"Secularisation is a thing of the past, we are now in a time of desecularisation" Evaluate this claim (20 Marks - A02)

Revision - ESSAY PLAN :D

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"Secularisation is a thing of the past, we are now in a time of desecularisation" Evaluate this claim (20 Marks - A02)

Advantages

  • Statistical evidence for non-Christians (2011 Census shown an increase in Islam from 2.7% in 2001 to 4.8% in 201.
  • British Social Attitudes (1991) - Just 14% and 10% of the population claim to be atheist or agnostic
  • Younger Demographic in Islam who are proud of their cultural heritage regardless of social stigma (David Voas)
  • Greely (NRM's are a form of resacralisation) - this can be applied to religious fundamentalism
  • There has been a growth of denominations such as black Pentecostal Churches (18%)
  • Believing without belonging
  • Statistics are unreliable (i.e. Question wording)/anti-semitism/Islamaphobia.
  • Cultural Christianity
  • Parsons - Life Crises (people seek religion as they get older), link to Turner (1983) and medicine - medicine provides the fact, religion provides the ultimate meaning.
  • State funded faith schools, Bishops in House of Lords, Christian New Right in the USA

Disadvantages

  • New Age Movements represent the 'subjective turn of modern culture' (Charles Taylor, 1991) and a spiritual revolution (Heelas and Woodhead, 2002)
  • Post-Christian Nation (Linda Woodhead)
  • Collapse of the meta-Narratives (Lyotard, 1984)
  • Churches no longer have monopolised knowledge, nor are multi-functional
  • Leicster secular society/the Solomnisation of religion
  • Threat of atheism, science, technology and movements such as scientology
  • Threat of popular culture and Quasi religions such as the Church of Elvis
  • Lack of theology amd a greater emphasis on social issues such as deomcracy, poverty, freedom
  • Conformity of religion to the material world, this shows how secularisation is prevalent since.  Radcliffe Brown argues that religion must have a divine Being and this must be the emphasis.

Evaluation

Rodney Stark (1999) - Secularisation was never a myth. This links to Francis Fukuyama who asserts that religion is the only legitimate and inevitable future ideology.  However, "perhaps the most important factor to consider for those who perceive secularisation to be happening is their definition of religion in the first instance" (Stark and Banbridge).   Secularisation is to subjectively focussed, therefore there can be no distinct conclusion due to its controversy. 

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