Peter Berger's heretical imperative Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Peter Bergers heretical imperative - Essay Example fit in to Berger, pluralism is a situation in which there is competition in the institutional ordering of comprehensive meanings of terrestrial purport (Oldmeadow, 2010, p.33). Because of uncertainty, there atomic number 18 unsteady, inconsistent and erratic plausibility structures, particularly those of devotion. Berger argues that religion becomes a proposition of choice, which he best refers to as a heretical imperative (heresy).According to Peter Berger, there are three contemporary responses to the crisis that modernity thrusts religion into, which include deduction, reduction as well as induction. Berger denounces deduction, which entails the reaffirmation of influence of a ineffable ritual against secular authority (Esposito, Fasching & Lewis, 2011). He also rejects reductionism, which reinterprets a sacred ritual on the basis of secular authority. In rejecting the two responses, Berger supports the third approach, which is induction. His belief is that the crisis facing religion is a product of the sterile antithesis of neo-orthodoxy and secularism (Woodhead Heelas & Martin, 2001). He believes that by shunning both deductive and reductive approaches and adopting inductive approach, the crisis can be triumphed.In The Sacred Canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion, Berger explore the relationship between human religion and world-building. The society is presented as dialectical because it is considered as a human invention. inn is produced by man. Also, man is also portrayed as a product of the society. Society precedes human life and also succeeds it. That is, society constituteed before human birth and will persist after his death. Man cannot exist without society and without man, society cannot exist. This exhibits the dialectic nature of the society. Berger argues that pluralism undermines stable belief (Berger, 1979). Pluralism is the cause of secularisation. According to Berge r, the basic dialectic process