Explanations of secularisation

According to Weber what started the process of rationalisation?

Weber argues the start of Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation started rational thought.

For Weber the medieval Catholic worldview that dominated Europe was the idea that the world was an ‘enchanted garden’. This is the idea that our society is filled with many spirits and angels that change the course of events through their supernatural powers and miraculous inventions. These could be influenced by human prayer, fasts, pilgrimages and other forms of worship.

However, the Protestant Reformation began another world view named by Weber, disenchantment.

Unlike Catholics, Protestants saw God as transcendent, beyond this world. They believed God had created the world but did not intervene to let actions happen by themselves. Therefore, if God was not intervening in any way all miracles of such were an act of true nature.

This lead to the rise of humans using reason and science to discover laws of nature and so on.

What did Bruce argue about secularisation?

Bruce argued that the growth of technology has largely replaced religious or supernatural explanations of why things happen.

Religion only survives in areas where science is least effective such as prayer for someone with an uncurable illness.

Bruce concludes that science does not directly challenge religion but rather greatly reduced the scope for religious explanations.

Additionally religion has become more privatised where people can pray etc at home, making places of worship loose influence day by day.

What did Parsons argue lead to the disengagement of religion + term definition?

Parsons argued structural differentiation lead to the disengagement of religion.

the process by which social institutions become increasingly specialised, with each institution performing a specific function rather than multiple ones.

Parsons sees this as happening with religion as it dominated pre-industrial society but with industrialisation it has become more smaller and a specialised institution ( e.g. religion used when science becomes less effective).

What did Wilson argue about secularisation? + criticisms

Wilson argued secularisation is due to a loss in community. Community often has shared values that were expressed through collective religious rituals that were then integrated to individuals day to day behaviour. Wilson argued due to industrialisation, community was lost and so was religion.

Aldridge disagrees arguing that community does not have to be on one shared space. The rise of technology can make religious communities global.

What did Berger argued was the cause of secuarisation?

Religious diversity. Once religions became more diversity, people were no longer united under one collective belief.

In the middle ages Catholic churches held the absolute monopoly. Their beliefs had more plausibility as there was no competing religion. However, after more religions were formed, no religion could claim the absolute monopoly of the truth.

Criticisms of Berger

Berger later disagreed with himself arguing that increased diversity actually stimulates interest and participation in religion. For example a growth in Evangelicalism in Latin America and The New Christian Right in the USA.

Beckford agrees with Berger’s NEW point claiming that opposing views of a religion can make its followers more committed to their faith rather than undermining them.

What were Bruce’s two counter-trends that went against secularisation theory? + his final conclusion

Cultural Defence uses religion to unite against an external threat (like oppression or hostility), preserving a threatened identity (e.g., Polish Catholicism against Communism).

Cultural Transition uses religion to help individuals adapt and integrate into a new society, providing a community base and support as they move from one culture to another (e.g., migrant communities in the UK forming mosques/churches).