RELIGION,
FAITH and
Secularization
Reactions to Modernity
We will consider a variety of issues:
– Modernity
– Faith
– Religion
– Secularization
– Fundamentalism
– Religion and secularization in Western
Europe and the USA
MODERNITY
in the West
(1) A result of Renaissance and Enlightenment
(2) We use REASON to explain reality
(3) An historical-cultural event: an ethos that
replaced the religious-based world view and
cognitive methods of the Middle Ages
Modernity is characterized by:
1. The empirical-scientific method
2. The complex of industrialized nationstates with their non-monarchical
governments
3. Freedom of religious expression and
religious pluralism.
Modernity and Religion
• The institutions and the basic ideas of
modernity proceed without legitimation by
a religion.
• Before modernity, monarchy, class
hierarchies, jurisprudence, cosmology,
and education were very much under
religious control and justification.
FAITH
• Any faith is a personal and group
experience of the metaphysical reality
described in various ways as: the
Sacred, the Divine, the Transcendent,
God, Allah, etc. etc.
• Faith is NOT Religion
Examples of the FAITH experience:
Dag Hammarskjold, in Markings:
"Somewhere along the line, I said 'yes' to Someone or Something -- and
that has made the difference......we die on the day when our lives cease to
be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source
of which is beyond all reason."
Specifically FAITH experience has been variously identified in the
following ways:
• (1) the awareness of the holy, which evokes awe and reverence
• (2) the sense of being at one with the divine, linked with “ground of
being”
• (3) the encounter with a reality “wholly other”
• (4) the sense of a transforming power as a presence.
• Faith involves a stance toward some
claim that is not, at least presently,
demonstrable by reason.
• Faith is a kind of attitude of trust or
assent. As such, it is ordinarily
understood to involve an act of will or a
commitment on the part of the believer.
• Faith involves a belief that makes some
kind of either implicit or explicit reference
to a transcendent source.
RELIGION
A religion is an INTERPRETATION of the Faith
Experience
– INTERPRETATION expressed in an authoritative
tradition (oral or written texts) sacred places,
symbols, rituals and an authoritative leadership
(apostles, priests, bishops, shamans, imams,
rabbis, lamas, and scholar-monks).
RELIGION IS NOT FAITH
SECULARIZATION
• Sociologist Peter Berger’s definition: “By
secularization we mean the process by which
sectors of society and cultures are removed
from the domination of religious institutions
and symbols.”
• Secularization is a natural development from
modernity.
Not the end of religion……
• Secularization does not mean the END
of religion
• It does challenge religions and their
place in society.
• Secularization is simply a fact of life.....
• How we react to it is the important
issue.............
I think Obama, for example, understands this very well.....
“Call to Renewal” address in May 2006:
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated
translate their concerns into universal, rather than
religion-specific, values.
Democracy requires that their proposals be subject to
argument, and amenable to reason.
I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if
I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot
simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke
God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some
principle that is accessible to people of all faiths,
including those with no faith at all...”
Possible Responses to Modernity
• TOTAL rejection of all religion = SECULARISM
• A religion grows in self understanding and adapts to the
perspective of modernity (RCC Vatican II)
• The religion rejects some of modernity and lives in two
worlds (e.g. Amish)
• The religion rejects all of modernity as evil (Benedict XVI
??)
• The religion closes in on self and becomes selfworshiping: Fundamentalism
FUNDAMENTALISM
• Fundamentalism arises when a religious
group fears cultural change – and resorts to
a form of socio-cultural isolation that leads
to a distortion of their own religious
understanding.
• Fundamentalists, fearful about change in the
larger culture, revert to a static view of their
religious tradition and confuse the
interpretation (RELIGION) with that which is
interpreted (FAITH).
All fundamentalists follow
certain patterns:
1. Religious ideology is the basis for their personal
and communal identity.
2.They insist upon one statement of truth that is
inerrant, revealed and unchangeable
3.They see themselves as part of a cosmic struggle
between good and evil.
4.They seize on historical moments and reinterpret
them in the light of this cosmic struggle.
5. They demonize their opposition.
6. They are selective in what parts of the
religious tradition and heritage they will
stress.
7. They despise modern culture.
8. They are MILITANT.............
• Fundamentalist groups are often driven to violent
social action when their “orthodox” goals are
frustrated by the events of changing social and
political environments in the broader society.
• They see the world in terms of black and white.
People are clearly enemies or friends. Actions are
good or bad.
• All fundamentalist movements invariably create a
dual myth: the myth links a supposed Golden Age in
the past with a Utopian future.
• Fundamentalist groups have a dysfunctional
relationship with the rest of the world. Working
constructively – healing the dysfunction -- can be a
long and arduous process.
Religion and Secularization in Europe and the
USA
1. The United States is a country with “the
soul of a church.”
2. Religion in the USA is the social glue that
holds the country together.
3. Traditional religions sustain and support
AMERICAN CIVIL RELIGION..........
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America is built on a strong sense of American CIVIL RELIGION
Sacred Documents = Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Sacred People = Saints George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
Sacred Places = Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery where
the “martyrs” are buried, Washington Monument, etc;
Holy Days = the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving,
Holy objects = the American flag, the dollar bill
Americans have turned their country (the land, its history and its
heroes) into the objects of religious devotion.
• A number of sociologists (and religious people!) continually
point to lower levels of religious participation in Western
Europe and assert that Western Europe is more secularized
than the United States.
• I am not in agreement and would agree with other sociologists
(like Grace Davie, Michael Winter and Christopher Short) that:
(1) The United States in fact is just as secularized
(2) Many Western Europeans are unchurched because
institutionalized religion has not come to terms with modernity
(3) Many Americans have not sufficiently reflected on religion and
modernity. Nor come to understand the ENLIGHTENMENT!
• Something for our discussion
Saint George Washington