Suchergebnisse

My purpose in this study is to refine understanding of the functional role of conventional religion for the viability of communal life (Bainbridge 1985). I shall endeavor to do this by broadly coordinating Talcott Parsons's evolutionary perspective of human society (1966, 1971) with that of Robert Bellah on religion (1964), and applying them to the formation and development of the Religious Kibbutz Federation (RFK) in Israel. By examining the historical experience of the groups that formed religious communes during the Mandatory period in Palestine, I shall attempt to demonstrate that religion can play a dysfunctional as well as a functional role in a communal system.