Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Topic 5: Secularisation - Coggle Diagram
Topic 5: Secularisation
Video information
The current discussion between sociologists with regard to secularisation is the loss of religions social significance and the decline of individual religiosity.
The view of religion having a decline in power links to Marx's theory of the opium of masses. Religion reduced peoples immediate suffering and gave them illusions to carry on. When this oppressive condition is destroyed, religion will no longer be necessary.
EVALUATION: if religion is related to oppression, then the ruling class should not be religious.
The key sociologist in the study of secularisation is Max Weber. He believes that rational ways of thinking will come to replace religious ones.
-
Berger claims some of the roots of secularisation lie in christianity, specifically in protestantism
Berger also believes that religious pluralism (multiple religions in the same society), undermines religion as it reduces the reliability of the beliefs.
Some examples of religion declining in society consist of people using modern science and the statistics of religious people.
However, religion still remains due to people wanting a reason to know why suffering takes place
America is against the secularisation thesis as they deny religious decline and when they acknowledge it, they empathise the still high levels of participation
They key argument of post-secularists is religious values can legitimately influence commonly binding decisions once citizens translate them into secular norms and reasons in the public sphere.
Key terms:
Cradle catholic is an individual born into and baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, typically raised within the faith from infancy, as opposed to someone that converts to religion later on
Secular age is a period where belief in God is no longer the default or inevitable assumption.
Substantive definition of religion is a belief in a supernatural force (God)
Functional definition of religion can be defined merely in terms of its societal effect.
-
Statistics: 5% of people go to the church twice a month of more in the UK
The average age of a church-goer in the Uk is 61
2200 churches closed between 2011 and 2021
-
-
-
The Kendal project
What is it?
The kendal project was researchers studying the population of Kendal, looking particularly at modern society's approach to religion and spirituality.
What two areas did they investigate?
-Visible religious activities of churches and chapels (Congregational domain)
-Activity taking place beyond the congregational domain (Holistic Milieu)
What did they find?
-7.9% of the population attended church and 1.6% took part in the activities of the holistic milieu.
-traditional churches were losing support, while independent churches which teaches good news were holding support well.
Holistic Milieu had fewer involved but were growing.
Heelas and Woodhead offer an explanation:
-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 and obeying external authority to explore your inner self. As a result, traditional religions that demand obedience are declining. Evangelical churches are doing better as they emphasise the importance of spiritual healing and personal growth.
Postmodernist
Globalisation:
Growing connectedness. We now have access to ideas and beliefs from previously remote places and religions. Religious ideas have become 'disembodied'.
-as a result religion becomes de-institutionalised. Removed from their original location in church, religious ideas become a cultural resource that individuals can adapt for their own purposes.
Media and communications:
Internet creates a range of opportunities for religious organisations and individuals to exploit.
Helland: distinguishes between 2 kinds of internet activity->
1) religion online: form of top down communication. Religious organisations use it to address members, there us no feedback or discussion
2) Online religion-> form of cyber religion that may have no existence outside the internet. Allows individuals to create a non hiearchal relationships and a sense of community to explore shared spiritual interests and provide mutual support.
Consumerism
Pm involves the growth of consumerism and the idea that we now construct our identities through what we choose to consume.
Lyron's view is that religion has moved to the sphere of consumption. While people have stopped belonging to religious organisations, they have not abandoned religion. Instead they are 'religious consumers' making conscious choices about which elements of religion they find useful.
As a result, many new religious movements are now springing up that the religious consumer can sample from and can construct their own personal belief system. Religion and spirituality are not disappearing but they are simply evolving.
A spiritual revolution
There is a move towards a new age spirituality which rejects that idea of obligation and obedience to external authority found in traditional religions. Instead focuses on life is a journey of discovery.
EVALUATION
Even if new age forms of individualised religion are coming up, this would have to be on a large scale if it needs to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional institutionalised religions.
For a belief system to survive, it must be passed down to the next generation, however only 32% of parents who were involved in the New age said their children shared their spiritual interests.
Glendinng and Bruce: Even though people dabbled into meditation and astrology, serious commitment to new age beliefs and practices were rare.
Religious Market theory
Stark and bainbridge view secularisation as being Eurocentric (focuses on the decline in religion in Europe but its strength elsewhere).
Based on two assumptions
1) People are naturally religious and religion meets human needs. Therefore demand stays constant.
2) It is human nature to seek reads and avoid costs. When people make choices, they weight up the costs and benefits.
Religion is attractive as it provides us with compensators. (when real rewards are scare or unattainable religion compensates by promising supernatural ones.
-
Religious competition:
Churches operate lie companies selling goods in a market. Competition leads to improvements in the quality of religions 'goods' on offer. The churches that make their products attractive will succeed in having more 'customers'.
Demand:
Where there is a religious monopoly (one church with no competition) it leads to a decline. This is because there is no competition, a church has no incentive to provide people with what they want.
Studies:
Hadden and Shupe- rise in 'televangelism' in America shows that religious participation is supply led.
Finke- lifting of restrictions on Asian immigration into America in the 1960s led to Asian faiths becoming another option that proved popular with consumers in the religious market place.
Miller- Compared mega- churches found in America and South Korea to hypermarkets. With such large congregations, they have more resources so are able to offer a vast range of activities to meet the diverse needs of their members.
EVALUATION:
-Bruce: diversity has been accompanied by religious decline in Europe and America
Norris and Inglehart: high levels of religious participation exist in Catholic countries where the church has a monopoly. Countries with religious pluralism often have low levels of participation.