Secularisation

Secularisation

Bryan Wilson: Secularisation is the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose social significance.

Martin: Argues that people should stop debating secularisation as it is impossible to measure.

Arguments For

1. Church Attendance: Affiliation vs. Membership. The 2011 census revealed that 59% of the population listed themselves as Christian, whereas Churches revealed that only 4% of the population attended church.

Terry Sanderson: Argues that churches have lost their core businesses, 'hatch, match and dispatch' (christenings, weddings and funerals). People are now using civil alternatives rather than the church.

Breerly: Argues that the young don't attend church because they find it boring.

Voas and Crochett: Argue that the elderly are the most religious due to:

1. The aging effect - getting older and needing comfort as they are close to death.
2. The generational effect - more religious as growing up they lived in poverty.

Abby Day: 'Believe in belonging'. Argues that people who affiliate with Christianity aren't actually religious and only want to affiliate with the Christian majority. In her unstructured interviews she found that few people actually believed in a God. They only define themselves as such out of fear of being marginalised in an 'us and them' society. They don't want to be affiliated with ethnic others, young others or bad mothers.                      
Three types of Christians:                                                                                                          
1. Natal Christians: Raised as Christian so affiliates with the religion.                   
2. Ethnic Christians: Assimilate into British culture as an ethnic minority and adopt the norms of the majority.                                                                                                   
3. Aspirational Christians: Say they're religious to look moral.

2. Disengagement: The connection between the public and religious organisations. Cosmopolitanism.

Davies: Argues that the public are suffering from a moral decline and the church no longer holds any moral influence because of their low status clergy's, they have a bad reputation and a lack of trust from the public as they allow homosexual marriages and divorce.

Parsons: Structural differentiation. Argues that religion is losing its core functions in modern society. This is due to the moving equilibrium, religion is being replaced by NRMs and NAMs.

Bruce: 'Privatised' religious belief as it has lost its place within the public domain. Frame legislation demeans that no person can wear religious symbols.

Herberg: Internal secularisation. Argues that the church are diluting their beliefs as they are losing their place within society, they are trying to adhere to a cosmopolitan society but as a result are losing people to fundamentalism.

3. Desacrilisation and Rationalisation: No belief in the supernatural/magic. Enlightenment has led to an increase in scientific thought.

Max Weber: 'Disenchantment of the world'.

Bruce: Argues when people try to explain things using science we have a technological world view to explain misfortune.

4. Cultural Defence/Cultural Transmission

Steve Bruce: Argues that transition and cultural defences have nothing to do with religion, they only want to defend their culture.

Bird: Argues that the African Caribbean's use religion as a form of cultural attack by creating the Pentecostal church to help them overcome racism/give comfort and beat poverty by creating the Protestant work ethic, this has nothing to do with religion.

Aktar: Argues that Islam uses religion as a cultural defence to fight a 'war on terror' portrayed through the media.

Judith Butler: Argues that religion isn't a cultural defence but rather a form of cultural transmission. Islamic women in today’s society want to combine traditional Islam with British society, known as cultural hybredity, creating a traditional heritage with Western society. Therefore there is less need for religion so they can experiment with both identities. Some argue that the Islamic youth are becoming radicalised.

5. Religious Pluralism: Too much choice, same claim.

Peter Berger: Argues that all religions claim a 'monopoly of the truth' which then creates a crisis of credibility as they all claim that their religion is the one true faith which cannot be accurate.

Lyotard: Argues that religion is a meta-narrative in today's society as there is no absolute truth anymore.

Arguments Against

1. Vicarious Religion

Grace Davie: She looked at religious involvement in Sweden, they have the lowest church attendance on record. She found that although they don't go to church, they voluntarily pay extra taxes in order to maintain the church and pay for a professional clergy that pray on their behalf. She argues that they don't have enough time so they have someone else do it for them. People can stay at home without feeling guilty. When there are 'interruptions to normality' people know that the church will always be there. She argues that people 'believe without belonging'.

2. Multiculturalism

O'Beirne: Argues that the White British are becoming more secular as they ranked it last in importance on shaping their identity. Whereas the African Caribbean population ranked it third and the Islamic population ranked it second.

3. Growth of NRM/NAM

Stark and Bainbridge: 'Secularisation cycle'. Argue that secularisation occurs and people break away from the church and innovate a NRM or NAM causing religious revival. However, the cycle will continue and secularisation will occur again.

Wallis: Argues that there are three types of New Religious Movements:

1. World Affirming Movements – They are positive and are trying to help followers achieve their potential. They have an element of religion within them. An example of this is Scientology, they believe that people have a lot of potential but cannot achieve it due to their emotional baggage. They audit peoples lives and record it to keep on file, if people don't do as they want then they release their secrets

2. World Accommodating Movements – Neither positive of negative. They usually attempt to improve the world through retreating back to traditional teachings. An example of this is the Evangelical Church, these Christians are world accommodating as they don't preach about the end of the world, they preach positive messages.

3. World Rejecting Movements – Negative outlook on the world, they are known as 'millenarian movements' as they believe in the end of the world coming as they don't like the world as it is. An example of this is the Unification Church (the moonies), they believe that the leader is a reincarnation of Jesus, he refers to homosexuals as 'dirty dung eating dogs' who will burn in hell. They perform mass weddings to save as many people as possible.

Eileen Barker: Uses the moonies to illustrate an increase in NRMs. The people who join these NRMs are often from professional backgrounds and feel rejected by their own family. Therefore these NRMs offer a surrogate family.

Glock and Stark: Argue that women suffer from three types of deprivation that cause them to join NRMs:

1. Social Deprivation – Status in society, low paid jobs, housewives.

2. Ethical Deprivation – Women are generally more conservative than men therefore think society is in a moral decline and religion offers a moral social standing.

3. Organismic Deprivation – Argue women are more likely to suffer from health issues including mental health problems.

Heelas: 'The Kendal Project'. People are no longer in the congregational domain and want hollistic milleau. An area of Kendal has the highest church attendance in the UK and Heelas discovered, via surveys, the a significant growth of hollisitic milleau occurred because people think that these NAMs are more individual, less time consuming and suited to their identities.

Drane: Argues these people are joining NAMs because they're suffering from a spiritual void.