All students confront many new intellectual problems when they begin their university studies. Students of the social sciences are no exception. Early in their first-year they may be confronted with an array of sociological perspectives. The study of society is usually presented with these perspectives having a central place. They are said to be frameworks in which social life is explained. They supposedly give sociology its central ideas, theories and concepts.
Which perspective should the student choose?
An initial problem is with that term perspective. Basically a perspective is an angle of vision, and as one moves around an object one can change one's perspective. But if we are studying "society" it is hard to envisage us "moving around it" and adopting different perspectives, as if it is a mountain and we are trekking across the terrain.
But the perspectives that are presented in sociology courses are not angles of vision in that geographic sense. On the basis of what we have already said in earlier chapters it seems feasible to suggest that these alternative perspectives are a result of different world-views. But at this point we have to face up to something which may be a bit of a surprise.
The Christian student who goes looking for the Christian sociological perspective among these perspectives will be disappointed. Why? Because it is a very rare instance indeed for a Christian social perspective to be included in the range of perspectives presented in the literature. If you don't believe it, you can very easily verify what I have said by checking introductory sociology textbooks. There are many of them.
So where is the sociological perspective based upon a Christian world-view? How is a student to find and identify that? At this point we confront, once more, my purpose in writing this introduction to social science.
Let us not avoid the difficulty caused by the absence of a Christian perspective. Why is there no "Christian perspective" among the alternative perspectives on offer? Is there no market for this kind of perspective? What about all the graduates of all the Christian schools that find their way into university - wouldn't they, simply by the sheer weight of numbers cause the publishing houses, if not the gate-keepers of the discipline to fill this niche?
At this point
I wish to put forward a hypothesis that the Christian sociology student should
test as part of the search for a Christian sociological perspective. It will
involve talking with fellow Christian students who study sociology. The
hypothesis is this: Students who come to university after having had some kind
of Christian schooling, either from home, church or school, are very often
focused upon being part of 'main-line society' and proving that being a
Christian, having a Christian upbringing is an asset in social life. They are
therefore oriented towards success and because of this they are not disposed to
worry about the absence of a Christian sociology in their studies and
professional training.
But what does this absence mean? This issue requires careful thought if we are to find an answer! We instinctively sense that it says a lot about sociology and the other social sciences. It also says a lot about university education, not only where we are currently located but in a much wider sense than that. This "fact" says something about the place of university study in our society, and this absence is not restricted to one or other university. The "absence" is across the board and is in fact a global absence that can be found in most, if not all, countries where social science and sociology is studied.
So immediately at the outset of our study of sociology, talking very generally about this university subject, its text-books, and its place in the university curriculum, we begin to sense something of a significant problem that is going to stay with us as we study particular units and delve into a variety of issues. This is a question that just does not go away. We can try to ignore it by saying that at university we are not worrying about church matters. We can say that we will put Christianity "on hold" until we have found a secure place in our economy. We can say well let's forget about Christianity. But it, whatever "it" is, doesn't seem to go away just because we don't want to study it.
Here, I would repeat something I wrote above. I pointed to my apparently strange view that this book is written as much for the Christian student who feels no need for a book such as this. Likewise, I would also hope that the argument developed here assists other students as well in a variety of ways. There will be those who do not accept a Christian world-view but who want an accurate outline of a Christian social perspective. Why shouldn't they? In the current state of introductory textbooks, they are given little, if any, guidance as to how a Christian sociologist might view sociology.
To conclude this chapter let me briefly explain again my view of the weakness of contemporary introductory sociology text-books. It is true that a student will tend to accept that perspective which accords with her or his own world-view. But more than that is involved here. We need to have a better and clearer understanding of which social perspectives from the full range are excluded. In this respect the Christian social perspective is not the only one that is absent.
The text-books present a range of viewpoints that imply a taken-for-granted system of classification. Some perspectives will be viewed as sociological while others are not. Clearly, the repeated bias against a Christian social perspective is also something that invites careful sociological investigation when we get further down the path.
To make a choice between sociological perspectives not only requires a judgment about assumptions and presuppositions but about the way empirical states of affairs are interpreted. One has to have some understanding of the different world-views that have come, and are coming, to expression in sociology. In this sense the sociology student has to become adept at critically analysing world-views. And so we find that the issues raised in the first chapter re-appear now even after we have decided to consider the scientific route.
At this point I put another
suggestion to the Christian sociology student: watch for the way in which
Islamic sociology is discussed in your course. Take careful note of how Western
secularised academic sociologists refer to the "religious" drive of
"Western sociology". Do they lapse logically into the view that the
sociology they have developed is in some mysterious way "Christian" after
all, and is this because it is "Western"?
But we can hardly be satisfied with an approach that says
"I am a Christian sociology student; a plague on all your perspectives!"
That may simply be a way of developing the currently exclusionary approach to a
more sophisticated (pseudo-Christian) level. And one might indeed begin to
develop critical understanding of the perspectives on offer, but there still
remains a task of developing a Christian sociology to fill the void. How is
this to be done?
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August 2004 © A
Christian Calling in Social Theory and Research is a work written by
Bruce C Wearne (PhD), 29 Lawrence Rd., Point Lonsdale Vic 3225 AUSTRALIA,
61-3-5258-3913. Each chapter may be photocopied or retransmitted in its
entirety only with full acknowledgement of the author and the source. It shall
not otherwise be reprinted or transmitted without permission. This
personal project aims to encourage a positive Christian student
engagement in universities around the world which need to better understand the
vocation of science as an expression of our love for God and our
neighbour. Your comments are welcome. Email can be sent to bcwearne@ozemail.com.au
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bcwearne/index.html