Religiosity in the Context of the Culture of Trust

Abstract

Trust and religiosity are examined as traditional cultural bases for social solidarity. Religiosity is studied through the lens of such concepts as “religious identity” and “ceremonial religiosity”. This work demonstrates the influence of religious identity and ceremonial religiosity on the attitudes of general, interpersonal and institutional trust. Emile Durkheim’s sociological theses are used in the interpretation of survey results. The analysis is based on the results of surveys conducted from 2014 to 2016 in the Moscow region, while drawing comparison to surveys conducted in Astrakhan, Kaliningrad, Karelia and Stavropol regions (3-step random territorial sampling, representative on the basis of gender and age; 1000–1200 respondents in each region). The study shows that intense religious identity which implies a strong feeling of connection with people of the same faith can be considered a factor which contributes to maintaining a culture of trust. Respondents with strong religious identity have higher general, interpersonal and institutional trust whereas “responsibility” and “conscience” as moral grounds for trust are more often seen as a pre-agreement guarantee of complying with treaty commitments. Respondents who demonstrate “ceremonial religiosity” have more pronounced attitudes of normative ethnic tolerance, it being a readiness to accept a person of another ethnicity as a citizen of Russia and a resident of their city, with said attitudes creating a basis for a culture of trust. It is argued that in the basis of ceremonial religiosity, interethnic tolerance and trust lays a common societal mechanism, which is the need to belong to a certain unit, together with solidaristic social orientations. Mass religiosity of Russians today carries out functions such as social solidarity and consolidation, which the state has lost its hold of, and which have so far not been taken up by civil society. Russian society is in need of a civil religion which would be based, among other things, on trust and interethnic harmony, and which can be a system of uniting secular and religious values, as well as symbols which all religions share in common; moreover, there is a need for civil ceremonies which would maintain a feeling of belonging to “sacred” values as well as the highest order.