Secularisation Flashcards
Church attendance today - BRYAN WILSON
Trends Wilson identified have more than halved since his research in the 1960’s.
-Sunday attendance in the church fell from 1.6 million to under 0.8 million in 2013.
Infant baptisms have fallen however older children are getting baptised in the recent years.
Religious affiliation today
Refers to their membership of or identification with a religion.
Between 1983 and 2014 the percentage of adults with no religion rose from around a third to 1/2 (British social attitudes survey)
Those identifying as Christian fell by a third.
However those who belonged to a non Christian religion (Islam) increased.
Explanations of secularisation - MAX WEBER: rationalisation
Rationalisation refers to the process by which rational ways of thinking and acting have come to replace religious ones.
More rational scientific outlook found in modern society.
A technological worldview
Bruce, argues that the growth of technological worldview has largely replaced religious or supernatural explanations of why things happen.
Technological worldview leaves little room for religious explanations in everyday life.
Bruce concludes that although scientific explanations do not challenge religion directly they have greatly reduced the scope for religious explanations.
Structural differentiation - Talcott parsons
Parsons defines structural differentiation as a process of specialisation that occurs with the development of industrial society.
Religion dominated pre industrial society but with industrialisation it has become a smaller and more specialised institution.
Disengagement - structural differentiation leads to the disengagement of religion, its functions are transferred to other intuitions such as the state - HAS LOST ITS INFLUENCE.
Privatisation - Bruce agrees that religion has become separated from wider society and lost many of its former functions. Religious beliefs are now a matter of personal choice
Social and cultural diversity
Decline of community - the move from pre industrial to industrial society, contributes to the decline of religion. Wilson argues that in pre industrial communities everyone had shared values however now religion has lost its basis and it’s hold over individuals.
Industrialisation - Bruce sees industrialisation as undermining the consensus of religious beliefs that hold small communities together. Social and geographical mobility not only breaks up communities it brings people together.
Diversity of occupations, cultures - Even where people hold religious beliefs they cannot avoid how people around them hold different views.
Religious diversity - BERGER
Berger says another cause of secularisation is the trend towards religious diversity.
Instead of there being only one religious organisation there’s more.
Sacred canopy- Catholic church had no competition and as a result everyone lived under a ‘sacred canopy’ where they all shared the same beliefs and no one challenged them.
However it changed with the protestant reformation, no longer unified and challenged which religion was ‘right’.
Plausibility structure - Berger argues that this creates a crisis of credibility for religion. Diversity undermines religion’s plausibility structure - reasons why people find it believable.
When there are alternative versions of religion to choose between, people will question which one is ‘right’
What is true or false becomes simply a personal point of view creating the possibility of opting out of religion altogether.
Cultural defence and transition
Cultural defence - where religion provides a focal point for the defence of national, ethnic, local or group identity is a struggle against an external force.
Cultural transition - where religion provides support and a sense of community for ethnic groups such as migrants to a different country and culture.
Bruce argues that religion survives in such situations because it is a focus for group identity, Religion is most likely to survive where it performs functions other than relating individuals to the supernatural
Secularisation in America- declining church attendance
Kirk Hadaway - working with a team of researchers employed by major churches found that this figure did not match churches own figures.
They found that the level of attendance claimed by the interviewees was 83% higher than the researchers estimates of church attendance in the county.
Tendency to exaggerate churchgoing.
