Showing papers on "Secularization published in 1978"

The Secret Religion of the Educated Classes

Abstract: The new religiosity of the sixties is identified as corresponding to Troeltsch's Spiritual and Mystic Religion. Its rise to prominence is thus associated with the gradual displacement of church religion, an interpretation of contemporary events that is consistent with the data on secularization and with the evidence infavor of a new religiosity. An explanation for this transition is sought in Troeltsch's observation that this form of religion possesses greater congruence with the values of students and the educated middle classes than either the church or sect type. As a consequence, the new religiosity is described, following Troeltsch, as the "secret religion of the educated classes." The cultural upheaval of the 1960s and the associated growth of new religious and spiritual movements has presented the sociologist of religion with particularly acute problems of analysis and interpretation. Prior to this decade, the image of modern society that was most widely accepted was one in which secularization, variously conceived, was considered to be the prevailing feature, although it was recognized that this process did not proceed evenly and could be interrupted by periods of religious revival such as occurred in the United States in the mid-fifties. The various phenomena, such as the rise of Eastern religion, the occult revival, the astrology craze and the new Pentacostalism, which can collectively be called the "new religiosity," did not, on the face of it, fit into this picture. For they did not resemble the standard pattern of religious revivals, as they were all too often in stark opposition to the established churches and denominations, while at the same time, it required a fairly convoluted form of argument to maintain that such movements were evidence of continuing secularization. Hence there arose major problems of interpretation. Basically, the response to this problem has been to make only small modifications to the predominant image, such that the new religiosity could more easily be fitted into one or other of the two primary categories of "the secular" or "the religious." On the one hand, for example, it is argued that this phenomenon is only superficially religious and that fundamentally it manifests many of the characteristic commercial, self-centered and manipulationist concerns of a post-industrial society (Wilson, 1976). In this view it is the secular masquerading as religion and not only does it not constitute evidence of religious revival, but its long-term effects will be to strengthen the processes of secularization. On the other hand, there are those who take the contrary view and regard the new religiosity as evidence of genuine religious revival, a new "reformation" in Western society destined to effect a marked and perhaps permanent reversal of the trend toward ever greater secularization (Robinson, 1970; McGlothlin, 1967). These contrasting positions necessarily involve conflicts at the descriptive, conceptual and interpretative levels and have led to the revival of such thorny problems for the discipline as the question of the definition of religion itself (Shepherd, 1972; Bellah, 1972; Baum, 1972; Lidz, 1972). Neither of these starkly opposing views can be said to be especially convincing. Rather the one seems to exaggerate the differences between the new religiosity and the old at the expense of their underlying similarity, and the other exaggerates their similarity while downplaying the significance of the very real differences that exist between them. What this strongly suggests is the inadequacy of a simple dichotomous conceptual scheme such as that represented by the contrast between "religious" and "secular." Some conceptual

Theory and Research on Today's "New Religions"

Abstract: A number ofanalyticalperspectives have been developed to explain the upsurge ofdeviant religious movements and heightened spiritual f erment. These include secularization, crisis of community, value crisis, and the increasing need for holistic self-definition in a differentiated society. Viewing the present religious fermentas rooted in a normative breakdown or value crisis affords the basis of a typology of non-traditional movements in which the "types" embody different repsonses to increasing moral ambiguity. An alternative typological strategy has been to assimilate "'new religions" to Church-sect theory and to specify the residual concept of "cult." Much of the literature on "new religions" has been social psychological and has focused on processes of conversion and indoctrination. The dominant models appear to be Lofland's interactionist approach and "coercive persuasion" or "'brainwashing" theories. The analysis of contemporary religious ferment is vital to an assessment of sociocultural change in advanced societies.

New Religious Consciousness and Personal Religious Experience

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to generalize about characteristics of contemporary religious movements based on ethnographies and survey research data gathered by the Berkeley New Religious Consciousness Project. It is suggested that participants in these religious and quasi-religious groups are attracted by intense experiences of immanence. This is "new" religious consciousness to the extent to which these experiences take place in a context of pluralism, pragmatism, openness to science and rejection of dualistic theology. Religious experiences are seen as particularly attractive in reaction to continuing secularization in which innerworldly asceticism has lost its sacred underpinnings. The reaction to this loss is distinguished by an "innerworldly mysticism" compatible with science and modern bureaucratic society. The significance of these new religious groups lies in their fostering intuitive styles of consciousness rather than in their membership or longevity.

The contribution of the modernists to the secularization of Islamic law

Abstract: (1978) The contribution of the modernists to the secularization of Islamic law Middle Eastern Studies: Vol 14, No 3, pp 263-277

Political Participation and Attitudes in the Church of England

Abstract: It seems to be part of the conventional wisdom of British political science that English religious institutions and values do not demand much attention from the discipline's practitioners. It appears to be tacitly assumed that the process of secularization, and the relative absence of serious religious cleavages, have left such phenomena with minimal political significance. Nevertheless, Churches, and above all the Church of England, have traditionally occupied a position in English society that must leave some question marks against such assumptions. Mass politics, in an age of widespread indifference to institutional religion, no doubt has left Churches with considerably diminished scope for the exercize of political influence. On the other hand, these bodies still dispose of resources that, potentially at least, make them pressure groups of some weight. The politicization of moral issues, of particular interest to the Churches, may add credence to such a view.

Religion in the City

Abstract: Interpretation of the role of religion in the cities of Europe and America during the last one hundred and fifty years has been dominated by a single issue: the relationship between urbanization and secularization, which recent writings continue to amplify.

Religion and ethnicity : essays

Abstract: The essays in this volume deal with the relationship between living religious traditions in Canada and the fabric of Canadian society. Canada is a pluralistic society, ethnically and religiously. How are these two pluralisms related? Their connection is intimate, but never simple. For many years there could plausibly have been said to be a dominant Anglo-Canadian Protestant tradition, with other faiths and denominations being associated primarily with ethnic minorities. No doubt this would always have been a simplistic understanding, but today, as Canadian culture is increasing secularized, it is religion itself that the majority sees as a minority concern. Ethnic and religious loyalties pull together against a secular assimilation. Such a change leaves the "establishment" denominations with an unwanted identity crisis of their own, not the least part of which is due to an unfamiliar awareness of their own ethnic roots and histories.

A Reconsideration of the Politics of Assimilation

Abstract: In his review article on Jewish assimilation in European society in the nineteenth century, Dr Michael Marrus discussed two aspects of this historical development: the external pressures of the environment on Jews to acculturate by neglecting their own heritage and the desire of the Jews themselves to barter their identity for civil rights' Marrus described the negative attitudes that many of the European Jews developed toward Judaism in an attempt to accommodate themselves to the secular modem culture of their host country In response to Marrus's argument, I would like to emphasize the importance of the first cause in shaping the attitude of Jews toward integration By comparing the assimilation in eastern and central Europe with that in England and the United States, one can get a wider perspective on the impact of external pressures on the nature of assimilation Jewish concepts of modernity and acculturation were radical, as they were in Germany, Italy, and France, because of the pressure exerted on Jews to conform to their host societies But when cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic particularisms were recognized, as in the liberal English and American societies, Jews preferred to retain their Jewish loyalties This pattern can be seen very clearly in England, where the assimilation of Jews resembled the French and German model prior to the predominance of liberalism (in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), but took a different course during the mid-nineteenth century, the period of emancipation and triumph for English liberalism During the Georgian period, the upper strata of Anglo-Jewry secularized while losing their Jewish identity The Jewish gentry was clean shaven, well dressed, English speaking (Yiddish was abandoned), and secular minded The well-to-do attended the opera and the theatre, gossiped and played cards in coffee houses of the City or took the water at Bath and visited the seashores at Brighton They spent their leisure time in lavish entertainments and grand dinner parties Some of them acquired estates in the country and adopted there the habits of the local gentry Anglo-Jewry in the Georgian period was in a rapid process of secularization at the expense of Jewish loyalties: Jews neglected Sabbath observance, rarely attended synagogues, and were lax in performing religious duties They lacked traditional education (there was not even a single yeshiva in existence during the eighteenth century), disregarded dietary laws, and rarely appealed to rabbinical author-

The Cognitive Basis of Late Medieval Religious Biographies

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the cognitive basis of late Medieval religious biographies. Medievalists may rarely assume that the written sources from which they derive their information are well-known to the general reader. The four treatises that, as one whole, have become famous as the Imitatio Christi and with which the name of Thomas a Kempis is associated are no doubt among the relatively few exceptions. Imitatio Christi may be seen as an epitome of its religious aims. Its adherents strove to realize values and a living faith of which effects were meant to be visible in everyday life. In this manner, they attempted to transcend the superficiality and secularization typical of 14th century official church life. The church appeared to many to have forfeited its function as intermediary between God and man, and the members of the Modern Devotion and many other like-minded men and women sought a more direct spiritual contact with God. For even within monastery walls, this could not often be found. The ordinary layman who really wanted to save his soul had no other choice than to join or found a community of laymen, in whose comparative seclusion from the world he might attempt to live a more truly pious life.