Lecture topic:
Paradigms in Conflict:
Secularization Theory v. the Theory of Religious Economy
Paradigms in Conflict:
Secularization Theory v. the Theory of Religious
Economy
Soc 257
New Religious Movements
Lecture Outline
- Secularization: The Inherited Model
- Secularization and Modernization
- Empirical Evidence
- The Religious Economy Paradigm
Part I
Secularization: The Inherited Model
What secularization theory seeks to explain
- Secularization theory seeks to explain the
fate of religion in the modern.
Before there was social science there were social philosophers
who believed that the age of reason and the birth of science to
be incompatable with religion.
- As reason and science advance, they argued,
religion will receed from public life and perhaps disappear all
together.
Primative Developing Modern
Societies Societies Societies
Magic Religion Science
On the Future of Religion
" At least since the Enlightment, most
Western intelletuals have anticipated the death of religion as
eagerly as ancient Israel awaited the messiah. Social scientists
have particularly excelled in predicting the triumph of reason
over 'superstition.' The most illustrious figures in sociology,
anthropology, and psychology have unanimously expressed confidence
that their children, or surely their grandchildren, would live
to see the dawn of a new era in which, to paraphrase Freud, the
infantile illusions of religion would be outgrown."
The underlying assumptions of secularization
theory:
- Religion is irrational.
- People who believe are irrational.
- As the world becomes more rational, guided by
scientific knowledge rather than superstition, religion
is destined to disappear.
- Some social scientists celebrated the disappearance
of religions; for others is was a matter of considerable concern.
- Few questioned the presupposition that religion
would receed and eventually disappear.
Secular defined:
1a - of or relating to the worldly or temporal
1b - not overtly or specifically religious
2 - not bound by monastic vows or rules
3 - of or pretaining to things profane in
juxtraposition to things sacred
To secularize:
1. To convert from ecclesiastical or religious
to civil or lay use or ownership.
2. To cause to draw away from religious ownership.
Secularization:
"The process by which sectors of society are removed
from the domination of religious institutions."
Peter Berger
Secularization:
"...a process of transfer of property;, power, activities,
and both manifest and latent functions, from institutions with
a supernatural frame of reference to (often new) institutions
operating according to empirical, rational, pragmatic criteria."
Bryon Wilson
Part II
Secularization
and Modernization
Locating Secularzation in the broader
nexis of social science theory
Early social scientists were accutely aware of the tremendous
transformation that was taking place in the world (especially
Europe) from the Enlightment forward.
- Their goal was to explain
what was happening and why.
- Much of their theorizing can be incorporated
under the umbrella of a theory of modernization.
Modernization:
The process by which the world became
modern
Modernization:
The process wherein human cultures have
been transformed from simple to complex societies.
Modernism:
- The affirmation or preference for values,
ideas, material things judged to be modern.
- Implicitly, modernism is a rejection of things
not modern.
- What does it mean not to be modern?
- Does it refer only to temporal proxmity?
- Does it imply rejection of the sacred?
Dimensions of Modernization
- Rationalization
- Industrialization
- Bureaucratization
- Urbanization
- Secularization
The Modernization Paradigm
Dimensions of Secularization
- Cognitive
- Institutional
- Behavioral
Cognitive
Rationalization:
...decline of supernatural frames of
reference in favor of techo-rational explainations
Institutional
Differentiation:
...a process by which autonomous secular institutions arise
and take over many of the functions originally performed by religion
Behavioral
Privitization:
...the locus of any ongoing religious activity gradually
shifts from the public sphere to an increasingly circumscribed
private realm
Part III
Empirical Evidence
What is the evidence for secularization?
- Cognitive
- Institutional
- Behavioral
Trends in American Religion
- Belief in God
- Church membership
- Church attendance
- Personal devotion
- Financial contributions
Challenging the Secularization Paradigm
- Kelley thesis: why conservative churches
are growing
- Carpenter on evangelicals
- Religion and civil rights
- Religion and the Political Order: global
perspectives
- Finke on religion in American history
Religious Adherence in America: 1776-1980*
Year % Adherence
1980 62%
1952 59%
1926 56%
1916 53%
1906 51%
1890 45%
1970 35%
1860 37%
1850 34%
1776 17%
Part IV
The Religious Economy Paradigm
Distinctive features of the religious
economy model
- Categories and concepts of analysis have a distinctive
tone of economics.
- Nested in a broader theory of rational choice
- It seems to be able to account for the persistence,
even vitality, of religion where secularization theory cannot.
- The theory of cult/sect formation developed by
Stark and Bainbridge was grounded in a nascent economic model.
Lead article in American Journal of
Sociology announces a new paradigm in the sociology of religion
March,1993 the American Journal of Sociology published
a led article by Stephen Warner that proclaimed the emergence
of a new paradigm in American sociology of religion.
In addition to being a lead article, the paper was
even more impressive because Warner had not been aligned with
either side of the conflict over the previous ten years or so.
Warner on the emerging paradigm:
"The emerging paradigm begins with the theoreticali reflectoin
on a fact of U.S. history highly inconvenient to secularization
theory: the proportion of the population enrolled in churches
grew hugely throughout the 19th century and the first half of
the 20th century, which,by any measure, were times of rapid modernization."
Secularization v. Religious Eonomy
- The rational choice model (religious economy)
does not deny secularization as a powerful force in the modern
world.
- Indeed, the process of secularization will bring
about predictable results.
- Enthropy and the loss of credibility of some
faiths will create the vacumn for the emergence of new religions.
Exploring the religious eocnomy model
- [insert materials from Soc Focus paper..will
probably take several more slides]
- [don't have time -- read from paper... approx
pps
Empirical evidence for a broader application
of the religious economy model
- Global fundamentalism
- Religious nationalism
- Liberation theology movements
- Pentecostal-charismatic movements
- Religious revival in post-communist countries
Next meeting:
Religion on the World Wide Web
IMPORTANT!!!
Bring a new floppy disk so you can save bookmarks
and other information covered in the presentation