The status is one the most dramatic changes, the church used to be of a very high status, in the present time particularly about the young the church is seen as “boring” and an embarrassment to admit to. Many more adults and old age people attend church than those of teenagers.
The surge in new age movements has also added to the level of secularisation taking place, the 1960’s and the 1970’s gave rise to many New Religious Movements. The new age refers to a very wide range of beliefs and practices. Some of these are related to older religious beliefs, or traditions within older religions; others are occult beliefs that have a long history. Some of these new age movements are based on ancient myths, or borrowed from eastern religions. The popularity of these religions has greatly increased due to the surge of interest in such ideas in the last 20 or so years. Some new age beliefs include feng Sui, tarot card reading, and astrology. These new age movements fit into a selection of “themes”: -
- New Science – where science will prove what they believe.
- New ecology- where the earth is seen as a living being.
- New psychology- where ones self can be made perfect, and have immortal souls.
The new age has come about because of a few reasons I will go onto explain. They became popular in the 1980’s at a time when people concentrated on originality and independence. People were tolerant to new ideas, and there was a lot less pressure to conform to the normal society. Young people especially joined these new movements; it was a gesture of independence, self-development, to find answers to big questions about life, injustice, suffering etc, and importantly for companionship. New age movements are becoming every popular with the help of TV and films, programmes like “X-files” encourage peoples beliefs of extraterrestrial life. The new age movements are also linked to cults, in a small way, the link between them is that they are often connected with leaders and are a more extreme version of sects.
The points against secularisation show a very different approach. Although church attendance has decreased so much belief is still of very high percentage. 85% of the British population say the do believe in God just do not attend church. This shows that people are still religious just do not attend the church; against secularisation surely belief is more important than basic attendance.
Rites of passage are very importantly linked to the church; people are still using the church for basic services. People still associate the church with such ceremonies as weddings, funerals and baptisms. Marriage is a key link to church still being an important part of British life, 69% of first marriages in this country take place in a church.
Church attendance has declined in traditional churches, but risen in the newer more un-traditional churches. Also years ago there was a lot of social pressure to attend church, important characters in society had to be seen at church, people maybe didn’t believe but only attended due to the high social pressure they were under. In this modern day the people who do attend church are attending purely because they believe, there is no longer the immense pressure to attend. Today not attending church is very acceptable.
People still have very strong Christian values up to 80% of the population feel that at least 7 of the 10 commandments apply to them. Also the law is loosely based upon the 10 commandments given in the bible, such as not committing murder, or stealing.
Most importantly, secularisation mostly applies to the more traditional churches, such as the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church. In other more un-traditional churches there has been a steady increase in the attendance, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s witnesses. Non- Christian religions are having an increasing effect upon our society with large growth in Muslims in Britain.
Secularisation has occurred, and will continue to occur, as there are significant advances in science. Science has had a very big affect on the levels of secularisations mainly because it can now explain things previously thought to be related to religion. There are now many different views on how the world began, with the science world increasing the information to prove the theory of “ the big bang”, where years ago God created the world and everything in it. There is significant information that shows the secularisation has been over exaggerated, but it is a fact, religion is declining and as the scientific world takes over and explains more and more of life’s mysteries religion will continue to drop.
