The Changes in Societal Structures and Religious Practices

Discuss About The Secularization Urbanization In Theological.

From the inception of the notion of “Society”, in human life, there have been significant changes in the dynamics of social and cultural patterns across the globe as a whole and also subjective to the different countries and their populations. These social and cultural patters, which include the way of living, the different social, religious and ethnic believes and practices and other daily activities of the individuals across the globe, can be seen to be highly influenced by the changes in the social and cultural trends in the global framework (Beyer and Beaman 2007). With emergence of international phenomena like Globalization, industrial revolutions, trade liberalizations and with the increasing modernization of the societies across the globe, the social and cultural domains of the different countries are becoming more integrated and inclusive and the social and cultural patterns of these countries are getting highly influenced by the global trends with time.

In this scenario, the concept and notion of religion and religious practices have also experienced significant changes in different countries across the globe and in the world as a whole. Religion, having many definitions from different perspectives, can be primarily considered as the set of beliefs, dogmas and practices which highlights the nature of the relationships of different human beings across the world with their perception of divinity. There exists a number of religions in the global framework, each characterized by the community of believers, prophesies, ethical codes, world views, texts and also the moral perceptions, sacrament and believes and perceptions of the people practicing the same.

Religion, though  being treated as one of the primary component in human life, by a section of the population across the globe, has led to the creation of several social evils over the period of time, which primarily includes a sense of differentiation and seclusion among people of one religion for people of other religions, the lack of support of basic civil rights or freedoms, social tensions due to the presence of multi-religious and multi-ethnic population and also religious intolerances and terrorism due to the same in the extreme cases (Casanova 2011). With the global social framework becoming even more inclusive and each country experiencing huge acculturation and inflow of population of different religions, these problems have become even more acute.

These problems in turn gives way to one of the primary components in the conceptual framework of sociology, which is known as “Secularization”. As can be seen from the social scenario of many of the eminent and growing economies of the world, in the contemporary framework, the societal structures are being increasingly moving away from being based or tied to one particular religion or giving importance or weightage to the same (Beaman 2012). This can be viewed as secularization. Keeping this into consideration the following section of the essay tries to focus on the definition of secularization, its importance, evidences and arguments present in favour of the same and the dynamics in the views of the sociologists regarding secularization, with the help of real world examples.

Evidences and Arguments in Favor of Secularization

As discussed above the notion of secularization came from the dynamics and shift in the societal patterns and structures of the world as a whole. In sociology, the term secularization primarily refers to the process by which a society eventually shifts away from its religious foundation and framework (Dobbelaere 2007). The primary working notion behind the same is that at the initiation stages, the societies usually consisted of strong religious beliefs which not only were reflected in their religious practices but also worked as guidance in their everyday activities, thereby serving as a structural framework for the societies. However, with time and with increasing advancements in science, technology and infrastructural innovations led to the increase in the diversity and inclusiveness of the population in the society. This in turn led to the loss of importance of one particular religion as the structural framework of the society. According to the conceptual framework of secularization, with the advent of development and growth of multi-cultured and multi-religious population in a society, one religion as a structural framework or yardstick eventually gets replaced by other more important and relevant socio-cultural factors and items.

The concept of secularization, as discussed in the above sections of the concerned essay, is not however just a theoretical assertion and has many debates surrounding its relevance with the real global social patterns and dynamics. There exist significant evidences and arguments both in favour of secularization in the global framework, which are also supported by empirical evidences. The primary evidences in favour of secularization and their counter-arguments and reasonings are discussed as follows:

Decline in the religious practice- One of the strongest arguments in favour of secularization is that of the decline in the religious practices which can be seen to be evident among the population of different countries across the globe. The primary empirical evidences supporting this argument are found to be existing in the European as well as in the Australian domains. In UK alone, the church attendance statistics over the years can be found to support this argument. In 1851, where the Census showed the population share attending church in the country to be 40% of the total population, the same experienced a drastic decrease over time, as can be seen from the percentage in 2005 (6.3% of the total population of the country) (Davie 2014).

Apart from decrease in the church attendance rates, a significant decrease can also be observed in church marriages, religious ceremonies along with increase in number of divorces as well as in the number of children outside marriage in the country, which in turn reflects towards the loss of importance of religion in the modern societies according to this argument.

Counter-arguments Against Secularization

Counter-Argument- There however remains counter assertions from the interpretivist sociologists who highlights the fact that the statistical data used for previous centuries could be faulty due to the absence of proper data collection method, thereby leaving the threat of overestimation or bias while comparing.

Lack of engagements- Another evidence in favour of secularization is the loss of the importance of religious institutions in the different social arenas of life like politics and others. According to this valid argument, the political and social leaders in the contemporary period tend to be less bothered about the approval of their actions and decisions by the religious institutions, with the same turning more into symbolic institutions with time.

Counter-Argument- There however remains high significance of these religious institutions in different countries, especially in the aspects of provision of basic amenities like education and health services, especially to the poorer sections of the societies who do not usually have access to the amenities as well as information of the developing and modernized societies (Bruce 2011). Some sociologist in fact perceive the disengagement trends to be actually beneficial for the religious institutions in the aspects of emphasis on their central role and goals.

Rationalization and disenchantment- One of the primary evidences put forward in support of secularization in the contemporary period is that of the increase in the rationalization of the thought processes in the global framework, which has been facilitated by advent of science and increasing awareness among the population in the world regarding the scientific logics behind different phenomena, which in turn has led to the decrease in the religious ways of thinking and attributing everything to magic, instead of logic. With scientific advancements, people have been increasingly able to explain and control many phenomena which were previously not possible, which in turn has led to the decrease in the importance of religious beliefs in the current period.

Counter-Argument- One interesting counter assertion against the same highlights the fact that in the modern world, a new trend of blind faith and irrationality has stared with people accepting the statements of the scientists without understanding the phenomena, which in turn has led to the creation of a new type of enchantment.

 Technological worldview- With the increasing technological and scientific orientation of the world, the religious and supernatural inclination for explaining different events are getting replaced by a more technological and scientific worldview. For instance, in the earlier days natural as well as man-made calamities were often viewed to be the act of God. However, in the recent times with more scientific world view, the reasons behind such events are explained technologically and scientifically (Singleton 2014). Thus, science has not challenged religion per se but with its logical interpretation, has led to the reduction in the scope of the latter

The Impact of Urbanization on Secularization

Counter-Argument- There still lies areas and phenomena where there is less effectiveness of technological and scientific explanations, where people still tend to resort to religious believes to find plausible explanations and interpretations.

Commercialization of religion- One of the primary evidences in favour of secularization is the notion of “Disneyfication” which indicates towards the fact that with modernization of society, religion has been packaged and marketed as any other commodity, thereby losing its significance and role as a guide in the daily life of human. This can be seen in the increase of religious channels and programmes, especially in developing countries. This can be seen as an evidence of increasing secularization (Cox 2013).

Counter-Argument- The growth of the religious media is often viewed by the postmodernists not as an evidence for secularization but as an evidence against the same as according to them, it helps the believers to confirm their religious beliefs against the rational ones.

Secularism from inside- One of the primary evidences of secularization can be attributed to the change in the nature of religion and religious believes in different countries with time. As can be seen from the instance of that of the USA, the focus on the traditional religious beliefs in the country has reduced considerably so as to remain popular and to fit to a more secular society and the main purpose of religion in the country has changed from seeking of salvation post death to seeking of maximum welfare and improvement in life while on earth (Kuru 2009).

There also remain other arguments in favour of increase secularization as a real-life phenomenon in the global phenomenon. As argued by the many postmodernists, religious metanarratives have been increasingly losing their power to influence people’s way of thinking as well as their way of interpretation of phenomena. This view is supported by the assertions of many others who point out towards the visible decline in the institutional religion caused by “cultural amnesia”, by the virtue of which religion is no longer percolated from one generation to other (James 2008). However, religion has not disappeared completely but has faced changes and reduction in its overall level importance in people’s life, which in turn is the greatest evidence for secularization.

There has been substantial theoretical development of the notion of secularization over the decades and there is no presence of one single theory which can explain the same as many sociologists have perceived the concept from different perspectives:

Real-life Examples of Secularization

The Secularization Thesis- One of the oldest and most popular theoretical framework for secularization has been the Secularization Thesis, which asserts that with the progress of the societies across the world, specifically through modernization and through rationalization, the role of religion will diminish.

Marxian views- The views of sociologist like Karl Marx, along with that of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, form the classical theoretical framework for secularization, where religion is viewed to be opposite of that of modernity and secularization is viewed to be the real-life phenomenon which tend to go hand in hand with modernization of societies, thereby replacing the importance of religion (Furseth and Repstad 2017). Marx believed that the development of society and its working class will eventually led to decrease in the role of Christianity.

Tchannen’s Secularization Levels- According to this point of view, secularization in a society occurs at three levels, which are as follows:

Macro level- Where the societal differentiation takes place as a whole

Meso level- Where the importance of religion declines in the institution and organizational levels

Individual level- Where religion loses significance in the everyday life of individuals in the form of reduction in the religious practices, beliefs and inclinations.

However, the classical theories, emphasizing on the reduction of importance and disappearance of religion as a whole has been criticized on the basis of empirical evidences and has been replaced with neo-classical and modernized views which tend to focus more on changes within the religious frameworks and nature of religions and their activities for incorporation of secularization itself rather than focussing on the disappearance of religion as a whole.

Conclusion

As can be seen from the above discussion, there lies immense debates regarding the notion of secularization and its implications in the real-world scenarios. There remains significant evidences and arguments in favour of the same and the theories and conceptual assertions regarding the same in the domain of sociology have also experienced considerable dynamics and modifications owing to the changes in the thought process and relevance with time. However, from the overall discussion it can be concluded that although secularization does not fully replace religion as a whole, as argues by the classical theories of secularization, it does have considerable impacts in reducing the importance and roles of religion in everyday life of individuals, the modus operandi varying with respect to region and time.

References

Beaman, L.G. ed., 2012. Reasonable accommodation: managing religious diversity. UBC Press.

Beyer, P. and Beaman, L. eds., 2007. Religion, globalization, and culture. Brill.

Casanova, J., 2011. Public religions in the modern world. University of Chicago Press.

Cox, H., 2013. The secular city: Secularization and urbanization in theological perspective. Princeton University Press.

Davie, G., 2014. Religion in Britain: A persistent paradox. John Wiley & Sons.

Dobbelaere, K., 2007. Secularization. Blackwell Publishing.

James, C., 2008. Cultural amnesia: Necessary memories from history and the arts. WW Norton & Company.

Kuru, A.T., 2009. Secularism and state policies toward religion: The United States, France, and Turkey. Cambridge University Press.

Singleton, A., 2014. Religion, culture and society: A global approach. Sage.