AKC 2 General – Spring Term 2007 – Religion in the contemporary world: social scientific perspectives
22/01/07
AKC 2 – 22 JANUARY 2007
ARE CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES BECOMING MORE SECULAR?
DR MARAT SHTERIN, DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
The question of whether religion, religious thinking and institutions are diminishing in significance in
contemporary society is among the most hotly debated issues within the contemporary sociology of
religion and in society in general. It is known as the secularisation debate.
I. Secularisation theory
I.1. What is secularisation and secularisation theory?
The term secularisation can have a variety of meanings:
 state policy of expropriating church property
 state policy of forcibly exluding religion from public life (such as in former communist countries –
the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Albania, or, in a softer form, in Turkey). These policies are usually
informed by the ideological position that society benefits from being less religious and being less
influenced by religious institutions. In this sense, a more appropriate word is secularism
 For our purproses we refer to secularisation in a neutral way, denoting “a social process whereby
religious institutions, thinking, and consciousness are losing their social signifance” (Bryan Wilson)
Secularisation theory seeks to establish a causal relationship between modernisation of society and the
role of religion in it; arguing that modernisation of society (associated with industrialisation, urbanisation,
and mass political participation) leads to diminishing role and authority of religion. This theory has its
proponents and opponents.
I.2. What are the indicators of and evidence for secularisation?
Proponents of the secularisation theory point to some observable trends indicating that secularisation is
actually taking place (see also tables attached):
 Previously accepted religious symbols, doctrines, and institutions lose their prestige and importance
 We live in greater conformity with the material world and no longer have much interest in the
supernatural
 Religion has become a private matter and no longer has much influence on other spheres of life
 We are increasingly less committed to religious values and practices
 Religion has become a ‘leisure pursuit’ rather than a significant public endeavor
I.3. Why is secularisation taking place?
According to the proponents of the secularisation theory (e.g. Bryan Wilson, Steve Bruce), religion loses
its social significance as a direct and inevitable result of three processes involved in modernisation:
 rationalisation: a process whereby society is increasingly organised according to rational, ‘means-toends’, principles and procedures, in which religious concepts and values simply have no place
 differentiation (social fragmentation): we live in societies with increasingly specialized institutions
(the economy, education, health, politics, family, etc). Religion is no longer directly relevant to the
operation of any of them and social system as a whole
 decline of community (societalisation): modern life is increasingly organised and regulated not within
close-knit local communities, but on the societal level governed by state bureaucracies. Religion used
to be at the heart of local community life, and it is irrelevant for society regulated by bureaucratic
rules
II. Criticisms of the secularisation theory.
II.1. Opponents usually cite the following evidence against secularisation
 Even though ‘orthodox’ religious beliefs have lost their appeal, the available evidence indicates that
most people still hold religious beliefs
 Religion remains highly socially significant in lives of many social groups, most notably many ethnic
minority and migrant groups (e.g. Muslims)
 Some religious movements have experienced considerable resurgence, in particular fundamentalist,
Pentecostal groups, and New Religious Movements
 In many parts of the world religion is still prominent, e.g. in many sections of the Muslim world,
Latin America, Africa, and some post-communist countries
 If modernisation inevitably leads to secularisation, then why is religion such a big thing in the most
modernised country in the world, i.e. the U.S.A?
II.2. Some alternative theories and explanations.
Rational Choice Theory (Rodney Stark, Roger Finke) of religious participation is based on the
philosophical premise that religion is inherent in the human condition and therefore will never disappear
from the social domain. The level of religious participation, however, can fluctuate depending on the
degree to which a particular ‘religious economy’ is regulated by the state: the more the state regulates
religion and supports a dominant religion (religious monopoly) in a particular country, the lower the level
of religious participation is likely to be in that country.
Religious de-institutionalisation (Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Grace Davie) argues that religion is changing its
forms and manifestations, but not disappearing; it is only institutional religion that is losing its social
significance, while numerous new forms of religion (‘patchwork’, ‘bricolage’) are constantly put together
by individuals and groups both within and outside institutional churches.
European exceptionalism (Grace Davie, Peter Berger) refers to the view that rather than being an example
par excellence of inevitability of secularisation, Europe is an atypical case of marginalized religion,
owing perhaps to its peculiar history and church-state relations.
Further Reading
Berger, Peter (2000), The Sacred Canopy: Elements of the Sociological Theory of Religion, MA:
Blackwell
Bruce, Steve (ed., 1992), Religion and Modernisation, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Bruce, Steve (2002), God is Dead: Secularisation in the West, Oxford: Blackwell
Casanova, Jose (1994), Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Davie, Grace (2000), Religion in Modern Britain: A Memory Mutates, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge (1985), The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and
Cult Formation, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stark, Rodney and Finke Roger (2000), Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion, Berkeley,
CA, University of California Press
Wilson, Bryan,(1985), “Secularisation: the Inherited Model”, in Hammond, Philip (ed.), The Sacred in
the Secular Age, Berkeley, Ca: University of California Press, pp. 9-20
Wilson, Bryan (1992), “Reflections on a Many Sided Controversy”, in Bruce, Steve (ed), Religion and
Modernisation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 195-210.
Table 1: Church membership in the United Kingdom
1975
1980
1985
1990
2000
Anglican
Baptist
R. Catholic
2,298,000
236,000
2,519,000
2,180,000
240,000
2,238,000
2,016,500
243,500
2,204,000
1870,500
232,000
2,168,000
1,450,000
230,500
1,890,000
Independent
Methodist
Orthodox
252,000
596,500
197,000
253,000
540,000
203,000
308,500
500,500
223,500
342,500
475,500
266,000
335,000
373,000
288,000
Presbyterian
Pentecostal
1,641,500
104,500
1,505,000
127,000
1,385,000
138,500
1,288,500
158,500
1,060,000
186,000
Source: Peter Brierley, The Tide Is Running Out, 2000
Table 2. Church membership in West Germany, 1950 - 1990
year
1950
1970
attendance (RC + Lutherans);
84
56
% of population
Source: Jeff Haynes, Religion in Global Politics, 1998
1990
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