현대 사회에서의 시민종교의 역할에 관한 종교사회학적 연구 -2008년 미국산 쇠고기 수입반대 촛불집회를 중심으로-

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the civil religion in modern society. The term civil religion developed by Emile Durkheim and Robert Bellah, is an important concept for civil society. Having always been an integrative-therefore a conservative-role in society in the works of Durkheim and Bellah, civil religion can be a transforming power in the midst of social conflict, which is well articulated by the works of Cultural Sociologists like Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith. Their methodology become an insightful tools in analyzing 2008's candlelight rally against the alleged American cow with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy). In the rally were a binary opposition of the sacred and the profane, the centre of the sacredness, purity and contamination, and moral community which were usually the essential elements of the religion. This is the reason why the Cultural Sociologists call the collective civil rights movement a 'religion,' and so does this paper. The import of the U.S. meat threatened the 'sacred' centre of the Korea community, e.g. life, health, happiness, future, dream, family. In the eyes of the people, the sacred centre was being threatened and contaminated by the profane interest caused by political or economic ends. There emerged a binary division of the sacred and the profane and then a confrontation between them. The individuals tried to protect the sacred in the candlelight rally. In the sense of protecting the sacred and eliminating the profane, their rally can be called a moral community. The 'religious' civil movement effectively demonstrated its claim and played as a civil religion. This shows a concrete place and role of civil religion in modern civil society.