·
Secularisation – The Concept
Classical thinkers such as Hegel, Marx,
Saint-Simon, Durkheim, Comte and Weber developed theories of social change, all
of which involved interpretations of the changing significance of religion in
society. However the notion of secularisation is not a purely rational
construct that is open to proof or disproof. McGuire describes it as a
mythological account because it is empirically impossible to disconfirm.
According to Thomas Luckmann, the secularisation thesis is essentially an
attempt to “explain the emergence of the modern world,” since many thinkers
feel that modern society differs absolutely from what came before it. As a
result the secularisation debate is closely linked with theories of
modernisation.
Much of the debate over secularisation
hinges upon definitions of religion. In general, sociologists using substantive
definitions of religion (what religion is/the object of religious attention)
conclude that religion in modern society is declining in significance. By contrast,
sociologists using functional definitions (what religion does) tend to agree
that the location and manifestation of religion haves changed in contemporary
society but that this reflects a transformation, not a decline in religion.
·
Secularisation as Religious Decline
The image behind this thesis is that
once people were highly religious and that religion informed all aspect of
society. Accordingly society is becoming less and less religious, and
individual lives a decreasingly influenced by religion. From this perspective,
religion will eventually disappear. This understanding of secularisation is
either condemned or welcomed. Representatives of religious organisations and
interests are understandably against the decline. Proponents of counter ideologies
such as positivism, Marxism and Freudianism typically welcome the decline.
The exact nature of the ‘decline; of
religion, however, is difficult to specify. There is no
Clear-cut empirical evidence to show that religion
is declining. Generally though, there are two areas of imputed decline: the
religiosity of individuals and the scope and power of religious institutions.
(Let’s
watch a short video to illustrate this.)
·
Secularisation as Religious
Transformation
An alternative interpretation of secularisation
is that religion is not so much in a decline as it is in a transformation.
o Religious Evolution: Bellah
Bellah suggests that the change is one
of religious evolution and this it is not the religious person or the ultimate
religious situation that changes, rather it is religion as a symbol system[1]
that evolves. Bellah clarified that evolution is not inevitable, irreversible
or unidirectional; it does not imply that what results is necessarily “better”.
He characterises five stages of historical patterns of religion:
1.
Primitive
religion – with a symbol system of a mythical world which serve as paradigms
for the detailed features of the actual physical and social world.
2.
Archaic
religion – the development of religious cults with gods, priests, worship,
sacrifice and sometimes divine kingship. Mythical beings are more
objectifiedand are seen as actively influential and controlling the human and
natural world (they have become gods).
3.
Historic
Religion – “world religions” such as Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism
and Islam. There is a development of cosmological dualism, referring to the
image of two realms: one is the human world and the other a higher realm of
universal reality. The empirical world of everyday human life is seen as
subordinate or less real. At this stage, the concept of the supernatural
develops. The transcendent deities of historic religions also contribute to the
universalism of these religions through the image of all humans being
responsible to the supernatural deity (or deities) rather than individually
relating to a particularistic cult. Religious action is characterised by the
pursuit of salvation by individuals orienting themselves to the high spiritual
reality.
4.
Early
Modern Religion – based on the case of the Protestant Reformation, this is the
collapse of the hierarchical structuring of both the empirical and
transcendental worlds. “This” world is not rejected but the focus is now on a
direct relation between the individual and the transcendental reality.
Religious action is identified with the whole of life and the world is a valid
sphere to work out the will of God. Religious organisations are also affected
by the collapse of hierarchical structures as illustrated by the motto “the
priesthood of all believers.” The outcome of this stage, according to Bellah is
the image of the self-revising social order, expressed in a voluntaristic and
democratic society.
5.
Modern
Religion – while this may be only part of a transition to a further new stage,
it is clearly different from the historical and early modern religions because
there is a collapse of the dualism that characterised those earlier stages. Instead
of a single world replacing the double one, an infinitely multiplex one has
replaced the simple duplex structure. Religion is no longer the monopoly of
explicitly religious groups. The mode of action implied by this image is one of
continual choice, with no firm, predetermined answers and the social
implications of modern religion include the image of culture and personality as
perpetually revisable.
o Church-oriented Religion as Peripheral:
Luckmann
Luckmann proposes that the
specialisation of religion into a single institution is only one social form of
religion The characteristics of the institutional specialisation of religion
include the emergence of specifically religious organisations (such as churches),
the standardisation of doctrine (as in a creed), and the differentiation of
religious roles – especially the emergence of religious specialists (such as
the clergy). The clear distinction between religion and society is possible
only if religion is differentiated in special social institutions, in this
social form of religion.
Luckmann accepts the idea that the
church-oriented religion has declined in influence and notes that vestigial
(residual) strength of historic religion in modern societies lies among the
peripheral members of society, that is those least involved in the major
institutions of the public sphere. The decrease in traditional church religion
may be seen as a consequence of the shrinking relevance of the values
institutionalised in church religion, for the integration and legitimation of
everyday life in modern society.
While this form is declining, religion
itself is transforming into a new social form. A main feature of this new
social form is personal choice: the individual constructs a private system of
meanings, choosing from a wider assortment of religious representations (which
include traditional religious representations). Such individual religiosity
receives no significant support from the primary public institutions (such as
work, education, law, politics); it is virtually totally privatised – supported
by and relevant to relations in private life such as the family, social clubs,
and leisure-time activities.
Like Bellah, Luckmann identifies as one
of the central themes of modern religiosity. Luckmann suggests that individual
autonomy has been redefined to mean the absence of external restraints and
traditional limitations in the private search for identity. While themes of
modern religiosity (self-expression and self-realisation) characterise this
search, the institutions of the public sphere have real power over the
individual; performance of one’s roles in these spheres must conform to
institutional requirement and autonomy is limited to the private sphere. By
endowing the increasing subjectivity of human existence with as sacred quality,
the new social form of religion supports the functioning, power and control of
public sphere institutions without explicitly legitimating them.
·
Religious Change and Societal Change
The secularisation thesis implies
several processes of societal change. While these processes are interrelated,
McGuire emphasises four general themes - institutional differentiation,
competing sources of legitimacy, rationalisation and privatisation – which emphasise
significant aspects of religious change.
o Institutional Differentiation
Insitutional differentiation refers to
the process by which the various institutional spheres in society become
separated from each other, with each institution performing specialised
functions. The contrasting image behind the concept of differentiation is that
in simpler societies, the beliefs, values, and practices of religion directly
influence behaviour in all spheres of existence, and religion is diffused
throughout every aspect of society. In complex societies, by contrast, each
institutional sphere has gradually become differentiated from others. The
division of labour in complex societies is similarly differentiated, with
specialised roles for each different function. In a highly differentiated
social system, the norms, values, and practices of the religious sphere have
only indirect influence on other spheres such as business, politics,
leisure-time activities, educations and so on. This means that religion
influences these other areas through the personally held and applied values and
attitudes of people who are active in each sphere, rather than directly through
specifically religious institutions such as the church. Some theorists point to
differentiation as evidence of religious decline, interpreting the facts that
religion is not diffused throughout the society and that specifically religious
institutions have limited control over other institutional spheres as evidence
of religion’s diminished strength and viability. Particularly important in this
interpretation is the loss of control over the definition of deviance and he
exercise of social control.
§
Implications for the Individual
For the individual, the process of
differentiation involves conflicting development. On the one hand,
differentiation appears to go hand in hand with the discovery of the self – the
unique individual within society. On the other hand, differentiation results in
segregation of the individual’s various roles in society. A woman’s role as a
mother is not considered relevant to her role as mayor; a man’s role as
religious believer is not considered relevant to his role as corporate manager.
Values such as moral qualms or self-realisation are not necessarily negated;
they are simply relegated to another institutional sphere and considered
irrelevant if they do not contribute to achieving the goals of the
organisation. The individual may experience a conflict between the needs and
goals of the self and the demands of these social roles.
§
Implications for Society
Similarly the processes of
differentiation contribute to society’s difficulty in mobilizing the commitment
and efforts of its members. Values from one separate sphere do not readily
motivate behaviour in another. The process of differentiation has important
implications for the location of religion in contemporary society. The
effective criteria of public institutional spheres – notably the economic – are
separate from the values of the private sphere. Religion is relegated to the
private sphere. An individual’s desire for meaning and belonging must be
pursued in the private sphere. It would seem that the same differentiation that
makes possible the “discovery of the self” also frees the institutions of the
public sphere to ignore or counteract the autonomy of individuals under their
control.
o Competing Sources of Legitimacy
Legitimacy refers to the basis of
authority of an individual, group or institution, by which they can expect
their pronouncements to be taken seriously.
Legitimacy is not an inherent quality of individuals, groups, or institutions
but is based on the acceptance of their claims by others. The location of
religion in contemporary society reflects societal change in the bases of
legitimacy. Relatively stable societies typically have stable sources of
legitimacy. The key criterion in such societies is usually traditional
authority such as the inherited authority of a patriarch or a king.
Institutional differentiation often produces a different kind of authority: the
authority of the holder of a specialised role of “office”. Claims to be taken
seriously are based not upon who one is but upon what position one holds. The
authority of a judge, for example, is based upon the role rather than the
person.
Religion legitimates authority indirectly
in traditional societies by its pervasive interrelationship with all aspects of
society. Myth and ritual support the seriousness of all spheres of life. The
chief, priest, or matriarch can speak with authority because their roles
correspond to or reflect the authority of divine beings. Historic religions
legitimate authority more directly. Such historic religions such as
Christianity, Islam and Judaism have similarly given authority to
pronouncements on education, science, economic policy, law, family life, sport,
art, and music. Whether directly or indirectly invoked, the images and symbols
of the sacred are a source of legitimacy.
§
Competing Sources of Authority
The main feature of legitimacy in
contemporary society is that the differentiation process has resulted in
competition and conflict among the various sources of legitimacy of authority.
In contemporary society religious institution must actively compete with other
sources of legitimacy. Personal, social, and political authority are more uncertain.
§
Pluralism
One particular
source of this uncertainty of legitimacy is pluralism, referring to a societal
situation in which no single world view hold a monopoly. Pluralism is sometimes
used in a narrower sense to describe the political or societal tolerance of
competing versions of the truth. Pluralism, in both limited and broader senses,
is a key factor in the secularisation process. Where world views coexist and
compete as plausible alternatives to each other, the credibility of all is undermined.
The pluralistic situation relativises the competing world views and deprives
them of their taken-for-granted status. In a pluralistic situation, no single
world view is inevitable. This results in various world views in society also
competing for legitimacy. Pluralism, furthermore, made it possible to conceive
of religions; the very concept implies a stance of some distance, a meaning
system that one does not personally believe.
§
Pluralism and Legitimacy
One general impact of pluralism and
differentiation is to create a problem of legitimacy for both the individual
and the society. The problem of legitimacy at the societal level involves
society’s very basis for authoritative decision making and its grounds of moral
unity or integration. At the individual level, the problem of legitimacy makes
the individual’s meaning system more precarious, voluntary and private.
§
Problems at the Societal Level
As world views and authoritative claims
complete in a pluralistic situation, the sources of legitimacy are diffused
among many agents in society. These competing claims may appeal to sacred or
quasi-sacred sources of authority, even if not using explicitly religious
symbols. The problem of legitimacy results from the collapse of a societal
shared conception of order. Without agreement on the way to live together,
claims of moral authority make no sense. This problem affects both individual
and societal decision making. How is it possible for human values to determine
public policy in a pluralistic society? Is the role of religion in political
decision making reduced to that of one more interest group vying with opposing
interest groups? Or is it even possible for a pluralistic society to agree on
human values on a societal level? And if so, does the society consider human
values relevant or important to decisions in the public sphere?
§
Unstable Sources of Legitimacy: Fenn
Richard K. Fenn’s defines secularisation
as a process of dealing with uncertainty or ambiguity of boundaries between the
sacred and the profane. It involves conflict among groups, individuals and the
nation. It both disturbs and clarifies the sources of legitimacy of social and
political authority.
·
The
first stage of this process is the differentiation of religious roles and
institutions. Fenn emphasises the extent to which certain changes are
qualitatively different, suggesting that even the very concept of “religion”
becomes problematic.
·
The
second step is the demand for clarification of the boundary between religious
and secular issues. The demand for clarification may produce a desire for some
general, overarching symbols to which all competing groups can subscribe.
·
The
third step is the development of generalised religious symbols or ideology. The
generalised symbols may take the form of a civil religion such as America
developed in the 19th century. This third step is typically
unstable. Dissident minorities attack the generalised symbol system, especially
its “inappropriate” uses of religious symbols.
·
The
conflict of world views results in two seemingly disparate situations in Fenn’s
fourth stage: the development of minority and idiosyncratic definitions of the
situation, together with increasingly secularised political authority. On the
one hand is pressure to desacralise the political authority – for example,
removing and ideological notions of what is “good” from decision making and
replacing them with criteria such as due process and technical procedures. On
the other hand, challenging the civil religious synthesis results in spreading
access to the sacred. Thus individuals and groups develop their own particular
(that is, “idiosyncratic”) views and symbols for which they claim the same
seriousness as recognised religions. Individual and group claims to social
authority multiply as the uncertainty of boundaries become evident. According
to Fenn, “secularisation increases the likelihood that various institutions or
groups will base their claims to social authority on various religious grounds,
while it undermines the possibility for consensus on the meaning and location
of the sacred.”
·
Two
contrary tendencies are found in Fenn’s fifth step. One is the separation the
individual from corporate life. The other tendency is varying degrees of group
pressure toward integrating personal value systems with activities in the
public sphere. This tendency is expressed in different modes of religious
organisation: church, sect, denomination, cult. Each mode has a characteristic
stance toward the integration of value systems. At one extreme is satisfaction
with minimal integration from groups that consider their values irrelevant to
the public sphere. At the opposite pole are groups seeking totalistic
solutions; these would include seemingly secular ideologies as well as overtly
religious totalism.
Secularisation both disturbs and
clarifies the bases of social authority. It is disturbing because it undermines
the ability of society to maintain belief in a symbolic whole that transcends
the separate identities and conflicting interests of society’s component parts.
Pluralism and institutional differentiation are generally important factors in
this process because they break down the overarching world view – the symbolic
whole. These processes make it impossible to achieve a new firm source of
societal integration and legitimacy. At the same time, however, they increase
the likelihood that people will need and seek this symbolic whole.
§
Problems at the Individual Level
As pluralism undermines the
taken-for-granted quality of the world view, the individual’s own meaning
system receives less social support and becomes precarious, voluntary, and
private. This too can produce conflict for the individual. Pluralism increases
personal ambiguity: What am I to believe? How am I to act? On what basis can I
decide? Personal value decisions are important, but a more critical issue at
the individual level is the impact of the problem of legitimacy for personal
identity, which is influenced and supported by religion. The individual’s world
view is an important element of personal identity. The individual’s subjective
meaning system legitimates that persona’s hierarchy of goals, values, and
norms. What happens then, if this key part of the individual’s identity is
undermined?
o Rationalisation
Rationalisation is the process by which
certain areas of social life are organised according to the criteria of
means-ends (functional) rationality. Max Webber viewed an increasing emphasis
upon functional rationality as the outstanding characteristic of modern
society.
§
Rationality and Modernisation
According to Webber, modern Western
society has a “rationalised” economy and an associated special “mentality”. A
rational economy is functionally organised, with decisions based upon the
reasoned weighing of utilities and cost. The rational mentality involves
openness towards new ways of doing things (in contrast with traditionalism) and
readiness to adapt to functionally specialised roles and universalistic
criteria of performance. Although these forms of rationality originated in the
economic order, they have extended into political organisation and legal order
– the modern state. Weber argued that religious motives and legitimations played
a central role in bringing about this form of organisation and mentality – for
example, by the development of universalistic ethics (the norm of treating all
people according to the same generalised standards) and by the development of
religious drive for rational mastery over the world. Nevertheless this
rationality, once a part of societal structure, became divorced from its
historical origins and acquired an impetus of its own. If modern society is
indeed moving in the direction of increasing functional rationality, this
process implies problems at two levels: the location of individual meaning and
belonging; and a conflict between corporate control and values verses personal
autonomy and values. Personal meaning is not only relegated to the private
sphere but is also undermined by the dominant rationality of other spheres. The
individual seeking to apply meaning to personal experiences is in a weak
situation relative to the powerful institutions for which individual meaning is
irrelevant.
§
Disenchantment of the World
Another feature of rationalisation which
undermines the individual’s personal sense of meaning and belonging was termed
“disenchantment” by Webber. This is the process by which things held in awe or
reverence are stripped of their special qualities and become “ordinary”.
Protestantism thus brought about much disenchantment of what Roman Catholicism
had held in awe, emptying the believer’s world of angles, saints, shrines, holy
objects, holy days and elaborate sacraments. Rational science also promotes
disenchantment, explaining natural phenomena without reference to nonnatural
categories of thought. Phenomena previously attributed to miracles are
reinterpreted by rational science as natural. The key figure of the
rationalisation process is not so much the particular explanations of phenomena
but the belief that all phenomena can be rationally explained. The way in which
people think of the world becomes distinct from the way in which they think of
themselves and each other. The process of rationalisation means that the
rational mode of coginition applies to those institutional spheres that “really
matter”; other modes of cognition are treated as frills of private life.
o Privatisation
Privatisation is the process by which
certain differentiated institutional spheres are segregated from the dominant
institutions of public sphere and relegated to private life. This segregation
means that norms and values of the private sphere are irrelevant to the
operations of public sphere institutions; and that functions of providing
meaning and belonging are relegated to institutions of the private sphere.
Privatisation implies that the individual finds sources of identity
increasingly only in the private sphere. This implies problems in legitimating
oneself. Identity becomes problematic as sources of order, meaning, and
community have been undermined; all have become increasingly voluntary and
uncertain. Luckmann suggests that this voluntary quality contributes to a sense
of autonomy in the private sphere, perhaps making up for the individual’s lack
of autonomy in institutions of the public sphere:
Once religion is defined as a “private
affair” the individual may choose from the
Assortment
of “ultimate” meanings as he sees fit – guided only by the preferences that are
determined by his social biography. An important consequence of this situation
is that the individual constructs not only his personal identity but also his
individual system of “ultimate” significance.
This “self-selected construction” is,
according to Luckmann, the contemporary social form of religion. While church-oriented
religion continues to be one of the elements that some people choose for their
constructions, the other themes from the private sphere (autonomy,
self-expression, self-realisation, familism, sexuality, adjustment, and
fulfilment) are also available in a supermarket of “ultimate” meanings.
[1] Bellah’s
operative definition is that religion is a set of symbolic forms and acts which
relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence.
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