Breaking down the question
The question is focused and thinker-specific. It asks in what way Durkheim saw religion as functional to society — that is, what social functions religion performs in his analysis. The phrasing directs you squarely to Durkheim's functionalist account of religion, developed in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, and away from questions of religious truth or individual belief.
The core of the answer is Durkheim's claim that the true object and effect of religion is society itself: through the distinction of sacred and profane, and through collective ritual, religion binds individuals into a moral community, sustains the collective consciousness, and reproduces social solidarity. At ten marks you should define religion as Durkheim did, explain the sacred-profane distinction, and set out its functions clearly with reference to his study of totemism.
For elaboration, use the notes on sociological theories of religion and on Emile Durkheim.
How to approach it
Begin with Durkheim's definition of religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, which unite adherents into a single moral community called a church. Explain the foundational distinction between the sacred and the profane.
Then set out the functions religion performs for society: reinforcing the collective consciousness and shared values; generating and renewing social solidarity through collective worship and ritual, including the heightened unity Durkheim called collective effervescence; strengthening social control by sanctifying norms; and providing individuals with meaning, discipline and support. Use the study of Australian totemism to show that in worshipping the sacred, society worships itself. Close with a brief critical note.
Model answer
Emile Durkheim approached religion not as a set of true or false beliefs but as a social institution to be understood by its functions. In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life he defined religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things — things set apart and forbidden — which unite all who adhere to them into a single moral community he called a church. Two features of this definition are decisive: religion is inseparable from a community of believers, and it rests on the fundamental classification of the world into the sacred and the profane. The profane is the ordinary, everyday realm of routine and utility; the sacred is the extraordinary, set apart, treated with awe and surrounded by prohibition and ritual. Religion, for Durkheim, is essentially social, and it is functional to society in several connected ways.
First, religion reinforces the collective consciousness — the shared body of beliefs, values and sentiments that constitutes the moral unity of a society. Sacred symbols and doctrines express the deepest values of the group, and in venerating them members affirm and internalise those values, so that religion becomes the medium through which a society represents itself to itself.
Second, and most importantly, religion generates and renews social solidarity. When believers gather for collective worship and ritual, they are drawn out of their private, profane existence and fused into a shared emotional experience. Durkheim called the intense sense of unity and elevation produced by such gatherings collective effervescence; through it the bonds between individuals are recharged and the group's cohesion is periodically renewed. Ritual is thus not an idle survival but a mechanism that reproduces society's moral community over time.
Third, religion strengthens social control and regulation. By sanctifying moral rules and investing them with sacred authority, religion gives norms a force greater than mere human convention; to violate them becomes not only wrong but sacrilegious. Religion thereby disciplines desire, restrains egoism and binds the individual to the collective order.
Fourth, religion is functional for the individual as well as the group. It provides meaning, consolation in the face of suffering and death, and a sense of belonging and moral support, integrating the person into a community larger than themselves.
Durkheim grounded these claims in his study of totemism among the Australian Aborigines, which he took to be the simplest and most elementary form of religion. He observed that the totem — the sacred emblem of the clan — was at once the symbol of the god and the symbol of the clan itself. From this he drew his celebrated conclusion: in worshipping the totem, the clan is in reality worshipping society, for the sacred is nothing other than society transfigured and represented in symbolic form. The god that religion serves and the society that religion sustains are, at bottom, one and the same. This is the ultimate sense in which religion is functional: its true object is the social bond, and its effect is to maintain that bond.
Durkheim's functionalist account has been criticised for generalising from a single, simple society, for neglecting the role of religion in conflict and division, and for underplaying its capacity to legitimise inequality — the emphasis that Marxists place upon. Nonetheless, his demonstration that religion functions to sustain solidarity, reinforce shared values and integrate the individual into the moral community remains a foundational contribution to the sociology of religion.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner expects a focused functionalist answer, not a general essay on religion. The pivotal elements are Durkheim's definition of religion, the sacred-profane distinction, and a clear enumeration of the social functions — reinforcing the collective consciousness, generating solidarity through ritual and collective effervescence, sustaining social control, and integrating the individual.
The strongest short answers clinch the argument with the totemism study and its conclusion that in worshipping the sacred, society worships itself, since this is Durkheim's distinctive move. A brief critical note — the narrow empirical base, or the neglect of conflict and legitimation — signals balance within the ten-mark limit. Disciplined focus on Durkheim's own concepts, correctly named, outperforms a padded answer that drifts into Marx or Weber except by way of a passing contrast.