BELIEFS TOPIC 3 - SECULARISATION Flashcards
(10 cards)
Church attendance today
By 2015, about 5% of the adult population attended church on sundays.
Churchgoing in britain has therefore more than halved since Wilson’s research in the 1960s in which 10-15% of the population attended church.
The english church census shows that attendances at large organisations such as the C of E and the catholic church have declined more than small organisations.
Bogus baptisms - when infant baptisms have declined, those of older children have increased in recent years. This is because many faith schools which tend to be higher performing will only take baptised children.
Religious institutions today
A lack of clergy on the ground in local communities means that the day-to-day influence of the church has declined.
Bruce - If current trends continue, the methodist church will fold around 2030 and by then the church of england will be merely a small voluntary organisation with a large amount of heritage property.
Weber - rationalisation
Rationalisation - refers to the process by which rational ways of thinking and acting come to replace religious ones.
The protestant reformation begun by Martin Luther in the 16th century started a process of rationalisation of life in the west.
Disenchantment - the protestant reformation squeezed out the magical and religious ways of thinking and starts off the rationalisation process that leads to the dominance of the rational mode of thought.
A technological worldview - Bruce argues that the growth of a technological worldview has largely replaced religious or supernatural explanations of why things happen. When a plane crashes with the loss of many lives, we’re unlikely to regard it as the work of evil spirits or God’s punishments of the wicked. The worldview leaves little room for the religious explanations in everyday life which only survive in areas where technology is less effective.
Structural differentiation
Parsons defines structural differentiation as a process of specialisation that occurs with the development of industrial society
Separate, specialised institutions develop to carry out functions that were previously performed by a single institution
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 institutions such as the state and it becomes disconnected from wider society.
Privatisation - bruce agrees that religion has become separated from wider society and lost many of its former functions. It has become privatised - confined to the private sphere.
Even where religion continues to perform functions such as education of social welfare, it must conform to the requirements of the secular state.
Social and cultural diversity
Decline of community - move from pre-industrial to industrial society brings about the decline of community and this contributes to the decline of religion. Wilson argues that in pre-industrial communities, shared values were expressed through collective religious rituals integrating individuals and regulating their behaviour.
Industrialisation - bruce sees industrialisation as undermining the consensus of religious belief which hold small rural communities together. Small close-knit rural communities give way to large loose-knit urban communities with diverse beliefs and values where social and geographical mobility break up communities but also integrates a range of people into a diverse community.
Decline of occupations, cultures, lifestyles undermine religion - bruce argues that the plausibility of beliefs is undermined by alternatives. It is also undermined by individualism because a the plausibility of religion depends on a practicing community of believers.
Criticisms:
Aldridge: a community does not have to be in a particular area.
Religion can be a source of identity on a worldwide scale.
Some religious communities are imagined communities who interact through the use of global media
Pentecostal and other religious groups often flourish in impersonal urban areas.
Religious diversity
Berger - another cause of secularisation is the trend towards religious diversity
The sacred canopy - in the middle ages, the catholic church held an absolute monopol where it had no competition. Everyone lived under its sacred canopy where there was greater plausibility because they had no challengers..
This all changed in the protestant reformation - since then the number of religious organisations has continued to grow, each with a new version of the truth.
Society is no longer unified under one sacred canopy; instead, religious diversity creates a plurality of life worlds where people’s perceptions of the world vary and where there are different interpretations of the truth.
Plausibility structure - berger argues that this creates a crisis of credibility of religion. Diversity undermines religion’s plausibility structure - the reasons why people find it believable.
Cultural defence and transition
Bruce identifies two counter trends that seem to go against secularisation theory. Both are associated with higher than average levels of religious participation.
Cultural defence - where religion provides a focal point for the defence of national, ethnic, local or group identity in a struggle against an external force such as hostile foreign power.
Cultural transition - where religion provides support and a sense of community for ethnic groups such migrants to a different country and culture. Herberg describes this as the study of religion and immigration to the USA. Religion has performed similar functions for Irish, African Caribbean, Muslim, Hindu, and other migrants in the Uk.
However, bruce argues that religion survives in such situations only because it is a focus on group identity. These do not disprove secularisation theory but show that religion is more likely to survive when it performs functions other than relating individuals to the supernatural.
Criticisms:
Berger → has changed views and now argues that diversity and choice actually stimulate interest and participation in religion. The growth of evangelicalism in Latin america and the new christian right in the USA
AMERICA: Declining church attendance
Hadaway et al studied church attendance in Ashtabula County, Ohio. They carried out head counts at services and then in interviews, asked people if they attended church. They found that the level of attendance claimed by the interviewees was 83% higher than the researchers’ estimates of church attendance in the county.
Bruce - a stable rate of self reported attendance of about 40% has masked a decline in actual attendance in the united states. The widening gap may be due to the fact that it is still seen to be socially desirable or normative to go to church.
AMERICA: Secularisation from within
The emphasis on traditional christian beliefs and glorifying God has declined and religion in america has become psychologised or turned into a new form of therapy. This change has enabled it to fit in with a secular society. American religion has remained popular by becoming less religion - Analysis - Bellah’s civil religion.
The purpose of religion has changed from seeking salvation in heaven to seeking personal improvement in this world. The decline in commitment in traditional religious beliefs can be seen in people’s attitudes and lifestyles.
America: Religious diversity
Bruce identifies a trend towards practical relativism among American christians involving acceptance of the view that others are entitled to hold beliefs that are different to theirs.
This is shown in Lynd and Lynd’s study which found in 1924 that 94% of churchgoing young people agreed with the statement ‘Christianity is the one true religion and all people should be converted to it.’ However, by 1977, only 41% agreed.
The counterpart to practical relativism is the erosion of absolution - we now live in society where many people hold different views to outs which undermines our assumption that our own views are absolutely true.
