Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, explored the role of religion in society, defining it as a unified system of beliefs and practices centered around sacred things. He emphasized that societies create sacred symbols, such as totems, that unite individuals into moral communities. Rituals serve to reinforce social bonds and renew commitments to the community, with totems symbolizing the society itself.

1. Religion is Social
Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917)

2. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• French Sociologist
• Interested in social
change during the
Industrial Revolution
• Elementary Forms of
Religious Life
• Aboriginal cultures of
Australia

3. Emile Durkheim
Sacred
• “set apart”
• Forbidden, powerful
• Beliefs
• Rituals
• Anything can be sacred
Profane
• Ordinary
• Uneventful
• Practical
Rituals can transform the sacred/profane

4. Religion is…
“…a unified system of beliefs and practices
relative to sacred things, that is to say,
things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and
practices which unite into one single moral
community called a Church, all those who
adhere to them.”
Societies make things sacred.
Sacred things make societies.

5. Totemism
Tribes divide themselves into clans with a totem
(animal, plant, etc.)
• Totem is set apart
• Emblem of totem is extremely important
• Supremely sacred
• Totem represents the society to itself

6. The Totem

7. Ritual
• Negative cults:
–set apart the sacred
• Positive cults:
–access the sacred

8. Sacrifice
• Clan kills and eats the totem in special
ritual
• Sacrifice renews the totem
• Power of the totem renews the clan
• Experience “collective effervesce”

9. What’s Really Happening
• Ritual is symbolic expression of social
realities.
• Function to renew the commitment to the
community.
• The totem is actually society itself.