Religion, renewal and choice

• Secularisation theory


  Theory that religion is declining
• Some sociologists reject secularisation theory and argue that religion is simply changing, rather than declining
• Believing without belonging


  People hold religious beliefs but don't go to church
• There is a trend towards 'vicarious religion', where a small minority practise religion on behalf of a much larger number of people
• Despite low attendance, many people still use the churches for rites of passage-baptisms, weddings and funerals
• Multiple modernities


  Britain and America are both modern societies, but with very different patterns of religion - high church attendance in America, low in Britain, but accompanied by believing without belonging
• Spiritual shopping


  People have become spiritual shoppers, developing their own 'do-it-yourself' beliefs
• Pilgrims


  • Follow an individual path in a search for self-discovery, eg. New Age or through individual therapy
• Converts


  • Join religious groups that offer a strong sense of belonging, re-creating a sense of community, eg evangelical movements and minority ethnic group churches
• Postmodern religion


  Traditional religion is giving way to new religious forms that demonstrate its continuing strength
• Relocation of religion


  • Increased movement of religious ideas across national boundaries, often via online religion
  • The media now saturate us with images and messages from around the globe, giving us instant access to the ideas and beliefs of previously remote religions
  • Religion becomes de-institutionalised - its signs and images become detached from their place in religious institutions, floating and multiplying on TV and in cyber-space, a cultural resource that individuals can adept for their own purposes
• Religious consumerism


  • We are 'spiritual shoppers', choosing religious beliefs and practices to meet our individual needs, from the vast range on offer in the religious marketplace
  • We can pick and mix elements of different faiths to suit our tastes and make them part of our identity
• One effect of having access to a great variety of different beliefs is loss of faith in meta-narratives (worldviews that claim to have the absolute, authoritative truth, such as the traditional religions) because people become sceptical that any one of them is really true
• Previously dominant organisations and traditions thus lose their authority and decline. In their place, many new movements spring up that consumers can 'sample'
• Religion and spirituality are not disappearing they are simply evolving into new forms that fit the consumerist nature of postmodern society
• Although traditional religion has declined in Europe, there is growth of non-traditional religion in the West and elsewhere
• Self-religions and the New Age

  The New Age rejects obligation and obedience to external authority found in traditional religions. Instead it emphasises personal development, autonomy and one's inner self
• The 'spiritual market' is growing, e.g. the huge number of books about self-help and spirituality and the many 'therapies, from meditation to crystal healing
• In a typical week in 2000, 7.9% of the population attended church (the congregational domain), and 1.6% took part in spiritual activities (the holistic milieu)
• Within the congregational domain, the traditional churches were losing support, while evangelical churches were holding their own. Although fewer people were involved in the holistic milieu, it was growing
• Subjective turn


  A shift towards exploring your inner self by following a spiritual path, leading to the decline of traditional religions which demand duty and obedience
• Evangelical churches


  More successful than the traditional churches because they emphasise the subjective aspects: spiritual healing and growth through the personal experience of being 'born again"
• The winners in the spiritual marketplace are those who appeal to personal experience as the only genuine source of meaning and fulfilment, rather than the received teachings and commandments of traditional religion
• The New Age is too weak to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional religion due to its small scale, lack of socialisation, weak commitment, and structural weakness due to individualism
• Religious market theory


  People are naturally religious and religion meets human needs, and people make rational choices based on the costs and benefits of the available religious options
• Supernatural compensators


  Religion provides us with supernatural compensators when real rewards are unobtainable, e.g. immortality
• Competition leads to improvements in the quality of the religious 'goods' on offer. Churches that make their product attractive will succeed in attracting more 'customers
• In the USA, religion is strong because a healthy market exists where religions grow or decline according to consumer demand. But where there is a religious monopoly, as in most European countries, lack of choice has led to decline
• Existential security theory


  Religion meets a need for security, and so groups and societies where people feel insecure have a high level of demand for religion. These tend to be low-income groups and societies
• Western Europe is becoming more secular because these societies are relatively equal and secure, with well developed welfare states which reduce insecurity among the poor, whereas the USA remains religious
• The more a country spends on welfare, the lower its level of religious participation