SECULARISATION

What is secularisation?

Secularisation refers to the process of the decline of religious influence upon

social life.

One aspect of secularisation is disengagement – according to this definition of

secularisation, society is no longer defined and controlled by religion, and so
religious belief is ‘disengaged’ from the social sphere and becomes a private,
inward matter. It is confined to the private sphere of life and is no longer an issue
of public importance.

Casanova and types of secularisation

José Casanova (1994) distinguishes three aspects of secularisation:

1. Secularisation as differentiation. In these terms secularisation takes place

when non-religious spheres of life (such as the economy and the state)
become separate from and independent of religion.

2. Secularisation as a decline of religious beliefs and practices. In this case

secularisation takes place when fewer individuals take part in religious
activities or hold religious beliefs.

3. Secularisation as privatisation. With this type of secularisation, religion

stops playing any part in public life and does not even try to influence how
politicians make decisions or individuals in society choose to live their lives.

How have sociologists measured secularisation?

 Using statistics: positivists use indicators like church attendance, marriages,

christenings and funerals.

 Using qualitative indicators: Interactionists use belief- and meaning-based

data on how religion pervades your inner soul and existence.

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Measuring secularisation – Methodological problems

Secularisation means that religion is declining in some ways compared to the past.
Supporters of the secularisation thesis need to show that society was once more
religious than it is now. Often, this is based on assumptions about some past
‘Golden Age of Faith’, when nearly everyone believed in God and went regularly
to their churches. However, such a ‘golden age’ of religion has been questioned.
Some difficulties encountered by sociologists in measuring the extent of religiosity
in the past are:

 Historical records about the strength of religion in the past are sparse.

 Data collection methods were not as reliable as they are today.

 There were no interviews carried out to explore whether people believed in

God, whether they attended church voluntarily or because it was expected,
and what religion meant to them.

Therefore, records on religiosity in the past may lack validity, reliability and
representativeness, and the Golden Age of Faith from which a decline is said to
have occurred may well be exaggerated.

Moreover, some sociologists argue that high participation does not necessarily
mean strong belief and low participation does not necessarily mean a lack of
belief. Some people may attend church for non-religious reasons while others
may have strong religious beliefs but prefer to treat them as a private matter and
never go to a religious institution. Thus, quantitative data like statistics on church
attendance may suggest that religion is in decline, but qualitative data gained
through in-depth interviews exploring people’s religious beliefs and thinking may
give a very different impression.

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Views for secularisation

Many classical sociologists have argued that industrialisation and the growth of
scientific knowledge would lead to secularisation. Some examples are given
below:

Auguste Comte (Ref. p. 429-430)

Early sociologists, such as Auguste Comte, believed that, with the advent of
science, religion was in decline. Comte argued that society developed in three
main stages:

 The theological stage – society and social events are understood in terms of
magic, superstition and religion.

 The metaphysical stage – the development of abstract concepts to explain

society and to replace superstition.

 The positive stage – where science develops, based on experimentation and

observation.

According to Comte, the industrial age, and the development of science and
rational thinking lead to a decline in traditional forms of religion. For Comte, this
was seen as a good thing.

Max Weber (Ref. p.430)

Weber also believed that modernity (characterised by rationality and

bureaucracy) had led to a decline in religion. However, he viewed secularisation in
a slightly less positive light than Comte. For Weber, there were four elements
which could explain a general trend towards secularisation:

 Desacralisation – the ‘sacred’ or supernatural is in decline, in favour of

scientific explanations in explaining events in society – everything in the
world is described and explained in rational-causal terms.

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  Disenchantment – the move away from magical explanations towards
scientific ones.

 Rationalisation – human thought and behaviour is based on logical and

scientific explanation.

 The ‘iron cage’ – the rise of bureaucratic systems of management, limiting

human individual freedom and controlling and constraining action.

Bryan Wilson

Like Comte and Weber, Wilson believes that religion has made way for scientific
thought, reason and rational calculation. He uses statistics on all aspects of
religious life to prove his thesis that secularisation is indeed taking place, as
earlier writers had predicted – attendance at church, the status and number of
the clergy, the use of church rituals to mark important points in the life cycle
(birth, marriage and death) show that the influence of religious institutions,
thinking and practices upon social life is indeed declining.

He argues that religious thought and religious practice have both declined in
western societies. The modern mind is based on ideologies of science, not magic
and religious ideas no longer dictate human actions. Equally, religious practices no
longer take up the time of the individual. Church attendance has declined over
the years in Britain.

Religious pluralism

The emergence of a wide variety of different religious organisations (sects,

denominations and cults) has been interpreted by Bruce (2002) as an evidence of
secularisation. Bruce argues that a strong religion is one which dominates
people’s lives and shapes how they live in profound ways. He implies that a truly
religious society has one faith and one church. Religious pluralism is an indication
of the weakening of religion in the society. Bruce argues that religion is now
weak. A weak religion is more a matter of personal choice. It has little social
impact.

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Summary:

From one point of view then, it can be argued that industrialisation, and the
advances in science and technology that it brings in its wake, contributes to a
decline in the importance of religious thought and action in society. This position
– the secularisation thesis – can be demonstrated statistically through the falling
numbers of people attending church, being baptised, taking communion, and so
on, while at the same time scientific explanations of phenomena replace religious
ones.

Criticism

Will Herberg suggests that church attendance does not necessarily indicate
religiousness. It might be an indication of a commitment to the wider community:
Many people attend church out of a sense of duty to their family and
neighbourhood.

Views against secularisation

Many sociologists are highly critical of the idea that religion has declined. These
sociologists claim that secularisation is a myth.

David Martin

David Martin criticises Wilson, claiming that the decline of religion cannot be
measured in statistical terms. The figures do not tell whether people go to church
for religious reasons, social reasons or because they have to be seen to be
‘respectable’. For example, Martin argues that the high church attendance figures
in Victorian times were a reflection of the fact that people then had a need to be
seen in church rather than being a sign of them being deeply religious. Therefore,
we cannot compare past church attendance figures with present ones. He argues

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that studies into the decline or growth of religious belief in people’s minds can
only be properly carried out using interactionist methods.

Phenomenology

Many sociologists believe that secularisation theories are based on a ‘golden age
of religion’ when everyone believed, when the religious authorities were all-
powerful and pews were filled. Larry Shiner argues that, in fact, no such age
actually existed. Even the Middle Ages were full of disbelievers. Moreover,
phenomenologists argue that past high church attendance figures does not imply
that all those who attended church believed to the same level. It may well be that
the past was a time of forced participation, whereas the present allows more
individual freedom of choice.

Phenomenologists are concerned with illustrating how religion continues to play

an important function in society. They claim that institutionalised religion may be
on the decline and that church attendance may have dropped, but a private
individual belief continues. They argue that it is a mistake to assume that the
analysis of church attendance figures, can allow us to understand the meaning
and motives of private belief. Religion today may be expressed in other ways. It
may have become privatised; people develop their own beliefs and see religious
institutions as less important.

Robert N. Bellah and Charles Y. Glock

Bellah and Glock both suggest that it is a mistake to assume that religion has
declined simply by looking at declines in its public and communal forms. Instead,
Bellah claims that a process of individuation has occurred. That is individuals are
free to search for their own religious and spiritual meanings, unconstrained by a
repressive church.

Religious pluralism

Some sociologists oppose Bruce view that religious pluralism is an indication of

the weakening of religion in the society. They argue that the increasing number of
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new religious movements emerging in modern industrial societies is evidence
against the secularisation theory. They believe that it is not necessary for
everyone to share the same religious beliefs for religion to be important. Andrew
Greeley (1972) believes that the growth of new religious movements represents a
process of resacrilisation: interest in, and belief in, the sacred is being revived.
Therefore, according to Greeley, secularisation is not occurring.

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism involves the reassertion of traditional values when they are seen
as under threat. Bruce sees it as an attempt to reassert a culture threatened by
modernisation. Bruce sees fundamentalism as a religion which calls for a return to
the ‘Fundamentals of the Faith’, claiming authority for a sacred text as the basis
for regulating society.

The existence of fundamentalism seems to undermine the theory of

secularisation, as it involves a return to strong religious beliefs.

June 04

6 (a) Describe, with examples, the differences between sects, denominations and
churches. [9]

(b) Assess the extent to which religion continues to influence societies today. [16]

June 2010

6 (a) (i) Define the term disengagement in relation to religion. [3]

(ii) Identify and briefly describe two examples of religious disengagement. [6]

(b) Evaluate the view that worship is a private activity rather than a public activity
in modern industrial societies. [16]

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June 2011

5 (a) (i) Define the term religious pluralism. [3]

(ii) Identify and briefly describe two characteristics of societies that allow religious
pluralism.

[6]

(b) ‘Religion no longer has any influence on modern industrial societies.’ Evaluate
this claim. [16]

Nov. 2012

6 (a) (i) Define the term desacrilisation. [3]

(ii) Identify and briefly describe two reasons why religious disenchantment may
occur. [6]

(b) Evaluate the view that religious disengagement is clear evidence that secularisation is
occurring.