David Lyon (2000) also agrees with Davie that believing without belonging is becoming increasingly popular. He argues that traditional religion is giving way to a variety of new religious forms, which highlight the continuing vigour of religion. As a post modernist he explains this in terms of a shift seen in recent decades from a modern to a post-modern society. Lyon holds a view in which he believes post-modern society has a number of features, which are changing the nature of religion. These include such things as globalization, the increased importance of the media and communications and the growth of consumerism.
Globalisation has led to greatly increased movements of ideas and beliefs across national boundaries. Due to the central role played in post modern society by the media and information technology, which saturate use with images and messages from all over the globe, thus compressing time and space to give us instantaneous access to the ideas and beliefs of previously remote regions and religions. These ideas have become “disembedded”, the media has lifted them from their original local contexts and move them to a different place and time. An example being how the “electronic church” and televangelism disembed religion from real local churches and relocate it to the internet, allowing believers to express there faith without having to physically attend a church. Similarly, Lyon describes a Harvest Day Crusade held not in church but at Disneyland, an example of how the boundaries of different areas of social life become blurred in postmodern society. As a result religion itself become de-institutionalised, its signs and images become detached from their place in religious institutions. Removed from their original location in the church, they become a cultural resource that individuals can adapt to their own purposes.
Post-modern society also involves the growth of consumerism and especially the idea that we now construct our identities through what we choose to consume. As already mentioned, Leger shows how this is true of religion where we now act as spiritual shoppers, choosing religious beliefs and practices to meet our individual needs from the vast range available in the religious marketplace. We no longer have to sign up to any one religious tradition, instead, we can pick and mix the elements of different faiths to suit or tastes and make them part of our own identity.
Its Lyons view that, religion has relocated to the “sphere of consumption”. While people may have ceased to belong to religious organisations, they have not abandoned religion completely. Instead they have become “religious consumers” making conscious decisions about which elements of religion they find most useful. For example the American Christian Fundamentalists in Nancy Ammermans 1987 study made use of a number of churches without giving strong loyalty to any of them.
Due to this new variety in religious products the claims of traditional religions have been weakened somewhat. This is due to the exposure many people now have to competing versions of the “truth” thus making people more sceptical that any one of them can really be true. This results in, once dominate religious organisations losing their authority and decline.
The theory of “Religious Market Theory” rejects the secularisation thesis. The main advocates of the Religious Market Theory are Stark and Bainbridge (1985), they are critical of the secularization theory as they regard it as being to Eurocentric-thus it only focuses on the decline of religion in Europe and looks past the continuing vitality of religion in America and elsewhere. Stark and Bainbridge proposed the religious market theory, it is a theory based on two main assumptions. One of which being that, people are naturally religious and religion meets human needs. Therefore the overall demand for religion remains constant. The second being, it is human nature to seek rewards and avoid costs. When people make choices, they weigh up the costs and benefits of the different options available.
According to Stark and Bainbridge, religion is attractive because it provides us with compensators. When real rewards are scarce and unobtainable, religion compensators by promising supernatural ones. For example, immortality is unobtainable, but religion compensates by promising life after death. Only religion is able to provide such compensators, non-religious ideologies such as humanism and communism do not provide credible compensators because they do not promise any form of supernatural reward.
In response to the secularization theories idea of a process of continuous religious decline, Stark and Bainbridge pit forward the concept of a cycle of religious decline and revival and renewal. They describe a perpetual cycle throughout history, with some religions declining and others growing and attracting new members. For example when churches decline, they leave a gap in the market for sects and cults to attract a new following.
Stark and Bainbridge’s Religious Market Theory, is rejected by Norris and Inglehart, who argue reject it on the ground that it only applies to America and fails to explain the variations in religiosity between different societies. For example, international studies of religion have found no evidence of the link between religious choice and religious participation that Stark and Bainbridge claim. Norris and Inglehart argue that the reasons for variations in religiosity between societies are not different degrees of religious choice, but different degrees of existential security. By this, they mean “the feeling that survival is secure enough that it can be taken for granted”. Religion meets a need for security and therefore societies where female feel secure have a low level of demand for religion. In poor societies where people face life threatening risks have higher levels of religiosity, where as in rich societies where people have a high standard of living, have a greater sense of security thus lower levels of religiosity. Thus showing that the demand for religion is not constant as is claimed By Stark and Bainbridge in their religious market theory. Demand for religion is much greater among low-income groups because they are less secure. This is an explanation of why third world countries remain religious while prosperous Western Countries have become more secular.