explanations of secularisation

modernisation

• decline in religious beliefs and growth in rational and scientific ways of thinking

overview

• growth of social and religious diversity means institutions are more varied - decline in credibility if all believe their religions is the right one

rationalisation

• weber

• rational ways of thinking and acting has replaced religious ones

• Martin luther king in the 16th century started a process of rationalisation of life in the west

• undermined the religious worldview of the middle ages and replaced it with a scientific outlook

• enchanted garden - spiritual beings were alive and presents as humans try to influence the supernatural by pilgrimages, prayer, charms and fasts

disenchantment

• protestants see God as transcendent meaning exists above our work and does not intervene in it

• events were no longer unpredictability supernatural beings and working of natural forces

• rationality helps us understand science and technology

• no longer need religious explanations

• squeezes out the magic and religious ways of thinking

structural differentiation

• parsons

• process of specialisation that occurs with the development of industrial society

• disengagement

• privatisation

• religions performs functions still however it must conform to the state eg education requirements

disengagement

• functions are transferred to other institutions such as the state

• church loses the influence it once had

• e.g. education, social welfare, law

privatisation

• religion has become a private sphere of the home and family and is now seen as a personal choice

social and cultural diversity

• decline of community

• industrialisation

• diversity of occupations, cultures and lifestyles

decline of community

• Bruce

• preindustrial to industrial meant that shared values are losing basis in stable local communities

industrialisation

• large loose knit urban communities with diverse beliefs are formed from small close knit ones

• social and geographical mobility breaks up communities and creates diversity

diversity of occupations, cultures and lifestyle

• many people hold very diffeeent views on religion

• belief is undermined by alternatives (options)

criticisms

religious diversity

• Berger

• sacred canopy

• changed with protestant reformation which caused a number and variety in religion

• no church can claim unchallenged monopoly of the truth

• no single sacred canopy and there are different interpretations of the truth

• plausibility structure

• people opt out of religion all together

sacred canopy

• a set of beliefs shared by all

• European catholic church held absolute monopoly and had no competition

playability structure

• crisis of credibility for religion

• diversity undermines plausibility structure

• questions all of them and erodes the absolute certainties of religion

• relative rather than absolute

cultural defence and transition

• Cultural defence: Religion provides a focus for the defence of national or ethnic group identity in a struggle against an external force, e.g. Catholicism in Poland before the fall of communism.

• Cultural transition: Religion provides a sense of community for ethnic groups living in a different country and culture.