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Secularisation - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 1851 - 40% attended church on sunday
        
        1960 - 10% attended church on Sunday
        
        2015 - 5% attended church on Sunday
    - - Britain has become a secular society
        . Baptism's are declining - 120,000 in 2016 - 106,000 in 2017
        ¬ Bogus baptisms - children baptised to get them into a school
        . Christian Marriages - 45,000 in 2016 - 41,000 in 2017
- - - - Berger (1969), argues another cause of secularisation is the trend towards religious diversity where instead of there being only one religious organisation and only one interpretation of the faith, there are many.
        . The Sacred Canopy - The European Catholic Church held an absolute monopoly in the Middle Ages - it had no competition. As a result, everyone lived under a single sacred canopy or set of beliefs shared by all. This gave these beliefs greater plausibility because they had no challengers and the Church’s version of the truth, was unquestioned. But this changed with the Protestant Reformation when protestant churches and sects broke away from the Catholic Church in the 16th century, and since then the number and variety of religious organisations continued to grow with different versions o the truth. Society is no longer unified under the single sacred canopy provided by one church. Instead, religious diversity creates a plurality of life worlds, where people’s perceptions of the world vary and where there are different interpretations of the truth.
        . Plausibility structure - Berger argues that this creates a crisis of credibility for religion, as diversity undermines religion’s ‘plausibility structure’ (the reasons why people find it believable). Having alternative versions of religion to choose between, people are likely to question all of them eroding the absolute certainties of traditional religion. Religion then becomes relative rather than absolute. Bruce sees the trend towards religious diversity as the most important cause of secularisation; putting it as ‘It is difficult to live in a world that treats as equally valid a large number of incompatible beliefs, without coming to suppose that there is no one truth’.
      - Evaluation
        
        Berger (1999) changed his views and now argues that diversity and choice actually, stimulate interest and participation in religion. For example, the growth of evangelicalism in Latin America and the New Christian Right in the US pointed to the continuing vitality of religion, not its decline.
        Beckford (2003) agrees with the idea that religious diversity will lead some to question or even abandon their religious beliefs, but this is not inevitable. Opposing views can have the effect of strengthening a religious group’s commitment to its existing beliefs rather than undermining them.
    - - Bruce identifies two counter-trends that seem to go against secularisation theory. Both are associated with higher-than-average levels of religious participation.
        . Cultural defence is where religion provides a focal point for the defence of national, ethnic, local or group identity in a struggle against an external force such as a hostile foreign power. For example, the popularity of Catholicism in Poland before the fall of communism and the resurgence of Islam before the revolution in Iran in 1979.
        . Cultural transition is where religion provides support and a sense of community for ethnic groups such as migrants to a different country and culture. Herberg describes this in his study of religion and immigration to the US. Religion has performed similar functions for the Irish, African Caribbean, Muslim, Hindu and other migrants to the UK.
      - Evaluation
        
        Bruce argues that religion survives in such situations only because it is a focus for group identity. Meaning these examples do not disprove secularisation but show that religion is most likely to survive where it performs functions other than relating individuals to the supernatural. Evidence supports Bruce’s conclusion. For example, churchgoing 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.
    - - A decline in the community - when society moved from being pre-industrial it brought about a decline in the community contributing to the decline of religion.
        . Wilson argues that in pre-industrial communities, shared values were expressed through collective religious rituals that interrogated individuals and regulated their behaviour. However, when religion lost its basis in stable local communities, it lost its vitality and hold over individuals.
        . Industrialisation - Bruce sees industrialisation as undermining the consensus of religious beliefs that hold small rural communities together. Small close-knit rural communities give way to large loose-knit urban communities with diverse beliefs and values. Social and geographical mobility not only breaks up communities but brings people together from many different backgrounds, creating even more diversity.
        . Diversity of occupations, cultures and lifestyles undermines religion. Even where people continue to hold religious beliefs, they cannot avoid knowing that many of those around them hold very different views. Bruce argues that the plausibility of religion depends on the existence of a practising religious community that functions on a day-to-day basis, both religious belief and practice tend to decline.
      - Evaluation
        
        The view that the decline of community causes the decline of religion has been criticised. Aldridge points out that a community does not have to be in a particular area.
        . Religion can be a source of identity in a worldwide scale. This is true of Jewish, Hindu and Muslim communities.
        
        For example:
        . Some religious communities are imagined communities that interact through the use of global media.
        . Pentecostal and other religious groups often flourish in supposedly ‘impersonal’ urban areas.
    - - The state has taken over many functions of religion
        . Welfare, morality, judgement etc
        . Where religion does provide these services it has to follow the rules of the state.
        
        Religion has lost influence
    - - Religion is confined to the family and the individual
        . Traditions and rituals have lost meaning