Religion In The Contemporary World

Question 1

What is the definition of Secularisation?

Answer 1

-Wilson describes it as ‘the process whereby religious thinking, practices & institutions lose social significance.’

Question 2

What statistical evidence for secularisation is there?

Answer 2

-1850s, 40% of the UKs population went to church on a Sunday
2016, 2% of the UKs population say they go to church on a Sunday

-2011 Census, 59.5% said they were Christian, however only 10% were definitive members of a particular church/denomination

-Religious ceremonies for major life events are in decline
1900, 65% of children born were baptised, however in 2011, the figure was 10%

Question 3

What are some criticisms of using statistical evidence for secularisation?

Answer 3

-The methods used to record religion beliefs may not be trustworthy:
Don’t standardise the counting of their memberships, only collect them at busiest times of the year
-The decline in religious belief & practice is variable across the UK:
Christianity is more strongly followed in Northern Ireland
Significant increase in ethnic minority religions such as Islam, Hinduism etc
-We should be cynical about how religious people were in the past:
Church going may have be high due to other factors, e.g in the 19th century going to church was a sign of middle class respectability.

-Statistics on Church attendance or membership do not tell us about belief:
People may attend church for non-religious reasons, belonging without believing, sense of community etc.

Question 4

Why does Bruce believe that secularisation has occurred?

Answer 4

-believes we have become more focused on rational thinking

E.g people seek explanations of the world which are based on discovery or evidence

Question 5

Who else was strong believer in rationalisation theory?

Answer 5

-Weber, people have become disenchanted, they stopped seeing the world as magical and something which can be explained rationally by science.

Question 6

What does Bruce mean by the term technological worldview?

Answer 6

-People now turn to science/technology to provide us with information about how things happen and why.
E.g most people turn to a doctor if they are ill, rather than prayer.
-They take religion less seriously

Question 7

What are some evaluations of rationalisation?

Answer 7

• extremely hard, if not impossible, to measure the concept of rationality.
• still as a society we are not wholly rational, e.g start signs, tarot cards, luck, superstition

Question 8

However, rationalisation has been backed up by who’s argument and why?

Answer 8

-Gill’s Plausibility argument
Plausibility = how likely something is to be true
-Many if our irrational practices are habitual, we don’t truly believe them. However, most people view religion as ‘implausible.’

Question 9

What is another explanation for secularisation, which involves a term used in the topic of family?

Answer 9

• Structural Difference = society evolves and changes by getting more and more complex.
• usually coined by Talcott Parsons

Question 10

How does Bruce apply structural differentiation to religion?

Answer 10

-In the past, religion used to play many functions, however, now it is something which is very private and personal.

Question 11

What institutions did the church used to run and who runs them now?

Answer 11

1) Education, this is now run by schools, colleges, compulsory education, family, media.
2) Care Services, this is now run by the NHS, care homes (for children and the elderly,) social services etc,
3) Secondary Socialisation, which is now run by family, friends, teachers, the media, hidden curriculum.

Question 12

Parsons adds that people have withdrawn the interest or involvement with the church or that the church no longer has involvement in our social lives, what is this called?

Answer 12

-Disengagement with religion

Question 13

What are some evaluations of structural differentiation?

Answer 13

• Parsons believes that this now means that those involved in religious activity can now concentrate more on religious activities, making religious weaker not stronger.
• Parson rejects the view that religion is no longer influential within society, people still follow moral codes which originate from religion.
• If we are so disengaged with religion, why are we still fixated in it? The mass media still defines religious matters as important and newsworthy.

Question 14

The third explanation for secularisation is when we become more socially and culturally more diverse, what is it called?

Answer 14

-Societalisation: The growth of social, cultural and lifestyle diversity in society.

Question 15

What are the three major changes which have occurred, which then have a knock on effect on religion?

Answer 15

1) industrialisation undermines the consensus of religious beliefs that they still hold small communities together.
2) urbanisation is the decline of community contributions to the decline of religion
3) Lifestyle Diversity, acknowledge that people around them have different views, e.g non-religious
Bruce argues that plausibly of beliefs is undermined by other views

Question 16

What are some evaluations of Societalisation?

Answer 16

-Large number of inner city movements which continue to thrive in inner city areas, e.g Pentecostal Christianity and Islam, suggests that attribute religious decline to the development of city communities is too simplistic.

Question 17

What is religious pluralism?

Answer 17

• The concept is more simply referred to as the rise in diversity, society contains so many different religious belief systems.
• Theorists argue that the fact that there are so many religious belief system out there, shows that religious is losing its power.

Question 18

What are the two negative consequences that Wilson argues negative pluralism has?

Answer 18

1) People no longer feel controlled by religion, they were born into different ways of thinking and living
2) There is now a religious ‘supermarket,’ religions competing for spiritual shoppers, this undermines the credibility of religion.

Question 19

What did Berger call it when he said that people in Europe were called together by the Catholic Church?

Answer 19

-The Scared Canopy of the Catholic Church

Question 20

However, things in the Catholic Church have now changed, what happened?

Answer 20

• Dominated in the U.K for over 300 years
• The Protestant Reformation, branches come off of the church e.g King Henrys, Church of England.
• The Fragmentation of Protestantism, religion broke down into many different forms of denominations E.g purlism, Methodism, Quakerism, orthodox baptism, pencostal
• The Rise Of New Religious Movements, e.g monies movement, yoga, meditation, tarot cards reading.

Question 21

What evaluations of religious pluralism?

Answer 21

• Postmodern society is diverse in a range of ways, it means it is mo longer appropriate to have one beliefs system
• people are actually becoming more religious and spirituality aware, but our practices is becoming more individualistic.