topic 3: secularisation

• Wilkinson definition of secularisation

  He defined secularisation as the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose social significance

  • Eg church attendance in England and Wales had fallen from 40% of the population in the mid 19th century to 10 to 15% by the 1960s. This led Wilson to conclude that Britain had become a secular society.
• Secularisation in Britain: church attendance today

  The trends Wilson identified have continue, by 2022 about 4% of the adult population attended church on Sundays, church going in Britain has therefore more than half since Wilson’s research in the 1960s

  • Attendances at large organisations such as the church of England and the Catholic Church have declined more than small organisations, some of which are still stable or have grown
  • However the growth of these smaller organisations has not made up for the decline of larger ones so the overall trend is still one of decline
• Secularisation in Britain: church attendance today

  Weddings and baptisms remain more popular than attendance that Sunday services, here to the trend is downwards

  • In 19 7159% of weddings were in a church but by 2018 the proportion was only 20%
  • Infant baptisms have fallen deadly number of Catholic baptisms today is under half of those in 1964
  • Bogus baptisms- infant baptisms have declined those older children have increased in recent years. Research indicates this is because of faith schools which tend to be high performing schools but will only take baptised children
• Secularisation in Britain: religious affiliation


  Refers to a persons identification with a religion

  • Evidence indicates a continuing decline in the number of people who are affiliated to a religion. between 1983 and 2018 the proportion of adults with no religion rose from under a 3rd to just over half, in the same period those identifying as Christian fell by 40%
  • Those belonging to a non-Christian religion (mainly Islam) increased partly due to immigration and higher birth rates
• Secularisation in Britain: religious belief today

  Evidence about religious beliefs from 80 years of survey research shows that religious belief is declining along with the decline in church attendance and membership

  • For example, survey shows a significant decline in the belief in God, in Jesus as a son of God and in Christian teachings about the afterlife and the Bible
• Secularisation in Britain: religious institutions today

  The influence of religion as a social institution has also declined, although the church has some influence on public life (eg 26 Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords where they have some influence on lawmaking), this has declined significantly since the 19th century

  • In particular, the state has taken over many of the functions that the church used to perform, whereas religion was once involved in every aspect of life it has become increasingly confined to the private sphere of the individual and family
• Secularisation: religious institutions today

  eg until mid 19th century church is provided education but since then it has been provided mainly by the state although there is still faith, however they mainly state funded and must conform to the states regulations

  • Similarly although there is a legal requirement for schools to provide a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian character, BBC survey in 2005 found over half of the secondary schools in Wales failed to comply with this
• Secularisation: religious institutions today

  The clergy- one measure of the institutional weakness of the churches is the number of clergy, in the 20th century this fell from 40,000 to 34,000. Had it cat paste with the population population growth the clarity would now number over 80,000.

  • The clergy are also an aging workforce, in 2020 the average age of Anglican priests was 52, one new ordinations of Catholic priest and now below 1/10 of their 1965
  • Lack of clergy on the ground in local communities mean the day-to-day influence of the churches is reduced
• Explanations of secularisation: rationalisation


  rationalisation refers to the processes by which rational ways of thinking and act income to replace religious ones

  • Weber the protestant reformation began by Martin Luther in the 16th century started a process of rationalisation of life in the west
  • This process undermine the religious worldview of the Middle Ages and replaced it with a rational scientific outlook on modern society
• Explanations of secularisation: rationalisation- disenchantment

  Disenchantment- the protestant reformation brought a new worldview instead of the interventionist God of mediaeval catholicism protestants saw God as transcendent as existing above and beyond or outside this world Although God created this world, he did not intervene in it, but instead left it to run accordingly to its own laws of nature
• Explanations of secularisation: rationalisation- disenchantment


  This meant event events were no longer to be explained as the work of unpredictable supernatural beings but as the predictable workings of natural forces all that was needed to understand them was rationality

  • Using science and reason humans could discover the laws of nature, understand and predict how the world works and control it through technology
  • Therefore, there was no need for religious explanations of the world since the world was no longer an enchanted garden
• Explanations of secularisation: rationalisation-disenchantment

  Therefore, whether argued the protestant reformation began the disenchantment of the world, squeezing out magical and religious ways of thinking and starts off the rationalisation process that leads to the dominance of the rational mode of thought

  • Enable science to thrive and provide a basis for technological advances that give humans more power to control nature which further undermines the religious worldview
• Explanations of secularisation: technological worldview

  Bruce- Argues the growth of a technological view has largely replaced religious or supernatural explanations of why things happen

  • When bad things happen (eg war, disaster) instead of believing it’s the work of evil spirits/God we look for scientific/technological explanations
  • This leaves little room for religious explanations in every day life which only survive in areas where technology is least effective e.g. suffering from an illness with no cure
• Explanations of secularisation: structural differentiation

  Parsons- defines structural differentiation as a process of specialisation that occurs with the development of industrial society

  • Specialised institutions developed carry out functions that were previously performed by a single institution
  • He argues this has happened to religion, dominated pre-industrial society but with industrialisation it become smaller and a more specialised institution
• Explanations of secularisation: structural differentiation

  Disenagement- Parsons argues differentiation leads to disengagement of religion. Its functions are transferred to other institutions such as the state and it becomes disconnected from wider society e.g. the church loses influence it once had over education and the law.
• Explanations of secularisation: structural differentiation

  Privatisation- Bruce agrees, religion has become separate from why does society and loss of its form of functions, it’s become privatised confined to the private sphere of the home and family. Religious believes are now a matter of personal choice and religious institutions has lost its influence over wider society as a result tradition, and symbols have lost meaning
• Explanations of secularisation: structural differentiation

  Parsons

  • Even where religion continues to perform functions such as educational social welfare in must conform to the requirements of the secular state teachers of faith schools must hold qualifications that recognised by the state
• Explanations of secularisation: social and cultural diversity


  Decline of community- movement from pre-industrial to industrial society brings about decline of community and contributes to the decline of religion. Wilson argues in pre-industrial communities shared values were expressed through collective religious rituals that integrated individuals and regulated their behaviour. as religion lost its bases from stable communities it lost its vitality and holdover individuals
• Explanations of secularisation: social and cultural diversity

  Industrialisation- Bruce sees industrialisation as undermining the consensus of religious belief that holds small rural communities together.

  • Small close knit rural communities giveaway to large loosened urban communities with diverse beliefs and values.
  • Social and geographical mobility not only break up communities but bring people together from many different backgrounds creating even more diversity
• Explanations of secularisation: social and cultural diversity


  Diversity of occupations, cultures and lifestyles undermines religion

  • Even when people continue to whole religious police, they can’t avoid knowing others hold very different views
  • Bruce argues the plausibility of belief is undermined by alternatives
  • It’s also undermined by individualism because the plausibility of religion depends on the existence of a practising community of believers in the absence of a practising religious community that functions on a day-to-day basis both religious belief and practices tend to decline
• Explanations of secularisation: criticisms of social and cultural diversity


  The view that decline of community causes the decline of religion has been criticised

  • Aldridge argues community doesn’t have to be in a particular place
  • Religion can be a source of identity on a worldwide scale
  • Some religious communities are imagined communities that interact through the use of global media
  • Pentecoastal and other religious groups often flourish and supposedly impersonal urban areas
• Explanations of secularisation: religious diversity

  Berger Augies another cause of secularisation is the trend towards religious diversity where instead of they being only one religious organisation and only one interpretation of the faith there are many

  • The sacred canopy- in the Middle ages the Catholic Church held absolute monopoly as a result. Everyone lived under a single sacred canopy or set of beliefs shared by all beliefs greater plausibility because they had no challenges and the truth was unquestionable
• Explanations of secularisation: religious diversity

  The Catholic Church is power changed with the prostate reformation when the protestant churches amd sects away from the Catholic Church in the 16th century

  • Since the reformation the number and variety of religious organisations has continue to grow each with different versions of the truth therefore the church can no longer claim a unchallenged monopoly of truth
  • Society is that no longer unified under a single sacred canopy provided by one church instead of religious diversity creates plurality of life worlds
• Explanations of secularisation: religious diversity

  Plausibility structure- Berger argues this creates a crisis of credibility for religion

  • Diversity undermines religion plausibility structure (the reasons why people find it believable)
  • When there were different options to choose between people are likely to question all of them and this road the absolute certainty of traditional religion
  • Religious relief becomes relative rather than absolute what’s true or false simply becomes a personal point of view which creates the possibility of opting out of religion together
• Explanations of secularisation: criticisms of religious diversity

  Berger now argues that diversity choice actually stimulate the interests and participation of religion, e.g. the growth of evangelicism in Latin America and the new Christian right in the USA point to the continuing vitality of religion, not its decline

  • Beckford agrees with the idea that religious diversity will lead to some questions or even abandoned their religious beliefs, opposing views can have the effect of strengthening a religious groups commitment to its existing beliefs rather than undermining them
• Explanations of secularisation- Berger

  Argues, rationalisation and increasing geographical and social mobility means people are more aware of alternative lifestyles

  • The social world is increasingly fragmented and diverse as many different beliefs and lifestyles choose from people less certain about morality and their identity
• Explanations of secularisation: cultural defence and transition

  Bruce identifies two counter trends that seem to go against the secularisation theory

  Minority ethnic groups seem to be more religious than white British people but Bruce suggest it’s a complex issue, he argues religion provides additional functions for minority, ethnic and migrant groups:

  • cultural defence is where religion provides a focal point for the defence of national, ethnic, local or group identity in a struggle against external for such as hostile foreign power
• Explanations of secularisation: cultural defence and transition

  Bruce- counter trends that go against secularisation theory

  • Cultural transition- where religion provide support and a sense of community for ethnic groups such as migrants to a different country and culture where they have to adjust their identity to deal with the changed situations
  • E.g. African Caribbean migrants to Britain can use churches/mosques as a focus for their culture
• Explanations of secularisation: cultural defence and transition

  Bruce argues that religion survives in cultural defence and cultural transition because it is a focus for a group identity, thus these examples don’t disprove secularisation but show that religion is most likely to survive when it performs functions other than relating individuals to the supernatural

  • Evidence supports Bruce’s conclusion e.g. Church going declined in Poland after the fall of communism and there is evidence that religion loses importance for migrants once they are integrated into their new society
• Secularisation in America

  In 1962, Wilson found that 45% of Americans attended church on Sundays however he argued church going in America was more of an expression of the American way of life than deeply held religious beliefs

  • he argued America was a secular society, not because people had abandoned the churches but because religion there had become superficial
  • He uses three sources of evidence to support his claim that America is becoming increasingly secular: declining church attendance, secularisation from within an a trend towards religious diversity and relativism
• Secularisation in America: declining church attendance


  Opinion poll reasearch asking people about church attendance suggest it’s been stable at about 40% of the population since 1940

  • Hadaways study showed this figure didn’t match the churches own attendance statistics, if 40% of Americans were going to church, the church churches would be full but they were not
• Secularisation in America: declining church attendance

  Haddaway studied church attendance in Ohio to estimate attendance, they carried out headcounts at services, then interviews, they asked people if they had attended church, they found the level of attendance claimed by the interviewees was 83% higher than the research as estimates of church attendance in the county

  • There’s evidence that this tendency to exaggerate church going is a recent development, until the 1970s the findings of opinion polls match the churches own estimates but since then the attendance gap has winded
• Secularisation in America: declining church attendance

  Thus Bruce concludes that a stable rate of self reported attendance of about 40% has masked a decline in actual attendance in the US.

  • The widening gap may be due to the fact that is still seen as socially desirable to go to church, so people who have stopped going will say they still attend if asked in a survey
• Secularisation in America: secularisation from within

  The emphasis on traditional Christian beliefs and glorifying God has declined and religion in America has become psychologised or turned into a form of therapy this is also called cultural defence, religion is being used as a defence against rapid social change and means of handling cultural transitions

  • This change is enabled it fit within a secular society, essentially American religion has remained popular by becoming less religious
• Securisation in America: secularisation from within

  The purpose of religion has changed from seeking salvation in heaven seeking personal improvement in this world.

  • this declining commitment and traditional beliefs can be seen in peoples attitudes in lifestyles, churchgoers are now much less strict than previously in their adherence to religious morality
  • American church goes as a less interested in the teachings of the Bible and more focused on the American way of life stressing the values of democracy, freedom, attainment and material success
• Secularisation in America: religious diversity

  The growth of religious diversity has also contributed to secularisation from within, churchgoers are becoming less dogmatic in their views

  • Identifies a trend towards practical relativism among American Christians involving acceptance of the view that others are entitled to belief that are different to one own
  • This is shown in lynd and lynds study, which found that in 1924 94% of church going young people agreed with the statement Christianity is the one true religion and all people should be converted to it. However by 1977 only 41% agreed
• Secularisation in America- criticisms of secularisation theory


  Critics of the theory argue

  • Religion is not declining it simply changing its form
  • Secularisation theory is one-sided, it focuses on decline and ignores religious revivals and the growth of new religions
  • Evidence ailing church attendance ignores people who believe but don’t go to church
  • Religion may have declined in Europe but not globally so secularisation is not universal
  • The past was not a golden age of faith from which we have declined, and the future will not be an age of athesism