An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

for being sick and are therefore reluctant to adopt the sick role. To avoid adopting the sickrole, many people seek spiritual healing before and after consultation with healthprofessionals.2.3 Sociology and Culture2.3.1 Sociology of ReligionIn the exploration of how different social groups relate to the idea of a sacred being,scholars explore what upholds and what constitutes a challenge to a belief system withinsociety. Challenging the belief system of a particular group can evoke extreme responses.Sociology explores how the structures of different social groups change or remain staticaccording to the prevailing circumstances.Although specialist theological discussions of the sociology of religion pay the mostattention to work from the 1980s onwards (Richardson and Bowden 1999), the views ofthinkers such as Troeltsch (1931), Durkheim (1954), Weber, (1968) and Karl Marx (Marxand Engels 2008) have led to debates about religion in a broadly sociological way from theend of the 19 th century. Marx and Engels (2008) saw religion as an ideology, and famouslycall it “the opium of the masses”, which was not nearly such an insult as it sounds today.In Marx‟s day opium was as much a medicine as a recreational drug with both positive andnegative aspects. Of course, for Marx, religion was used to legitimate the existing powerstructure – but in doing so it validated moral aspirations which could both comfort theoppressed classes and inspire them to resistance. Marx‟s vision of religion as bothcontested, and a locus of struggle runs through modern understandings of the role ofreligion in society even where it is totally unacowledged. Troeltsch‟s 1931 typology ofthe development of new religious movements through stages of sect, denomination and35