New forms of religion 

They argue whilst some aspects of traditional religion are in decline, new forms are emerging, often as a result of changes in wider society such as greater individualism, choice & consumption 

From obligation to consumption 

Grace Davie = argues that in today’s late modern society, we are seeing a major change in religion - away from obligation & towards consumption or choice 

• The CoE & the catholic church could ‘oblige people to go to church, to believe certain things & behave in certain ways 

• Now = religion is no longer inherited or imposed, but a matter of personal choice 

• E.g in England & France, infant baptism were seen as a obligatory rite of passage →now only a minority of babies baptised & an increase in the amount of adults making that decision to be baptised 

Herbet Marcus = consumer culture extends to religion 

• Religious experiences are tailored to personal needs 

Evaluation 

• Part of secularisation 

• Religious participation/commitment declining 

Believing w/o belonging 

Davie = argues that religion is not declining but simply taking a different, more privatised form 

• People are increasingly reluctant to belong to organisation - whether these are churches, political parties or trade unions 

People still hold religious beliefs - a situation that Davie calls believing w/o belonging

Evaluation = 

Functionalism - Durkheim = sacred and profane, Parsons = norms and values

Vicarious religion : the Spiritual Health Service 

Davie = 

Vicarious religion = means religion practiced by an active minority on behalf of the great majority 

• Pattern is typical of Britain & Northern Europe, despite low levels of attendance, many people identity w/ the churches 

Argues in Europe, the major national churches are seen as public utilities is there for everyone to use whenever they need to - includes using the churches for rites of passages such as baptisms, weddings & funerals as well as public mournings 

• Compares it to the tip of an iceberg & sees it as evidence of believing w/o belonging  

• Beneath the surface of what seems to be only a small commitment lies a much wider commitment 

• Most people may not normally go to church/ pray, but they remain attached to the church as an institution that provides ritual 

Argues multiple modernity - e.g Britain & USA are modern societies w/ different views of religion 

Evaluation = 

Useful in explaining religious decline in modern societies 

Hides deeper trend of secularisation 

Neither believing nor belonging 

Voas & Crockett = don’t accept davie’s claims of more believing than belonging 

• Evidence from 5750 respondents show that both church attendance & belief in god are declining 

Bruce = people are not willing to invest time into going to church - reflects declining strength of their beliefs 

• When people no longer wish to belong, their involvement in religion diminishes 

2011 census survey - show that 63% of people identified themselves as christian - supports believing w/o belonging view 

HOWEVER Abby Day = found that very few of the Chrisitans she interviewed mentioned God/ Christianity 

• Described themselves as Christian as a way of saying they belong to a ‘white English group’ 

• They believe IN belonging 

Norris & Ingelhart = society w/ greater understanding of scientific explanations for mankind & world = less likely to be religious/maintain religious practices 

Evaluation = 

• Overlooks complexity of contemporary spirituality & forms of beliefs outside traditional religious structures 

Spiritual shopping 

Daniele hervieu-leger = agrees that there had been a decline in institutional religion in Europe, w/ fewer people attending church in most countries

• Cultural amnesia →religion that used to be taught from generation to generation has been lost ⇒ parents let their child choose what they want to believe ]

Individual consumerism has replaced collective tradition 

• People have the choice = 'spiritual shopping’, develop ‘do-it yourself' beliefs that give meaning to our lives & fit in w/ our interest & aspirations 

2 new religious types are emerging -

• Pilgrims = they follow an individual path in a search for self-discovery - e.g exploring New Age spirituality by joining groups, or through individual ‘therapy’ 

• Converts = join religious groups that offer a strong sense of belonging, usually based on shared ethnic background or religious doctrine - some groups re-create a sense of community in a society that has lost many of its religious traditions 

Religion no longer acts as a source of collective identity that it once did 

HOWEVER - H-L notes that religion does continue to have some influence on society’s values 

• E.g the values of equality & human rights have their roots in religion 

• Such values can be a source of shared cultural identity & social solidarity

Related to the idea of late modernity = in recent decades some of the trends within modern society have begun to accelerate 

• Explains the weakening of traditional institutions, such as the church 

Evaluation = 

• Supports rise of new age movement 

• Downplays role of religion institutions - western viewpoint 

Postmodern religion 

David Lyon = argues that traditional religion is giving way to a variety of new religious forms that demonstrate its continuing vigour 

Religion is individualised, fragmented & tailored to personal needs 

• Local authority no longer have control over religious institutions & beliefs (undermine functionalism, marxism & feminism) 

Globalisation, the media & religion 

Globalisation = refers to the growth interconnectedness of societies, which has led to greatly increased movements of ideas & beliefs across national boundaries 

• Due to the central role played in postmodern society by the media & IT, which saturate us w/ images & messages from around the world - compressing time & space to give us instantaneous access to ideas & beliefs of previously remote places & religions 

Religious idea have become ‘disembedded’ 

• The media lift them out of physical churches & move them to a different place & time 

• ‘The electronic church’ & televangelism disembed religion from real,local churches & relocate it on the internet = allows believers to express their faith w/o physically attending church 

• Undermines the traditional institutions 

Online religion and religion online 

Helland - distinguishes between 2 types of internet activity = 

• Religion online = a form of top-down communication where a religious organisation use the internet to address the members & potential converts 

No feedback or dialogue between the parties 

Electronic version of the traditional, hierarchical communication of churches to their members, communicating only the officially approved ideas 

• Online religion = a form of ‘cyber-religion’ that may have no existence outside the internet 

A ‘many-to-many’ form of communication that allows individuals to create non-hierarchical relationships & a sense of community - they can visit virtual worship/meditation spaces, explore shared spiritual interests & provide mutual support 

Cohen = study of Pagans - gained a sense of self-worth from feeling that they belonged to a global network 

Hoover et al = shows that for most users, it is just a supplement to their church-based activities rather than a substitute for them 

Religious consumerism 

Hervieu-Leger = emphasises that is also true to religion, where we act as ‘spiritual shoppers’ - choosing religious beliefs & practices to meet our individual needs, from the vast range available in the religious marketplace 

• No longer have to sign up to any specific religious traditions - pick and mix elements of different faiths to suit our tastes & make them part of our identity 

Lyon = religion has relocated to the sphere of consumption 

• People may have ceased to belong to religious organisations, they have not abandoned religion 

• ‘Religious consumers’ = making conscious choices about which elements of religion they find useful 

Nancy Ammerman - the American Christian fundamentalists 

• Study made use of a number of churches w/o giving strong loyalty to any of them 

• 1 fam attended services at a methodist church & bereavement counselling at a Baptist church, while taking their children to another church for daycare 

‘meta-narratives ‘ - theories or worldviews that claim to have the absolute, authoritative truth, include traditional religions 

Berger = weakens traditional religions that claim a monopoly of the truth & try to oblige people to believe them - exposure to many competing versions of the truth makes people sceptical that any of them is really or wholly true 

• Traditional mainstream churches lose their authority & decline 

Lyon = the decline of traditional churches doesn’t spell then end of religion 

• Argues many new religious movements are now springing up that the religious consumer can ‘sample’ & from which they can construct their own personal belief system 

Self-religions & the New Age 

New forms of religion or spirituality refers to are New Age beliefs & practices 

• New age spirituality rejects the idea of obligation & obedience to external authority found in traditional religions - emphasises the idea of life as a journey of discovery, personal development, autonomy & connecting w/ one’s “inner self” 

Individualism → the notion that every individual is free to decide what is true for them 

• New age beliefs & practices have been called ‘self-spirituality’/ ‘self religion’ 

Re-enchantment of the world 

Lyon - criticise secularisation theory for assuming that religion is declining & being replaced by a rational, scientific worldview 

• Argues we are now in a period of re-enchantment w/ the growth of unconventional beliefs, practices & spirituality 

• Points to the growing vitality of non-traditional religion in the West & its resurgence elsewhere in the world 

A spiritual revolution?

‘Spiritual revolution’ = traditional christianity is giving way to ‘holistic spirituality’ / New Age spiritual beliefs & practices that emphasise personal development & subjective experience 

• Can be seen in the growth of a ‘spiritual market’ w/ an explosion in the amount of books about self-help & spirituality & many practitioners who offer consultations, courses & therapies 

Paul Heelas & Linda Woodhead = investigates whether traditional religion has declined & how the growth of spirituality is compensating for this 

Distinguish between 2 groups = 

• The congregational domain - traditional & evangelical Christianity 

• The holistic milieu - spirituality & the New Age 

2000 = in a typical week, 7.9% of the population attended church, 1.6% took part in the activities of the holistic milieu 

HOWEVER - within the congregational domain, the traditional churches were losing support, while evangelical churches were doing well 

ALTHOUGH - fewer people were involved in the holistic milieu, it was growing - H&W offer an explanation for these trends 

1. New age spirituality has grown because of a massive subjective turn in today’s culture - involves a shift away from the idea of doing your duty & obeying external authority, to exploring your inner self by following a spiritual path 

2. Traditional religions, which demand duty & obedience, are declining 

3. Evangelical churches are more successful than the traditional churches - Evangelical emphasises the importance of spiritual healing 

The weakness of the new age 

Argue religion is not declining but simply changing its nature/ form - bruce challenges this claim w/ the following points = 

The problem of scale = 

• New Age forms would have to be on a much larger scale to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional institutionalised religions 

• In Kendal, 1851= 38% of the population attended church every sunday- to match this there would need to be 14,500 churchgoers instead of the 3000 who actually attend

Socialisation of the next generation = 

• For a belief system to survive, it must be passed down to the next generation 

• Only 32% of parents who were involved in the New Age said their children shared spiritual interests - to maintain the same number of believers in the next generation 

• ¾ of marriages w/ a women in the holistic milieu, the husband does not share his wife’s beliefs - reducing the likelihood of transmitting them to their children 

Weak commitment =  

• Glendinning and bruce = found that the although many people dabbled in meditation, alternative medicine, astrology, horoscopes & so on, serious commitment to New Age belief & practices were rare 

• ‘Most people in every demographic category show no interest in alternative spirituality’

Structural weakness = 

A cause of secularisation because of its subjective,individualist nature - based on the idea that there is no higher authority than the self - the new age 

• Lacks external power to extract commitment from new age participants against their wishes 

• Cannot achieve consensus about its beliefs because everyone is free to believe whatever they wish, so it lack cohesion as a movement 

• Cannot evangelise because it believes that enlightenment comes from within, not from someone else 

Makes the new age structurally weak & unlikely to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional institutional religion