secularisation Flashcards
what is wilsons’ definition of secularisation?
the process whereby religious thinking, practices and insitutions loose their significance
evidence of declining church membership
only 12% of the population go to church
evdience of low religious knoweldge
2011 cencus 70% knew little to nothing on easter story or life of jesus
what % of babies are now baptised
less than 25%
in 1950 60% were
what problems are there with using statistics?
- high participation doesn’t mean strong belief ( alrdidge USA)
- low participation doesn’t mean no believe (davie believing without belonging)
- cencus could mean people say they are religious or are nto for social descirability reasons
- difficult to interpret, practicing religion is subjective,
weber on seccularisation
protestant reformation in the 16th century brought about rationalisation and disenchantment
bruce on seccularisation
technological understadning of why things happen such as plane crashes being due to sceinfitic failures and having real explanations reduces the need for religion to provide reasoning and comfort
criticms of bruce’s technolgoical worldview
davies argued that the insequrity of teqnical worldviews is that the riskand uncertainty leads to a rise in fundametnalism as a source of comfort in a postmodern world
weber disenchantment and rationalisation
the protestant reformation led to rationsalisation due to the rise of haveing a non interventionist god. therefore religon was no longer used to explin why everything happens in society as ‘god plan’ but led to people having to find other more scientific explainations
criticm of weber
euro-centric view becuase protestantism is largely in more developed countreis.
coutries that largly beleive in interventoanist gods such as allah continue to remain relgious as they can get explainations for things from relgion
norris and englehart existential security theory
parsons structrual differentiation
religion is declining as other insitutions are being created that lead to the functions of relion not bieng neded anymore
for example the benefits system replaced the fianical support function of the church
food banks and free school meals
NHS
people no longer rely on religion due to development of welfare
criticsm of parsons stuctrual differentiation
noris and englehart exisitential security theory
religiosity is higher incountreis that dont have good welfare that ensure that people will be a bakle to eat or survie being ill
bergers plausability structure
argues that seccularisation has occured becuase globalisation and interconnectedness and religous education menas that not one religion cna hold a monopoly of the truth anymore as there are differing religos that tell differing sotries about why htings are how they are and how the world started ect.
less people can beleive them as they may not be true
criticsm of plausability
stark and abinbirdge argue that religious pluraism and many reliongs being avaible actually makes people more religous as they have alarger choice to choose from
similarly the competation mekes churches develop to appealto a wider audience in order to gain members ex televangelism
USA: against declining church attendance
hadaway:
church attendance in the USA is statistically at 40% however arguably this is an exageration due to the cultrue in america where it is socially desirable to go to churhc ane be religious in order to be a ‘good american’
