Multidimensionality of the social life of religion: search of relevant interpretations

The article opens features of existence of religion as a multidimensional social phenomenon. Approaches which focus attention of experts mainly on its micro- or macro-levels, are one-dimensional and, therefore, limited. Within the micro-approach religion can be presented as a lasting number of creative acts, continuous generation of new meanings. Such an interpretation of the religion institution, as well as other social structures, appears to be an improvisation entirely depending on the situation and individual's whim. In the sphere of religious relations the difference between deviation and norm is erased. Within the macro-approach religion is attributed with an ability to make an organizing influence on individuals, to fix and support the existing social system. At the macro-level religion is considered as a set of stable, rigid social structures and systems of the coordinates which do not depend on individual will or certain events. The variety of religious life assumes a strict opposition of norm and anomy, orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Adequate interpretation of social life of religion is reached only as a result of combination of these opposite measurements at the meso-level. To show the multidimensionality of the society representatives of the meso-approach resort to the following ways. First, they focus attention on the connection of sociality levels, their interaction. Second, they allocate an intermediate area where the micro and macro, the subjective and objective, the action and structure find connection. Third, there is a redescription of social phenomena so that to present them as a distributed system without a uniform center where certain elements and processes are perceived as points of a uniform social continuum. Thus, religion consideration by the meso-approach allows seeing the process of formation of its structures as bidirectional, ascending from subjective prerequisites to objective structures which in turn address as an external factor to the subjective inner world of the person, transform it and transform themselves. Such a vision focuses attention on operations which transfer religious representations and feelings to a self-replicating complex of practices which are a basis of formation of various religious associations, translations of religious meanings, rationing of the followers' lives, interactions with various spheres of public life. Religion at the meso-level does not form a rigid integrity, it also does not turn into a casual combination of arbitrary acts. Religious practices equally contain the potential of religious creativity and stabilization, so, they mostly realize the ability of religion to perceive social tendencies, register or modify them. Such a vision of religion is not another simple theoretical construct, but a relevant expression of current trends of social development.

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