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 different views on religion

  • belief is undermined by alternatives (options)

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.