Changing Nature of the Secularization Debate - Essay Example

Assess and Illustrate the Changing Nature of the Secularization Debate The sociological debate of the influence of religion in social change clearly is dynamic in nature. Dynamic mainly because of the way in which religion, definition and measurement of religious activity and secularisation is operationalized by sociologists (Livesey 2007). Glasner (1977 as quoted in Livesey, p.3) posits that elements of a thriving Christianity such as “church attendance, membership and the passage of rites” are also used to define and measure religion. Hence, these same elements should be used as a yardstick to measure a decline in religious activity. Bryan Wilson posits three dimensions on which secularization may be analysed, namely religious practice, religious organization and religious thought. Religious practice refers to the number of members within a particular religious organization as well as the number of individuals that are present for the actual participation in the practice. Religious organization refers to the amount of influence the Church has on the operation of a society. Religious thought refers to the concept of God and good and evil and the amount of value that each member of society places in these concepts. (Livesey p.5) Wilson noted that this third ingredient is vital in the discussion of secularisation since both religious practices and religious organizations may be on the decline but in the hearts of the individual members of society religious thought could be increasing in leaps and bounds. Peter Berger (as quoted in Aldridge 2000, p.78) defines secularisation as “the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols.” Consistent with this idea, Wilson (as quoted in Aldridge 2000) defines secularization as “the process by which religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance.” Has secularization indeed taken root in today’s society? On the surface it appears that there are fewer persons attending church, fewer marriages taking place, fewer men willing to make a profession in the clergy and fewer individuals regarding Christian celebrations as meaningful. However, is there any empirical evidence to ascertain that these factors are in fact truth? Has the indoctrination of empirical research and industrialization influenced secularization, defined broadly as “religious decline” (Haralambos, p.436)? In the nineteenth century Auguste Comte believed that human history comprised three phases: the theological stage in which religion held a dominant role, followed by the metaphysical in which philosophy took control and finally, the positive phase in which religion was to completely disappear and be replaced by scientific thought. Although scientific thought has indeed replaced much of religion’s place of dominance in terms of explanation of social phenomena human history does not go through “phases of development” as posited by Comte. Further, science cannot explain all social phenomena. Conversely Durkheim believed that religion may be replaced as a dominant integrating force, not by scientific thought but by the education system. On the other hand, Marx thought that religion encouraged class inequalities; therefore as society became classless, religion would no longer be of any social use. Whilst, Weber believed religion would be replaced with rationalization. In order to answer the question of the extent of the influence of the Church on the social change one has to delve into two major issues in the early origins of the Church where information was monopolized by the Church. Specifically, in Britain, the religious leaders were able to control and influence the thought patterns of members of the society in the absence of other institutions such as the “mass education and mass communications” (Livesey, p.14). Secondly, the Church in early times had major influence on the activities of the State. Leaders of the Church were able to have great input in the politics, economics, culture and government of the day. Has these major factors in the operation of the Church changed over the years? In today’s world the Church in Britain no longer has a dominant role in the running of the State. The activities which were formerly performed by the Church leaders are now being managed by members of the government who are elected for this reason. In addition, scientific thought has indeed removed the ideology of the Church as the main stimulus for people’s thoughts and actions. The Church it appears has lost many of its social functions such as educating and providing welfare to the forlorn. Other social institutions have now absorbed these functions and left the Church almost without a purpose. From the above argument it would appear that secularization has indeed taken place and religious organization is therefore on the decline. However, certain sociologists view the above factors as evidence not that the Church has no raison d’être but that purpose of the Church has been transformed to accommodate various aspects of modern society. For example, the monarch is not only the Head of State but also the Head of Church. Therefore, the Church still has some influence on the running of the State. Furthermore, although the input of Church leaders may not be sought by the government officials, these same Church leaders have an input in society by the responses they give to the questions of the members of the mass media (Livesey, p.20). Certain theorists posit that as the modern society enforces specialization in the functioning of individuals as well as institutions so too the Church will become more specialized in spiritual matters. The Church, therefore, would be able to focus on its main purpose which is to affect people’s behaviours by influencing their moral and spiritual beliefs and values. Talcott Parsons terms this specialization, “structural differentiation” which implies certain social institutions specialize to perform specific functions. Whilst Steve Bruce coined the term “social differentiation” to illustrate that the church has fewer occasions to engage in non-religious activities (Haralambos 2000, p.443) One theorist in particular, Talcott Parsons argues that the Church has now been transformed in modern life to perform a different but equally important role in society. Hence, the answer to the question has secularisation taken place – is the influence of the Church on a decline is a resounding, yes and no. There is no conclusive evidence that secularization has occurred from a religious organization point of view. The answer depends on the perspective of the sociologists. Has secularization taken place in terms of religious practice? In 1851 the Census of Religion found the number of people attending church to be just under 40 percent by 1950 this figure had decreased to 20 percent. In 1980 Brierly conducted a research on church attendance and found a decrease from 11.1 percent to 7.4 percent in 2000. Brierly also presented a similar decline in the number of marriages as well as the number of baptisms that took place within the church in England. Remarkably, Brierly also discovered a decrease in the membership of traditional churches such as the Roman Catholic and the Anglican but there was a steady increase in the membership of some non-Christian Churches such as the Jehovah Witness and other relatively new groups. There has even been an increase in what is considered to be sects and cults. (Haralambos 2000, p.438) Although rather intriguing, these statistics which shows increasing membership in non-Christian organizations may be as a result of immigrants entering the country and bringing their own religious beliefs and births to parents who follow these religions (Haralambos 2000, p.438). Moreover, Haralambos suggested that this increase may have occurred because people have converted from Christianity to Buddhism. In relation to the rest of the world, Barett (as quoted in Haralambos 2005) claims that 34.5 percent of the world’s population were Christians in 1900 and by 2000 this figure had declined marginally to 33%. The general data indicate that while Christian religions had decreased in Europe which supports the idea of secularization it increased in other parts of the world such as Africa and Asia which goes contrary to the secularization concept. Thus, there is inconclusive evidence to support secularization in the area of religious practice. Moreover, the analysis, method of data collection and procedure would be different from one era to the next as well as from one country to the next. Certainly, the reliability of data collection in 1900 would be of a different standard to today’s methods. Further, the results may be biased because one religious group leader may inflate the membership numbers in order to make their organization appear more powerful, whilst another leader may deflate the membership to reduce fees that may be charged per member. In short, the various ways of calculating the same data, may make the results unreliable. Thus, rendering the pattern developed as deceptive. Other statistical data has also been used by pro-secularists to prove that there has been a decline in religious practice. However, one must remember that the source of the statistical data must be valid and reliable. The statistics used by these individuals may not always be from a valid or reliable base. Although there was an apparent decline in membership and church attendance in traditional churches, there has been a relative increase in modern religions such as Scientology and other New Age religions. Hence, although there may be a decline in attendance at Christian settings there is simultaneously an apparent increase in the appearance of these new religions. Interestingly, Aldridge 2000 noted that the hostility against these new religions perhaps is a signal that secularization is not entirely deep seated in the minds of the members of today’s society and that society is in fact concerned about spiritual matters. Further, Martin (as quoted in Livesey 2007) reasons that formerly middle class individuals used church attendance as a form of class maintenance. Hence, instead of attending church because they were interested in spiritual matters they attended church as a means of maintaining respectability. Therefore, Martin argues that church attendance is not a very good factor in measuring the extent of secularization since church attendance in former times did not have anything to do with religious belief why then would it be a matter of belief now. Contrastingly, Wilson has put forward two reasons for secularization. Firstly, he argues that religion has lost its appeal regardless of the number of persons attending religious activities. He claims that the “declining economic position of religious organizations” has meant fewer resources have been allocated by the State for the Church (Aldridge, 2000, p.76). Religion in modern times is seen as a private and personal relationship with God rather than by Church attendance of former times. Haralambos posits that in 2000, 70 percent of individuals surveyed believed in God or some spiritual force whereas only 15 percent renounced the idea of a God or a spiritual source. These results may be used to imply that religion is still alive in the hearts and minds of the people. Theorists who reject secularization do so for a number of reasons. One of which incorporates a golden age(s) of religion in particular Christianity. This golden Age or Ages encompasses the early church, the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century Church where people obeyed because they had no choice. Aldridge proposes that the difference between the Middle Ages and modern world could be summarized as a “transition from religious culture to religious faith. Another reason put forward by anti-secularization theorists pertains to the fact that these theorists see differentiation as different to secularization in that differentiation refers to the changing function of the Church whereas secularization is seen as a decline of religion. Davie 1994 (as quoted in Aldridge 2001, p.3) purports ‘believing without belonging’. A third reason for the rejection of secularization comes in opposition to those theorists who utilize every shred of evidence either as a weapon to prove that secularization has taken place such as the decline of membership in the traditional Churches or to trivialize the data as insignificant such as the increase in membership of the New Age groups. In light of this abuse of data Aldridge 2000 suggests that perhaps it is not a matter of secularization that has to be debated but a move towards anti-religious ideology. On the other hand, there are just as many theorists who hold fast to the idea of secularization as there are those who reject it. Steve Bruce (as quoted in Haralambos 2000, p.443) suggests that societalization, “a process in which social life becomes fragmented and ceases to be locally based,” undermines religion in three ways. Firstly, without a community base people will not use the church as a focal point of activities. Secondly, people’s involvement in the total society would offer them the opportunity to access personnel other than the priest for personal comfort or support. Thirdly, Bruce claims that people’s beliefs are strongest when these beliefs are unexamined, therefore in these times when no religious reinforcement is given people’s beliefs are not as strong as they were before. Although other theorists have used the increase in sects as evidence that secularization is not taking place, both Bryan Wilson and Peter Berger argue that an increase in sects is good ground for secularization because sects have to separate themselves from the wider society in order to maintain a stronghold on the mindset of their followers. (Haralambos 2000, p.446) Aldridge believes that secularization is due to many factors inclusive of “industrialization, urbanisation, rationalization and the rise of science”. Notably, post-modernism seems to suggest that people have begun to mistrust science because of its many failures and the negative side effects of scientific activities such as global warming and pollution. Thus, Hamilton 2001 claims that many theorists have attempted to deny secularization. They view it as an “illusion generated by the decline of traditional forms of religion.” (Hamilton 2001, p. 185) Nonetheless, Berger like Weber, believes that religion has inherent within it seeds of secularization (Aldridge 2000, p.79).In today’s world, we are yet to determine whether these seeds are still in the ground or they have blossomed full bloom into the tree of secularization. We are left with many unanswered questions and inconclusive evidence as to the nature of secularization and the significance of religion in this modern sociological thought. Bibliography Aldridge, A. (2000) Religion in the Contemporary World: A Sociological Introduction. Cambridge, Polity Press. Hamilton, M. (2001) The Sociology of Religion. London, Routledge. Haralambos, (2000) Sociology. Hammersmith, London, Harper Collins. Livesey, Chris. 2000.’Unit M2: Secularisation’. [Online], Available at: www.sociology.org.uk Martin, David. 2000, ‘The Secularization Issue: Prospect and Retrospect’. The British Journal of Sociology vol. 42, no.3, pp.465-474 Read More