3. Secularisation

Evidence for Secularisation

• Decline in church attendence (1850s: 40%; 1960s: 10-15%; 2015: 5%)
• Increase in average age of churchgoers
• Fewer baptisms & church weddings
• Decline in numbers holding traditional Christian beliefs
• Greater diversity

Church Attendence Today

• 5% adult pop. attend Church on Sundays
• CofE & Catholic Church in decline, whilst denominations remain stable or grow
• Decline in church weddings (1971: 60%; 2012: 30%)

Religious Affiliation Today

• Atheists / Agnostics 1983: 1/3; 2014: 1/2
• Christians fell by 1/3 1983-2014
• Denominations reamined at around 17%

Religious Institutions Today

• Lost influence in public sphere
• Loss of clergy (Catholic priests fell by 1/3 1965-2011)

Secularisation

• Rationalisation: The process by which rational ways of thinking & acting replace religious ones
• Disengagement: Where religion & the state break apart
• Pluralism: Where there are multiple religions in society

Disenchantment

• Reformation brough about a new worldview
• Protestantism: God is non-interventionist - No longer a need for religious explanations

Bruce: A Technological Worldview

• Science & technology has replaced religious explanations for events
• Religious explanations only survive where technology is least effective

Parsons: Structural Differentiation

• Religion has become specialised in industrial society
• Disengagement & privatisation

Social & Cultural Diversity

• Decline of Community; industrialisation & lifestyle diversity undermine religion
• "Imagined communities"
• Pentecostalism & Methodism trhive in urban areas

Religious Diversity

• Berger: Religious pluralism causes secularisation
• The Sacred Canopy - In the Middle Ages, everyone lived under the same religious canopy (Catholicism), making religion more plausible. Changed with the Protestant Reformation (pluralism)
• Changes the plausibility structure, as diversity causes religion to become relative rather than absolute

Bruce: Cultural Defence & Transition

• Cultural defence: Religion provides a source of identity
• Cultural transition: Religion provides support & community for immigrants
• Diversity & choice stimulate interest in religion e.g. New Right
• Secularisation is not inevitable in pluralistic society

Declining Church Attendance

• Opinion polls: 40% since 1940 (social desirability)

Bruce: Secularisation from within

• Religion in America has survived by secularising from within (less emphasis on God & more on personal improvement)

Religious Diversity

• Churchgoers are less dogmatic
• Practical relativism
• Erosion of absolutism

Evaluation

• Religion is changing, not declining
• Ignores revivals & new religions
• Believing without belonging
• Not universal
• Diversity increases participation because it increases choice