Secularisation Flashcards
Statistical evidence that secularisation is occurring
- 2016 : only 2% of British people were recorded as regularly attending Sunday services
- Fewer than 1/3 of wedding services are christian each year
Criticisms of statistical evidence for secularisation
- Methods to record religious belief may not be trustworthy eg may not fill in the consensus correctly
- cynical as to how religious people were in the past
- Regional variations in religious belief which data doesn’t fully
- cynical over correlation between church membership and religiosity
Explanations for secularisation
- rationalisation thesis
- structural differentiation
- Societalisation
- Religious pluralism
Rationalisation thesis
- Weber : decline in religious belief in modern societies correlates with the emergence or rational belief systems eg science and economics
- As people broke away from the catholic church + pursued hard work as promoted by calvinism, society lost touch with christian routes
- Catholicism promoted an enchanted worldview whereas protestantism promoted pursuit of vocations and money making.
- Resulting in developments in scientific fields
- These social improvements are as a product of human activity rather than acts of God
- People became disenchanted so stopped believing in miracles
Bruce
- We now have a technological world view as logical mechanisms have replaced religious ones
- Meteorology causes extreme weather and we turn to medicine when we are ill rather than praying
- Science now fills the gaps in our knowledge
Evaluation of the rationalisation thesis
Rationality is a social construct so what is rational to one may not be to the other
Structural differentiation
Parsons
- structural differentiation refers a process where as society advances and becomes more complex, longstanding institutions begin to lose their functions
- In the past religions performed a range of functions for individuals eg provision of education (eg girls were educated by nuns), care services (nuns ran facilities for unwed mothers) and general socialisation (moral guidance)
- Functions of religion today are narrow in focus and its only used for personal reasons
- Eg people may use prayer as a means of personal comfort however it is individual to each person or family rather than a cultural expectation
- Religion has become disengaged from society (lost significance and influence)
In the past religious leaders had a great influence within society whereas now it takes more of a backseat
In the UK, religion has a separate role from the state eg only specialised practitioners can work in roles such as education
Evaluation of structural differentiation
- With less functions religion is now specialised and can now focus on religious teachings
- Bishops still sit in the HL so have some influence on laws
- Religious values have shaped our laws and social values so they still have some influence
Societalisation evaluation
- Some communities are imagined communities that take place online
- Pentecostilism often flourishes in impersonal urban environments
- Religion can be a source of identity on a worldwide scale
Religious pluralism evaluation
- religious pluralism isn’t a sign religion is declining but society is progressing and changing
- People are actually becoming more spiritually aware but we have become more individualistic
- No longer appropriate to have one belief system as society is now diverse and we need to cater to a variety of values
Societalisation
- Bruce : Some areas are becoming more socially and culturally diverse so religion has lost significance
- Two major reasons for this :
The growth in industrial areas led to the expansion of urbanisation where communities are less tight knight and no longer have a shared belief system - Communities then have a diversity of role, lifestyles and beliefs
- Due to their being a diverse range of people, religion is weakened
- Communities have a range of beliefs which undermines religious people by leading them to question its plausibility
- Religion depends on having a following of people with a shared belief
- In urban communities, people question their beliefs due to having multiple faiths living together so question the plausibility and lose faith
Religious pluralism
- Wilson argues religious pluralism has two negative consequences
1. People no longer feel controlled by the religions in to which they are born in to because there are alternative ways of thinking
2. There is now a religious supermarket where different religions are competing for spiritual shoppers which undermines religion as they all claim to have the right answer - Berger
- Previously people were held together under the sacred canopy of the Catholic Church
- Protestant reformation saw a break and the creation of smaller Christian communities called sects
- These sects grew larger and gained influence and became denominations
- 19th and 20th Century saw global migration and therefore a further diversification of religion
- More values of religions in their home countries have been brought and a growth of minority faiths
- With so many belief systems, their plausibility is weakened as we don’t know what to trust which erodes people’s faith
- Religion has now become relative
