In 1967 American sociologist Peter Berger published his seminal
theory of religion in a book entitled "The Sacred Canopy". In this
series of messages I will quote a summary of Berger's theory taken
from "Comprehending Cults: the sociology of new religious movements"
by Lorne L. Dawson.
World-building
Berger's highly influential theory of religion grew out of his
earlier and equally important work with Thomas Luckmann on the
social construction of reality. Building on a masterful synthesis
of the insights of most of the foundational thinkers on contemporary
social science (Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, George Herbert
Mead, Sigmund Freud, Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, Alfred Schultz, and
many others), this theory begins with the startlingly simple premise
that 'every human society is an enterprise of world-building'.
The world we live in, the world as perceived by humans, is constantly
being created and re-created by us through a 'dialectical process'
We are the creators of our world, but we are in turn shaped by our creation and become one of its objects. We become the passive subjects of our creation, in part because we simply are not fully aware of the extent or nature of our creativity. Our lack of awareness stems in large measure from the fact that the creativity in question is a collective undertaking. World-building is a social process, and as such it is so complex and dispersed as to defy the ready comprehension or control of any individual or group.
Stay tuned for part 2: The human predicament.