Religion and its Impact on Society Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun, considers that the religion has great positive impact on the modern society. With the aid of religion you acknowledge something more important you bridge your personal constraints, social restrictions and frailty, located on the one side, and the other angle of absolute values on the other side. In other words, the correlation between religion and society eliminates a gap between the lowest and the highest levels of being. According to Karen, the concept of religious renascence embraces the ideas that are often interpreted in the broad sense of the word. Probably, this is the reason of numerous misunderstandings related to the impact of religion on modern society. First of all, we can speak about two different aspects: the first aspect includes processes of immanent character, that occur within the limits of religious sphere and the second aspect embraces influence of religion on society itself.
Kant could call those two aspects the religion inside of an individual and religion for society. The first aspect includes quantitative growth of religious organizations, restoration and development of various confessions, development and progress of social-demographic contingent of the faithful, discovering the new forms of social (out-of-cult) forms of social activities, etc. The achievements and impact of religion on American society are really great. 63% of American citizens consider themselves belonging to one of religious confessions. Besides, Karen reminds us that the Roman-Catholic Church is one of the most numerous confessions with approximately 60 millions of adherents. Karen smiles that quantity of Americans taking part in weekly religious ceremonies exceeds quantity of spectators on weekly sport competitions.
What about the second aspect of religious renascence in the modern American society? The second aspect (namely, the impact of religion on society) relates to changes in traditional way of life and way of thinking influenced by religion that activates and strengthens its social positions in the modern society. The matter is not in the quantity of religious confessions and churches, as well as quantity of the faithful is of no great importance. The most important aspect is that religion starts to make a profound effect on the modern American society. Karen Armstrong, a great scholar and thinker presents a profound analysis of religious issues. She criticizes the bad religions and the dominant ideologies of her times. Although she rarely uses the words defining religion and God, she spoke that there is a positive idea that unites people.
Without this idea (or society) people will inevitably collapse. In her latest articles she speaks about Christianity and religion and presents us a transforming vision of society, culture and religion. Armstrong depicts herself as a Christian inside the Church and a freelance monotheist. The religion is aimed to develop and encourage the sources of pluralism, self-criticism and self-awareness and in such a way it contributes into the maturing of society. Religious ideas have influence on the society in general and politics in particular. Some religious ideas influenced different political and social movements, including abolitionism and social issues concerning human rights. Religious institutions remain the system within which people acknowledge civil standards and rights.
Its very difficult to exclude religion from social life, however, the government makes all efforts to maintain neutrality regarding religion. Karen Armstrong considers that our faith evidently helps us to unite. She teaches that the God is within each of us and considers that compassion is the key. Compassion is the sine-qua-non of religion. She says that religion is not about the Church and dogmas, but about love and compassion, about making life better, about retting rid of ego and taking you away from selfishness..