Unmasking Secularisation
Paul Weston
‘Secularisation’
‘Secularisation’
‘Theory’
‘Theory’
Problems
Reassessments
Responses
Matthew Arnold
(1822–1888)
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and
round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright
girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long,
withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the
vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the
world.
Poem: ‘Dover Beach’ (1867)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(1906-1945)
Man has learnt to deal with himself in all
important questions without recourse to
the ‘working hypothesis’ called ‘God’. . . .
As in the scientific field, so in human
affairs generally, ‘God’ is being pushed
more and more out of life, losing more
and more ground.
Letters & Papers from Prison, 1944
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Zygmunt Bauman
(b.1925)
Max Planck
(1858-1947)
Modernity undid what the long
rule of Christianity had done rebuffed the obsession with the
after-life, focused attention on the
life ‘here and now’, redeployed life
activities around different
narratives with earthly targets and
values, and all-in-all attempted to
defuse the horror of death.
. . . faith in miracles must yield ground,
step by step, before the steady and firm
advance of the forces of science, and its
total defeat is indubitably a mere matter
of time.
Postmodernity and its Discontents (1997), p.174
A Scientific Autobiography (1950)
Max Weber
(1864-1920)
With the progress of science and
technology, man has stopped believing
in magic powers, in spirits and demons;
he has lost his sense of prophecy, and
above all, his sense of the sacred.
The fate of our times is characterized by
rationalization and intellectualization
and, above all, by the ‘disenchantment
of the world.’
Reality has become dreary, flat and
utilitarian, leaving a great void in the
souls of men which they seek to fill by
furious activity and through various
devices and substitutes.
‘Science as a Vocation’ (1919)
Peter Berger
(b.1929)
By secularization we mean the
process by which sectors of society
and culture are removed from the
domination of religious institutions
and symbols.
The Social Reality of Religion (London:
Faber & Faber, 1969), p.107.
‘Secularisation’
‘Theory’
Problems
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Frederick the Great
Thomas Woolston
(1712–1786)
(1670 – 1731)
Writing in 1760:
‘the Englishman Woolston . . . could not
calculate what has happened quite recently
. . . It [religion] is crumbling of itself, and its
fall will be but the more rapid.’
Wrote in 1710 that
Christianity would be
‘gone’ by the year 1900.
Voltaire
(1694–1778)
Peter Berger
(b.1929)
1999
1968
. . the assumption that we live in a
secularized world is false. The world
today, with some exceptions . . . is as
furiously religious as it ever was, and
in some places more so than ever.
. . . by the 21st century, religious
believers are likely to be found only
in small sects, huddled together to
resist a worldwide secular culture.
‘The Desecularization of the World:
A Global Overview’ (1999), p.2.
Harvey Cox
(b.1929)
Western Christendom, based
partly on the biblical Gospel,
partly on late Greek philosophy,
and partly on pagan
world-views, is over.
Nearly 3 decades ago I wrote The
Secular City in which I tried to
work out a theology for the
‘postreligious’ age that many
sociologists had confidently
assured us was coming.
Since then, however, religion . . .
seems to have gained a new lease
of life. Today it is secularity, not
spirituality, that may be headed
for extinction.
The Secular City (1965)
Fire from Heaven (1995)
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Richard Middleton & Brian Walsh
Far from the erosion or even eclipse of
religious belief that the Enlightenment
so confidently predicted, the
Enlightenment itself has been eclipsed,
resulting in a veritable smorgasbord of
religions and worldviews for our
consumption.
David Lyon
Secularization as a metanarrative
is dead.
‘Secularisation’
Steve Bruce
I expect the proportion of people
who are largely indifferent to
religious ideas to increase and the
seriously religious to become a
small minority.
‘Theory’
God is Dead: Secularization in the
West (2002), p.43.
Problems
Reassessments
‘Differentiation’
of church and
state:
governance,
welfare, law,
education, etc.
Societal
structures
Organised
religion
Personal
belief
Karel
Dobbelaere
Decline in
church
attendance,
etc.
Societal
structures
‘Secularization’
Organised
religion
Personal
belief
Effects of
secularisation on
individuals
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Grace Davie
‘Believing without belonging’
‘Vicarious religion’
‘. . . we need some way . . . of
describing the persistence of the
sacred in contemporary society
despite the undeniable decline in
churchgoing.’
‘. . . the notion of religion performed
by an active minority on behalf of a
much larger number, who (implicitly
at least) not only understand, but,
quite clearly approve of what the
minority is doing.’
‘Is Europe an Exceptional Case?’ (2006)
Peter Berger
‘Secularisation’
(b.1929)
A shift in the institutional location of
religion . . . rather than secularization,
would be a more accurate description
of the European situation.
‘The Desecularization of the World:
A Global Overview’ (1999), p.10
‘Theory’
Problems
Reassessments
Responses
Grace Davie
We do not live in a secular society.
We live in a society in which belief is
drifting away from orthodoxy to no
one knows where; in which belief is
floating, disconnected without an
anchor.
The Observer, Nov. 1993
Lesslie Newbigin
(1909–1998)
. . . instead of allowing the gospel to
challenge the unexamined assumptions of
our culture, we have co-opted Jesus into our
culture by giving him a minor role in what
we call the private sector.
‘Our Missionary Responsibility in the Crisis of
Western Culture’ (1988)
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David Smith
. . . has the acculturation of the
churches to a culture shaped by
fundamentally materialistic values
resulted in the eclipsing of the
authentic message of Christ, leaving
believers incapable of pointing toward
an alternative vision for the future of
humankind and the world?
Peter Berger
(b.1929)
Put simply, the plausibility structure is
to be understood as a collection of
people, procedures, and mental
processes geared to the task of
keeping a specific definition of reality
going.
Facing Up to Modernity (1979), p.216
Lesslie Newbigin
The reigning plausibility structure can
only be effectively challenged by
people who are fully integrated
inhabitants of another.
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989)
Berger, P. (1999). ‘The Desecularization of the World: A Global
Overview.’ In: P.L. Berger ed., The Desecularization of the
World. Grand Rapids, MI: Ethics and Public Policy
Center/Eerdmans, 1-18.
Bruce, S. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Blackwell,
2002.
Coffey, J. (2001). ‘Secularisation: is it inevitable?’ (Cambridge Papers)
http://www.jubilee-centre.org/document.php?id=31
Davie, G. (2006). ‘Is Europe an Exceptional Case?’ http://iascculture.org/HHR_Archives/AfterSecularization/8.12DDavie.
pdf
Lyon, D. (1985). The Steeple’s Shadow: On the Myths and Realities of
Secularization. SPCK, London.
Smith, D. (2003). Mission After Christendom. Darton, Longman and
Todd, London.
http://www.licc.org.uk/engaging-with-work/
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