ОСНОВНІ ПОСТУЛАТИ ТЕОРІЇ РЕЛІГІЙНОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ В СОЦІОЛОГІЇ РЕЛІГІЇ

Abstract

The article defines the concept of “religious economy” and outlines its cognitive function - the basic concept of the theory of religious economy. The postulate of compensators is explained which explains the functions of religion and religious organizations. The deductive theory of religion is revealed, which explains the influence of secularization on the emergence of new religious organizations. The postulate of religious capital, which explains the processes of religious conversion and interconfessional transitions, is described. The postulate of “expensive” churches is described, which explains the high level of institutional religiosity. The postulate of religious niches is analyzed, which explains the relationship between the religious prefer- ences of people and the diversity of religious organizations. The theory of religious economics has made a positive contribution to the sociology of religion, since it drew attention to those aspects of (predominantly American) religious life that had not been considered before, and its representatives gathered and summarized a vast amount of empirical material and contin- ued to do so. The theoretical coordinates of the theory are directed not at refuting secularization, but on the justification of the complexity of the dynamics of religious changes and the variability of ties between religious pluralism and the viability of religion. The postulates of the “religious economy”, “religious niches,” and “expenditures” as a methodological basis for the analysis of religion introduce a new understanding of the nature of the plurality of pluralism and variation in the practices of religious actors, the role of culture and socio-structural changes, not only in the external perspective relative to the religious organization of the environment, but also internal, including the explanation of the phenomena of marginal “volumes” of religion, the sustainability of the existence of “expensive churches” in the context of increasing diversity, understanding the process of self-restraint of secularization in “deductive theory of religion”.