Secularisation. Bryan Wilson said all societies would eventually lose their religion, a vague statement but one, which has been researched into for many years. However one person who has challenged this is David Martin he sees that secularisation isnt

There is another approach to the Dis-engagement theory. Talcott Parsons agrees with Wilson, that the church has lost many of its main functions but says this is the evolution of society, a process of Structural Differentiation. This means different parts of society have specialised in certain functions therefore the church performs fewer functions in society. Religion had specialised in enforcing religious values and beliefs. This doesn't mean the church is less important it's just become different.

Some researchers see that a truly religious society has only one faith, so in fact one religion. Now we have religious pluralism, where religion has been dived into many different forms. These all have there own beliefs. Bryan Wilson argues that if there are so many religions now each with their own version of belief then there are no shared values. So religion is no longer a means of helping society so secularisation is taking place.

In the past society did have one religion, this united society said Durkheim, religions promoted shared norms and values. But now there are lots of different religions that each have there own values and belief systems. Durkheim says that how can people share norms and values now that there are many different types. So people today are religious but show this in many different forms. There is no social solidarity any more. So he doesn't see that secularisation is taking place either there is just no single religion to share values, people are still religious.

The ecumenical movement is another religious pluralism theory. This is where there has been a unity between denominations of the Christian faith. Doesn't this reverse the religious pluralism theory? Wilson doesn't see it this way; he says that it is further evidence of secularisation. Religions only unite when they are weak therefore the Christian faith must be weak. So they join together to make them stronger. Therefore it must be evidence of secularisation.

Another theory on Wilson's side is one that sects and religious cults also provide us with some evidence that secularisation is taking place. People are joining sects and cults because the religion in society is so weak it isn't helping them. This is one of the functions of religion and it can't be doing it right if people are rejecting it. This seems pretty clear evidence that religion is declining.

The only problem is sects are seen as religious. World rejecting sects are the most religious of all so its just another way of putting religious pluralism, there are just different forms of religion, people aren't getting less religious. This is questionable though as all sects aren't religious as world affirming sects have no religious beliefs at all.

Will Herberg looks at the secularisation debate differently to Wilson he looks at USA institutions. Hurberg says that religion has changed. Before religion used to emphasise on the supernatural, take a serous commitment to religious teaching for example. Now Herberg cannot find this in today's society. Religion is changing and their values have changes, this could be seen as a factor of secularisation.

Critics of this would say that this doesn't show us anything about secularisation. It shows us what his own thoughts on religion are and his ideas of what a church should teach. This tells us more about Herberg than it religion, so the research isn't valid. But on the other hand these things that he stated as showing religion have decreased, so to him and his ideas secularisation has taken place. Other critic's are he findings are very clear; this is because his ideas of what religions should do have been operationalised, these ideas have been translated in a way that the findings look as if society has become less religious. Another problem with his study is that people are still religious in his eyes, in others places. Mainly however we haven't really seen anything to help us to see whether secularisation is taking place.

Those were all arguments based on institutions the final arguments that I am going to look at are on other things. Firstly the theories of generalisation, where religious values have now become part of general use in society, so are not seen as religious, Martin has developed this. Parsons says there are many values in society today which support the bible but there are just common practise and seen as normal or general. This theory however is vague and no one says that everything you do such as helping someone is religious it could just be humanitarian.

Individuation is a theory developed by Robert Bellah. This states that people don't go to church they belong to organised religion. They see religion as an individual quest and work their religion out on their own instead of going to church. Therefore the form of expression has changed not how religious we are. Problems here are how do you measure people's thoughts? This isn't possible so there is no evidence to say this theory is correct.

Transformation is another idea, which is based on the generalisation one. Not many people can see the difference between the two. Weber says that values and norms have been transformed; Martin says that they have been generalised.

The final argument is desacrillisation; this is where there is a decline in the sacred. This means that supernatural forces are not controlling the world there is now scientific evidence to prove these wrong. This disenchantment is from Weber where he sees that society is going through a process of rationalisation whereby magic and mystery are being dissolved by fact. Science has now explained phenomenon, so things, which were mis-understood before, are now understood. So faith, which is based on trust, isn't there anymore therefore there is no need for religion as science has produced real facts.

In conclusion we have seen many different views of is secularisation taking place? This however has not helped us in our answers, as there is no answer, we don't know. Every argument that was put before us had a problem. Therefore we need to look at why. This mainly because no one can agree on a definition of religion therefore how can we say if secularisation is taking place? Many problems with the research have been because many of the researchers all have their own definitions. Another fault with the question is we need to look into the future and say is secularisation going to happen, you can't do this. The only way to really solve this debate is to firstly agree on a definition of religion, or see how the role and function has changed over time. Glock and Stark tried this but again they had their own opinions of religion and how they measured things could be questioned. The question of secularisation needs to be more specific, not as general as it has been for you to solve it.

Sandie Williams

Is secularisation taking place?