pro-secularisation arguments, Davie's challenge to the secularisation thesis, religious market theory and religiosity in the United States with its criticism, religious renewal, postmodern re-enchantment, and cultural amnesia.	8
Religion and social policy, the golden age critique and global patterns	Recall questions on the golden age criticism of the secularisation thesis, religion in state education policy, equality law, the law on religious hatred and discrimination, religious freedom in human rights law and why it is qualified, criticism of policy towards religious minorities, and how global patterns of religion complicate secularisation.	8

Religion, Belief and Faith is 104 of the 859 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.