Secularisation Flashcards
How did Wilson define the term ‘secularisation’?
What did the English church census find about the population who attended church in 1850s compared to 2000?
Who called the 19th century a ‘golden age’ of religion?
What did Gill et al find through surveys?
What did Bruce predict about Methodism?
-Secularisation: ‘the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose their significance.
-English Church census found that 50% of the adult population attended church in the 1850s compared to 7.5% in 2000.
-Crockett wrote about a ‘golden age’ of religion in the 19th century.
-Gill et al discovered a significant decline in belief in God and the after life.
-Bruce predicted Methodism would cease to exist by 2030 if decline continued at the same rate.
What reasons do sociologists argue is behind the decline in religiousity? (Weber,Bruce,Berger,Parsons)
What is the religious watering down of their teachings also known as?
-Weber wrote about disenchantment and rationalisation.
-Bruce made links to a technological world view.
-Berger worte there was now no shared sacred canopy. Relgious diversity undermines the plausibility of all faiths.
-Parsons: structural differentiation: other insitutions have taken on the functions that religion used to perform.
-‘Secularisation from within’; religious watering down of their teachings.
Why might the data gathered by a Church census be criticised?
Does a decline of church attendance always mean secularisation? Was church attendance in the 1850s just about religious belief?
-Church census data is criticised because there are no reliable measurements of church attendance.
-NO. Church attendance does not necessarily correlate with religiosity, so lots depend on how one chooses to define secularisation.
-NO. Church attendance in the 1850s was not just about religious belief but also social interaction, social status, and sometimes compulsion.
Who argued that today people believe without belonging? What does this suggest?
How does Davie argue people practice their religion today?
According to Davie why do people attend to church?
Who argued that people ‘pick and mix’ religious beliefs? What do they mean?Instead where does religion take place?
How does Bruce counter this explanation?
-Davie argued that today people believe without belonging. Therefore rather than religion declining it is instead changing.
-Davie argued that today people practicise their religion vicariously. People only attend for ‘hatching, matching and dispatching’(baptisms, weddings and funerals) or festivals.
-Lyon argued that people ‘pick and mix’ religious beliefs as if they were purchasing consumer commodities.
-Religion takes place outside, churches, mosques or temples.
-However, Bruce argues this is a very weak form of belief and today people neither believe nor belong.
Why does Berger criticise the secularisation theory?
What is contemporary religion characterised in his view?
What is happening to belief globally in his view?
What two processes does berger identify which means society is becoming more religious not less?
What impact has demographic change had on this? Science?
-Berger criticises the secularisation theory and argues it is Eurocentric.
-Berger argues that contemporary religion globally is characterised by pluralism rather than secularism.
-In his view globally religious belief is growing and secularisation theorists live in an academic atheist bubble.
-Berger argues that today there is a process of desecularisation or resacrilisation and that society is becoming more religious not less.
-The percentage of people in the world who are religious is growing quite quickly. Demographic changes; parts of the world where population growth is high, compared to where it is relatively low.
-In addition people are increasingly dissatisfied with scientific and techological explanations and seek simple spiritual answers. I.e. the rise of New age movements etc.
What does Berger mean by the ‘sacred canopy’? What did it give beliefs in the UK during the Middle ages?
When did this change? What is the consequence of this change?
According to Berger what does religious diversity undermine?
-In the middle ages the Catholic church led monopoly(no comp). As a result everyone lived under a single sacred canopy or set of beliefs shared by all.
-This gave beliefs greater plausibility.
-This changed with the Protestant Reformation, when Protestant churches and sects broke away from the Catholic church.
-Since then the variety of religious organisations has continued to grow, each with different versions of the truth.
-Consequently, no church can calim an unchallenged monopoly of the truth.
-Religous diversity undermines the plausibility structure- the reasons why people find religion believable. Religous beliefs have now become relative rather than absolute.
According to Bruce what has now replaced supernatural or religious explanations of why things happen?
Where do religious explanation survive today?
What does Bruce conclude about scientific explanations?
-Bruce argues that the growth of a technological worldview has largely replaced religious or supernatural explanations of why things happen.
-Religious explanations according to Bruce only survive where technology is least effective- i.e. we may pray for help if we are suffering from an illness which scientific medicine has no cure.
-Bruce concludes that although science does not challenge religion directly they have greatly reduced the scope for religious explanations. Science does not make people into atheists but it encourages people to take religion less seriously.
What does rationalisation refer to regarding secularisation?
How does Weber advocate this explanation?
In the past did humans know they had autonomy over the world around them?
What did Weber mean by the Protestant Reformation bringing a ‘disenchantment’ of the world? What does this enable?
-Rationalisation refers to the process by which rational ways of thinking and acting come to replace religious ones.
-Weber argues that the Protestant reformation begun by Martin Luther(16th century) started a process of rationalisation in the West-Undermining religious worldviews with rational science.
-NO. Instead they could try and influence forces by magical means such as prayers and spells.
-Disenchanment; Weber argued the Protestant Reformation squeezes out magical and religious ways of thinking and starts off the rationalisation process that leads to the dominance of rational mode of thought.
-This enables science to thrive and provide the basis for technological advances that give humans more and more power to control nature.
What does Wilson argue industrialisation has destroyed?
What does the rise in individualism lead to?
Why does Aldridge criticise this?(Pentecostals)
-Wilson argues that pre-industrial society, local communities shared religious rituals that expressed their shared value, but industrialisation destroys stable local communities and destroy’s religions base.
-The rise of individualism leads to a decline in community-based religious belief and practice.
-However, Aldridge points out that a community does not have to be in a particular locality. Religion can be a shared source of identity on a worldwide scale, e.g. Jewish communities. Also Pentecostals and other groups flourish in ‘impersonal’ urban areas.
What does Parsons define as ‘structural differentiation’?
What type of institution has religion become since industrialisation?
When religion is involved in education or welfare what must it conform to?
How has the church also lost political power?
-Structural differentiation is a process that occurs with industrialisation as many specialised institutions develop to carry out the different functions previously performed by a single institution I.e. the church.
-Religion has become a specialised institution.
-When religion is involved in education or welfare it must conform to secular controls; e.g. teachers in faith schools must hold qualifications recognised by states.
-The Church and the state are increasingly separated in modern society forcing it to lose its political power.
What does Bruce mean by religion has become ‘psychologised’ in the US?
How has the internal secularisation of religion in the US changed its purpose?
What is practical relativism?
How does Lynd and Lynd’s study support Bruce’s identification?
-Bruce argues that in America, the emphasis on traditional Christian beliefs and glorifying God has declined. Instead religion has become ‘pyschologised’- a form of therapy.
-Secularisation from within has led religion’s purpose changing from seeking salvation in heaven to seeking personal improvement in the world.
-Bruce identified practical relativism among American Christians- i.e. accepting that others are entitled to hold beliefs different to one’s own.
-Lynd and Lynd found in 1924 94% of churchgoing young people agreed with the statement ‘Christianity is the one true religion’. By 1977 only 41% agreed.
Why are secularisation theorists criticised?(Bruce contradictions?)
(decline vs change?)
(Narrow?)
(Crockett’s golden age?)
-Bruce’s concepts of cultural defence and Cultural transition are viewed as contradictory to his other concepts.
-Religon is not declining but simply changing its form.
-Secularisation theory is seen as one-sided. It focuses on decline and ignores religious revivals and the growth of new religions.
-Evidence of falling church attendance ignore people who believe but don’t go to church.
-Religion may have declined in Europe but not globally, so secularisation is not universal.
-The past was not a ‘golden age’ of faith from which we have declined, and the future will not be an age of atheism.
-Far from causing decline, religious diversity increases participation because it offers choice.
Who’s study found that the opinion polls regarding church attendance may be an exaggeration?
Has this tendency to exaggerate attendance always been?
What does Bruce conclude about the matter?
What is the reasoning for this?
-Hadaway et al found that in Ohio, the attendance level claimed polls was 83% higher than researchers actually counted going to church.
-Evidence suggests a tendency to exaggerate churchgoing is a recent development. Until 1970s the findings of opinion polls matched the churches’ own estimates, but since then the ‘attendance gap’ has widened.
-Thus Bruce concludes that a stable rate of self-reported attendance of about 40% has masked a decline in actual attendance in the US.
-The widening gap may be due to the fact it is still seen as socially desirable or normative to go to church, so people have stopped going will say they attend if asked in a survey.
