Secularisation For

How did Wilson define secularisation?

The process whereby religious beliefs, practices and institutions lose their social significance.

What evidence suggests that church attendance has declined in the UK?

Crockett found that over 40% of the population attended church in 1851. By the 1960s, attendance had fallen to around 10–15%, and by 2015 it was approximately 5%.

What evidence shows a decline in religious participation in the UK beyond church attendance?

Church weddings fell from around 60% in 1971 to 30% in 2012. The proportion reporting no religion rose from roughly one-third to around half between 1983 and 2014. The number of clergy also declined.

How does Bruce summarise the decline of religion?

Bruce describes secularisation as a 'steady and unremitting decline' in religion's social significance.

How does Weber explain secularisation through rationalisation and disenchantment?

The Reformation helped replace a world understood through miracles and supernatural intervention with one increasingly explained by natural laws, reason and science. This process of rationalisation leads to disenchantment.

What is Bruce's technological worldview?

Science and technology increasingly replace religious explanations of events. Religion becomes less necessary as people use scientific knowledge to understand and control the world.

What is structural differentiation, according to Parsons?

Industrialisation creates specialised institutions that take over functions previously performed by religion, such as education, welfare and law. Religion consequently loses influence over wider society.

What is the privatisation of religion, according to Bruce?

Religion becomes increasingly confined to private life, such as the home and family, rather than shaping public institutions and social policy.

How does the decline of community contribute to secularisation, according to Wilson and Bruce?

Industrialisation breaks up close-knit communities where religion was central. Urbanisation and social diversity weaken shared religious beliefs and the social pressures that once encouraged participation.

How does Aldridge criticise the argument that declining community causes secularisation?

Global communications and imagined communities can maintain religious connections beyond local communities. Pentecostal churches can also thrive in urban areas.

How does Berger explain secularisation through religious diversity?

Medieval Catholicism provided a shared sacred canopy. The Reformation created competing beliefs and worldviews, weakening the plausibility of any single religious truth and making religion a matter of choice.

What is a plausibility structure in Berger's theory?

The social relationships and institutions that reinforce belief and make it appear true. Religious diversity weakens a single plausibility structure by exposing people to competing beliefs.

How did Berger revise his argument about religious diversity?

In 1999, Berger argued that religious pluralism can stimulate religious commitment rather than necessarily causing secularisation.

How does Beckford criticise the argument that religious diversity causes secularisation?

Exposure to competing beliefs does not always weaken religion. Differences between religious groups can strengthen believers' commitment to their own faith.

What is cultural defence, according to Bruce?

Religion protects a group's identity when it faces an external threat. Examples include Catholicism in Poland under communist rule and Islam during political upheaval in Iran.

What is cultural transition, according to Bruce and Herberg?

Religion helps migrants adjust to a new society while maintaining their cultural identity. Herberg studied the role of religion in the lives of immigrant groups in the USA.

Why does Bruce argue that cultural defence and cultural transition do not disprove secularisation?

Religion may survive as a source of identity and community without retaining its wider influence over society. Religious survival does not necessarily mean religion remains socially dominant.

What did Hadaway's research suggest about reported church attendance in the USA?

Hadaway found that survey claims about attendance were exaggerated. In Ashtabula County, reported attendance was substantially higher than actual head counts, suggesting that conventional surveys overestimate religious participation.

What is secularisation from within, according to Bruce?

Religion becomes less distinctive and demanding as it adapts to modern culture. It becomes more focused on personal wellbeing and therapy and less strict about traditional moral rules.

How does Hunter's research illustrate secularisation from within?

Hunter found that the proportion of American evangelicals who believed drinking alcohol was always wrong fell from 98% in 1951 to 17% in 1982, suggesting a weakening of strict religious morality.

What is practical relativism?

The acceptance that other people have a right to hold different beliefs, rather than insisting that one religion is the only valid truth.

How do Lynd and Lynd's findings support practical relativism?

The proportion agreeing that Christianity was the one true religion fell from 94% in 1924 to 41% in 1977, suggesting growing acceptance of religious alternatives.

What are the main criticisms of secularisation theory?

Religion may be changing rather than simply declining. The theory can overlook religious revivals, new religious movements and non-attending believers. It may be too Eurocentric, assume an exaggerated religious 'golden age', and underestimate how diversity can stimulate religious commitment.