O’Dea, Thomas F. 1966. Excerpts from ch.

1, “The Functionalist Approach” in The

Sociology of Religion. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

…. As a frame of reference for empirical research, functional theory sees society as

an ongoing equilibrium of social institutions which pattern human activity in terms of shared
norms, held to be legitimate and binding by the human participants themselves. This
complex of institutions, which as a whole constitutes the social system, is such that each part
(each institutional element) is interdependent with all the other parts, and that changes in any
part affect the others, and the condition of the system as a whole …. Hence the questions
arises: What is the contribution of each institutional complex to the maintenance of the
social system? Such contributions may be either obvious or subtle. They may be such that
the human actors understand them, but they may also be beyond the actors’ awareness. That
is to say, a social institution has both manifest and latent functions as part of a total social
system [1]. With respect to our subject the question arises: What are the functions, manifest
and latent, of [institutions] in maintaining the equilibrium of the social system as a whole?

Moreover, functional theory views culture as a more or less integrated body of

knowledge, pseudo-knowledge, beliefs, and values. These define the human situation and
the conditions of actions for the members of a society. Culture, understood in this way, is a
symbolic system of meanings, some of which define reality as it is believed to be, others of
which define normative expectations incumbent on humans. The elements making up the
system of cultural meanings may be either implicit or explicit. A cultural system of
meanings displays some degree of meaningful integration and strain toward consistency.
Culture is integrated with the social system in that it enters into the definitions of means and
ends, of proscriptions and prescriptions, of the permitted and the forbidden, by defining roles
within which a society’s members confront the established expectations of their social
situation. Religion, with its transcendent reference to a beyond, is an important aspect of this
cultural phenomenon. Culture is the creation by man of a world of adjustment and meaning,
in the context of which human life can be significantly lived. Thus culture enters deeply into
the thinking and feeling of men and is central to the social forms which emerge from their
actions.

…. Functional theory sees man in society as characterized by two types of needs and
two kinds of propensities to act. Men must act upon the environment, either adjusting to it or
mastering and controlling it, to insure their own survival. A human society with its culture is
the unit of human survival and societies often require the death of some of their members to
insure their own survival. The history of humanity reveals that men have progressively
increased their capacity to control their environment and influence the conditions of their
lives. But men are not simply makers of things and manipulators of environmental
conditions. Human activity is not simply adaptive and manipulative. Men also express
feelings, act out felt needs, respond to persons and things in non-utilitarian ways. As the
American sociologist George C. Homans has put it, men never confine themselves to those
“activities, interactions and sentiments” necessary for the survival of the group, but elaborate
these needs far beyond survival requirements [2].

[1] Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure. (Glencoe, Ill: The Free Press, 1958), pp. 19-84.
[2] George C. Homans, The Human Group (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1950), p. 108.