Secularization

Secularisation

The process of the decline of religion, religious thinking, practices and institutions

Heological literacy

A longer knowledge as part of our generation

Exclusivist

Must include a belief in the supernatural, supra-human or forces of some kind (secular and belief in a deity)

Inclusivist

Can include a wider range of beliefs like New Age practices and civil religions e.g tarrot cards, reiki and yoga

Wilson wedding data

People are less likely to get married in a church now

2012= 30% decrease in church weddings

Wilson Christian data

more non-religious people in the UK from 2020 days compared to Christian’s

Bruce (supporting the decline in religion)

‘Desacralisation’- Religion has decreased in people’s daily lives less ‘sacred’, less spiritual and less aware of religious beliefs

He argued for the rise of technology and scientific explanations of the world have lead to a decrease in religous beliefs

Weber (supported the decline in religion)

To understand the world we don’t look to God anymore, instead technology

‘disenchantment’- a loss of capacity to experience a sense of mystery in life and sacredness/religiousness

‘enchanted garden’- rationalization- disenchantment- people are going deeper into scientific explanations to answer their questions

Bruce- marginalisation

Marginalisation- religion and related beliefs have now been marginalised, they are now a last resort for people

We only turn to religion in times of need like praying, we use religion instead of truly believing and partaking in the religion properly

Lyotard- postmodernism

Do it yourself cocktails- people are choosing to create their own beliefs based on themselves and construction of their identities ‘spiritual supermarket’

religion is now just a form of belief competing with other beliefs

metanarratives have lost their ability to influence people and how they think and interpret the world

Davie- decline in religion

Argued that just because people don’t attend church as much as they used to, doesn’t mean that they aren’t religious or don’t believe

Voas and Crocket

Argued that both church attendance and practice are declining at the same rate as the statistics around religious belief

people don’t ‘belong’ or do not consider themselves religious or have no belief in a God at all

‘believing without belonging’

Resacralization

the renewal of religious beliefs and practices even though it is declining

Bryman- religous institutions

Disneyization- uses this term to describe the transformation of something into a diluted of simplified, trivialised and sanitised version of its original form (made less important)

Disneyland festivals to culture children and inform them on religion from a young age, in the desperate attempt to stay relevant

Drawing children into religion, even though they don’t understand