EXPLANATIONS OF SECULARISATION (UK)

MAX WEBER : RATIONALISATION

• Rationalisation refers to the porcess by which rational ways of thinking and acting come to replace religious ones. 
• Weber argued that the Protestant reformation begun by Martin Luther King in the 16th century, started a process of rationalisation of life in the West. 
• This orocess undermined the religious worldbiew of the Middle Ages and replaced it with the rational scientific outlook found in modern society.
• Medieval Catholic worldview that fominated Eurpoe saw the world as an 'enchanted garden'. 
• God and other spiritual beings and forces (angels, the devil etc) were believed to be present within this world.
• Humans could try to indluence these beings and forces by magical means such as prayer and sepll, fasts and pilgrimages, the wearing of charms etc to ensure a good harvest and protection against disease.

DISENCHANTMENT

• Protestant reformation brought a new worldbiew. 
• Protestantism saw God as transcendent - existing above and beyond, or outside this world.
• Although God created this world, he didnt intervene in it, instead left it to run according to his own laws of nature. 
• Events were no longer to be explained as the work of unpredictable supernatural beings, but as the workings of natural forces. All that was needed to understand them was rationality (power of reason)
• Using reason and science, humans could discover the laws of nature, understand and predict how the world works and…