Secularisation; a Truth?

Opdracht week 2 Religious Pluralism

People are not religious anymore. This is a conclusion people take from the figures about church-attendacy. What they see is that lesser people go to church, at least in Europe. So they scream the world is secularising. But is this really so? And what is meant exactly with secularisation?

People are not religious anymore. This is a conclusion people take from the figures about church-attendacy. What they see is that lesser people go to church, at least in Europe. So they scream the world is secularising. But is this really so? And what is meant exactly with secularisation?
Scientists still haven't agreed about the answers to these questions. Beginning about a century ago with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber the idea was that Modernisation would necessarily lead to the decline of religion. This applies for the society and for the individuals opinion. This theory was widely accepted until the 1960's. From that time on counter evidence came to light and the scientists started questioning the secularisation theory. Nowadays it isn't fashionable anymore to 'believe' in this theory. What then? Is there nothing like secularisation and never was? Or can we still speak of secularisation, but have to revise and examine it, as is the opinion of José Casanova. 
Even Peter Berger (1999), who is now a non-believer of the secularisation theory, says that in Europe people indeed have become less religious on the level of church-related behaviour. He is also talking about an elite subculture, existing of people with "Western-type higher education". This group, however small, is also very influential because of their control over the making of official definitions of reality. But it is these exceptions to religiosity that have to be examined, instead of examining religious movements in a supposed to be secularised world.
Grace Davie (1999) also points to the rare position of Europe. She says talks about three ways of interpreting the data about religiosity, or the lack of, in Europe. She herself agrees with Danièle Hervieu-Leger, who says that secularisation in Europe exists. It has to be seen on one side as a forgetting of the memory that lies at the heart of their religious existence on the other there is a rise of "utopian" spaces. These reality-exceeding spaces provide for the link between modernity and the religious.
The third question we have to look at is, whether secularisation, if it exists, is global. Actually all authors are in agreement, that other parts of the world than Europe are still very religious. Should we see this as a normal phenomenon as Davie and Berger say. In which religiosity is the harmonious status and secularisation is the chaotic status. Or is this the normal process accompanying Modernisation. And because this process is complex and long-term as Steve Bruce (1998) says, it might as well be very well possible that the rest of the world will also follow in secularisation. 


Bibliography

Berger, Peter L.
1999 The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview. In Peter L. Berger (ed.): The Desecularization of the world: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Washington en Michigan: The Ethics and Public Policy Center en Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. pp 1-18

Bruce, Steve
1998 Cathedrals to Cults: The evolving forms of the religious life. In: P. Heelar (ed.) Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell 1998. pp 19-35.

Casanova, José 
1994 Secularization, Enlightenment, and Modern Religion. In: Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. pp 11-39.

Davie, Grace
1999 Europe: The Exception That Proves the Rule? In: P.L. Berger (ed.) The desecularization of the world: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Washington D.C. and Michigan: The Ethics and Public Policy Center and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. pp 65-83.

Saturday 01 January 2000 - 11:59 am | | All, Culture and behaviour
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