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

Part I
Secularization: The Inherited Model

What secularization theory seeks to explain

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.

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:

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.

Modernization:

The process by which the world became modern

Modernization:

The process wherein human cultures have been transformed from simple to complex societies.

Modernism:

Dimensions of Modernization

The Modernization Paradigm

Dimensions of Secularization

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?

Trends in American Religion

Challenging the Secularization Paradigm

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

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

Exploring the religious eocnomy model

Empirical evidence for a broader application of the religious economy model

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