In general, the application of any practice that McDonald’s is applying to the food industry to other areas of life is referred to as McDonaldization (Najafi, 2015). McDonaldization is a metaphor first used by Ritzer (1993), a sociologist in his book. In essence, the term refers to the processes of rationalization, allowed or taken to levels that are extreme. Rationalization in sociology implies the process of substituting rules that are logically consistent for illogical or traditional rules. Kalberg (1980) classifies rationalization as substantive, practical or theoretical. One of McDonaldization’s fundamental concepts is that nearly every task should and can be rationalized.
In line with Ritzer’s reasoning, there are four main aspects of McDonaldization: Efficiency, where a task is completed using the kind of optimization that disallows individuality; calculability (quantity over quality), where outcomes are assessed based on criteria that are quantifiable rather than subjective; control, where more human labor is replaced with non-human labor through deskilling or automation, and predictability, where production is set to guarantee outcomes that are standardized (Ritzer, 1993). Other aspects include irrationality, consumerism, and deskilling. The concept of mcdonaldization has crept into various areas of life that include education, work, food consumption, and religion. This discussion shall focus on how the aspects of mcdonaldization have crept into religion, how religion is resisting them, and which efforts among them are most promising or realistic in resisting Mcdonaldization. The work shall incline on aspects of Christianity in order to address the scope of this work.
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As much as McDonaldization has come with a lot of positive effects, there are negatives that come with it that have been said to be dehumanizing, in that they degrade the value of our humanity. This is the central conflict of rationalization with religion (Najafi, 2015). Whist rationalization attains the erosion of vitality in the life of humans, religion advocates for the leading of fulfilling lives where everyone finds happiness and cares about their neighbors ( Kalberg, 1990).
In the process of automation, workers are compelled to put on uniforms that are considered ridiculous, to recite scripts during their interaction with clients, make the same food every day, and all this is while earning poor wages. Clients are dehumanized by locking their interactions from others while waiting for deliveries, or waiting in line to be served, where all the humane conversations are cut out. In terms of efficiency, churches have had to deal with tight budgets that end up to force them to make choices that are hard. This also entails the fact that offerings are no longer in cash but transfers that visitors would feel shy to put cash as the plate is often filled with information papers. In issues of calculability, religious people are now judging the places of worship by the mere quantity of those in attendance rather than by the quality of religious nourishment offered. Moreover, contemporary society seems more preoccupied with the transfer of entertainment into religiont. Predictability excepts miracles and predertemines the end-results of spirituality and by so doing carries with it the likelihood of choreographing religion. This explains why the church fervently resists it. In terms of control, the church is employing only a number of strict worship styles that the congregants are expected to follow. Religion has placed a number of measures to counter these effects of McDonaldization (Scott, 2004).
Most churches are now building more space to accommodate the various services that need to happen at the same time. This helps mitigate the effects of efficiency, a result of which had been the minimizing of worship times in order to attain the multiplicity of church services. This also helps in furthering the division of the faithful into smaller groups that facilitate the offering of age and group specific religious nutrition to the services. On the issue of passing offering plates, churches are encouraging the congregants to bring their offerings in cash, while contributions for other projects may be given in form of information cards on bank transfers and so forth. Other churches are collecting the two separately while others are placing the offering plate at the front such that their congregants systematically each present their offerings and other donations at the front. Perhaps in a more effective manner, some churches are using envelopes that have check boxes for the various of kinds of giving, be it donation, thanks giving, or tithe. This then avoids the problem of one feeling out of place for offering cash. Also, churches are continuously splitting their congregations into small groups that can get in touch and worship together.
Churches like the Anglican Church have avoided being pulled into the mcdonaldization effect of copied by several other churches and which promotes the building of mega churches. These mega churches pull their congregation from large areas which devalues the vibrancy of religious interactions. Having smaller churches on a parochial and diocesan basis enables congregants to have a sense of belonging, one where people can know each other well and also care for one another. This is the basis of religion. This is a concept that is further reiterated by Smietana (2014), known as “the slow church,” that avoids the idea of mega churches. The movement advocates for more interaction between congregants and encourages churches to commit to a certain people and place so as to grow spiritualism. These moves counter the effect of just seeking a place where there are a lot of people and even higher financial benafits but lesser opportunities to religiously commit and interact. The movement also encourages the idea of physically going to church rather than watching televangelists preach. Further, it discourages the streaming of online religious content. It’s idea is focused on smaller, slower, and intense worship for a fostered spiritualism.
On the aspect of control and predictability, some churches are taking up the challenge of delegating church responsibilities to their congregants and not leaving them solely to the assigned persons like the pastor to preach and assigned ushers to control the masses. This avoids the monotony that would have been occasioned by the centralization of all religious responsibilities with a single authority, in this case the clergy. The interchanging of roles like ushering, preaching, cleaning, and singing by different groups like the youth, women, children, and men allows for the holistic interaction of the entire church, hence achieves more effective religious results.
Looking at the various methods employed by the church to mitigate the negative effects of mcdonaldization in religion, the concept of a slow church is the most realistic as it is the one that approaches the concern from multiple angles. However, it may not be effective as the pressures of life currently may not allow people to take everything slow. Taking the current situation in the world today, the splitting of church members into smaller groups may be the most effective.
In general, the application of every aspect that McDonald’s is applying to the food industry to other areas of life is referred to as McDonaldization. As much as McDonaldization has come with a lot of positive effects, there are negatives that come with it that has been said to be dehumanizing, hence affects religion. Numerous methods have been employed to try and mitigate the negative effects of McDonaldization including the concept of a slow church. But to fully counter this problem, it will take a renewal of the mind.
References
Kalberg, S. (1980). Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History. American Journal of Sociology. JSTOR. Vol. 85. No. 5.
Kalberg, S. (1990). The Radicalization of Action in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion. Sociology Theory. JSTOR. Vol. 8. No. 1.
Najafi, H. (2015). McDonaldization, Society, and Education. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. Vol. 5. No. 9(1).
Ritzer, George (1993) The McDonaldization of Society. Journal of American Culture. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Pine Forge Press. Vol. 6. No. 1. pp 100 – 107.
Scott, D. (2004). The McDonaldization of Youth Ministry. Accessed October 6, 2016. Web. http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/articles/the-mcdonaldization-of-youth-ministry
Smietana, B. (2014). Slow Church Movement fights the McDonaldization of the Church. Religion News Service. Accessed October 6, 2016. Web. http://religionnews.com/2014/03/27/slow-church-movement-fights-mcdonaldization-church/
