Religious Elites in Advanced Industrial Society

In: Comparative studies in society and history, Band 29, Heft 2, S. 360-374

Abstract

In primitive and nonindustrialized societies the typical (and in many cases, the exclusive) tasks of religious elites have revolved chiefly around the creation, modification, and maintenance of the symbolic universe of society. Such work invariably implied privilege and various kinds and degrees of political power. But with the expansion of the modern world order, the situation of religious elites has altered dramatically. For one, religious-knowledge workers make up a very small percentage of the ranks of a much larger knowledge sector. For example, while the percentage of religious-knowledge workers (including clergy) relative to the entire economically active population in the United States has remained relatively constant since 1870, the percentage of religious workers to the knowledge workers has declined by one half in the period between 1950 and 1970—a period of dramatic growth of the knowledge sector (see Table 1). By 1970, the percentage of religious-knowledge workers to knowledge workers generally had shrunk to one sixth of its proportionate size a century earlier. Between 1970 and 1984, this proportion has leveled off somewhat. In Western Europe and Japan the same patterns have become firmly established as well.