Society to religion
Religion is a social fact. All societies are based on collective representations. But
the religion is not just a collective representation. It is the symbol of the collective
identity. It stands above any given collective representation, integrating all of
them. As Pickering12 puts Durkheim’s position, the society-religion and the
religion-society circuit is that the sacred is ‘a fundamental element in the ordering
of society’ and the representation of collective ideals and beliefs.
It is important to note that Durkheim is defining religion in terms of the sacred,
not the sacred in terms of religion. This moves him away from his institutional
definition of religion as a church and generalises the concept of the sacred beyond
religion. ‘The sacred is the concept associated with the collective ideas
represented through religious symbols and metaphors’. There can be no society
without the sacred, since the sacred is society’s idealised vision of itself. As
Durkheim puts it: