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Home , Rodney Stark, Secularization, Thomas Woolston

Secularization, R.I.P. Author(s): Source: of , Vol. 60, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 249-273 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3711936 . Accessed: 11/08/2013 15:27

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This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SociologyofReligion 1999, 60:3 249-273 ,R.l.P.

RodneyStark* UniversityofWashington

Fromthe beginning, social scientists have celebrated thesecularization thesis despite the fact that itnever was consistent with empirical reality. More than 150 years ago Tocqueville pointed out that 'thefacts by no means accord with [the secularization] ," and this lack of accord has grown far worsesince then. Indeed, the only shred of credibility forthe notion that secularization hasbeen takingplace has depended on contrasts between now and a bygoneAge of . In thisessay I assemblethe work of many recent historians who are unanimous that the Age of Faith is pure nostalgia- thatlack of religious participation was, if anything, even more widespread inmedieval timesthan now. Next, I demonstratethatthere have been no recent religious changes inChristendomn thatare consistentwith the secularization thesis - noteven among scientists. I also expand assessmentofthe secularization doctrine tonon-Christian showing that not even the highly magical"folk " in Asia haveshown the slightest declines in responseto quiterapid modernization.Final words are offered as secularization islaid to rest.

Fornearly three centuries, social scientists and assorted western havebeen promising the end of religion. Each generation has beenconfident thatwithin another few decades, or possibly a bit longer, humans will "outgrow" beliefin the .This propositionsoon cameto be knownas the secularizationthesis, and itsearliest proponents seem to havebeen British, as theRestoration in 1660led to an eraduring which militant attacks on faith werequite popular among fashionable Londoners (Durant and Durant1965). Thus,as faras I amable to discover, itwas Thomas Woolston who first set a date bywhich time would have triumphed over faith. Writing in about 1710,he expressedhis confidencethat would be goneby 1900 (Woolston1733). Halfa centurylater Frederick the Great thought this was muchtoo pessimistic,writing to his friendVoltaire that "the Englishman Woolston.. . couldnot calculate what has happenedquite recently. . . . It [religion]is crumblingof itself,and itsfall will be butthe morerapid' (in Redman1949: 26). In response,Voltaire ventured his guess that the end would comewithin the next 50 years.Subsequently, not even widespread press reports concerningthe second "Great Awakening" could deter Thomas Jefferson from

* I uouldlike to thank Andrew Greeley, wigt whom I have long been exchanging citations on the nonexistence ofan Ageof Faith in European history. Direct correspndence toRodney Stark, Deparunent ofSociology (Box 353340), UniversityofWashington, Seattle, WA 98196. 249

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 250 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION predictingin 1822that "there is nota youngman now living in theUnited Stateswho will not die a Unitarian"(Healy 1984: 373). Ofcourse, a generation later,Unitarians were as scarceas ever,while the Methodists and Baptists con- tinuedtheir spectacular rates of growth (Finke and Stark 1992). Subsequentprophets of secularization have been no lesscertain, but they have beensomewhat more circumspect as to dates.Thus, just as Jefferson's prophesyfailed, back in France,Auguste Comte announced that, as a resultof modernization,human was outgrowing the "theological stage" of social evolutionand a newage wasdawning in whichthe of sociology would replacereligion as thebasis for moral judgments. But, Comte did not say exactly whenall thiswould be accomplished.In similarfashion, as oftenas Frederich Engelsgloated about how the socialistrevolution would cause religionto evaporate,he wouldonly say that it would happen "soon." In 1878Max Muller (p. 218)complained that:

Everyday, every week, every month, every quarter, the most widely read journals seem just nowto vie witheach other in tellingus thatthe time for religion is past,that faith is a hallucinationoran infantile disease, that the have at last been found out and exploded.

At thestart of the twentieth century, A. E. Crawley(1905: 8) reportedthat "the opinionis everywheregaining ground that religion is a meresurvival from a primitive. .. age,and itsextinction only a matterof time." Several years later, whenMax Weberexplained why modernization would cause the "disenchant- ment"of the world, and when reassured his disciples that this greatestof all neuroticillusions would die uponthe therapist's couch, they too wouldbe no morespecific than "soon." A generationlater, however, "soon" became "underway" or "ongoing."For example,the distinguished anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace(1966: 264- 265) explainedto tensof thousandsof Americanundergraduates that 'the evolutionaryfuture of religionis extinction,"and whilehe admittedthat it mightrequire "several hundred years" to completethe process, it alreadywas wellunderway in theadvanced nations. And throughouthis illustrious career, BryanWilson (1982: 150-151)has describedsecularization as "a longterm processoccurring inhuman society' and pointed out that "the process implicit in theconcept of secularization concedes at oncethe idea of an earliercondition of lifethat was not secular, or that was at leastmuch less secular than that of our owntimes." Then in 1968,in contrastto all of thisintellectual pussy-footing, Peter Berger(1968: 3) toldthe New York Tirnes that the by "the 21st century, religious believersare likely to be foundonly in smallsects, huddled together to resista worldwidesecular culture." Unleashing his gift for memorable imagery, Berger saidthat "the predicament ofthe believer is increasinglylike that of a Tibetan astrologeron a prolongedvisit to an Americanuniversity." In light of the recent lionizationof the Dalai Lamaby the American media and his cordial welcome

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.M.P. 251 to variouscampuses, Berger's simile now admitsto rathera differentinterpre- tation.In anyevent, when his prediction had onlythree years left to run,Berger gracefullyrecanted his beliefin secularization(as I discussat the end of this essay).I quotehis statementsduring the 1960sonly because they so fullyexpress themood of the times, a moodthat I shared(cf., Stark 1963). Noticefive things about all ofthese secularization prophesies. First,there is universalagreement that modernization is the causal engine draggingthe gods into retirement. That is,the secularization doctrine has always nestledwithin the broadertheoretical framework of modernizationtheories, it being proposed that as industrialization,urbanization, and rationalization increase,religiousness must decrease (Hadden 1987; Finke1992). Keep in mind thatmodernization is a long,gradual, relatively constant process. Wars, revolutions, and othercalamities may cause an occasionalsudden blip in the trendlines, but theoverall process is not volatile.If secularization is theresult of modernization or,indeed, is one aspectof it, then secularization is notvolatile and, rather than proceedingby sudden fits and starts,it too willdisplay a long-term,gradual, and relativelyconstant trend of religiousdecline, corresponding to similarupward trendsin suchaspects of modernization as economicdevelopment, urbanization, and .In termsof timeseries trends, modernization is a long,linear, upwardcurve, and secularizationis assumedto tracethe reciprocalof this curve, to be a long,linear, downward curve. Indeed, since modernization is so advanced in manynations that "postmodernism" is the latest buzzword, it mustbe assumed thatsecularization is at least"ongoing" to the extentthat a significantdown- wardtrend in religiousnesscan be seen. The secondthing to noticeabout the secularizationprophecies is thatthey are notdirected primarily toward institutional differentiation - theydo not merelypredict the separationof churchand state or a decline in the direct, secularauthority of church leaders. Their primary concern is withindividual piety, especiallybelief. Thus, Jeffersonpredicted the next generationwould find Christianbeliefs, and especiallyfaith in the divinityof , implausible and would limit themselvesto the minimalistconception of sustainedby Unitarians.What mostconcerned Engels were not bishops,but the religious "fantasies"of the masses.Freud wrote about religious illusions, not about church taxes,and Wallace (1966: 265) assertedthat " in supernaturalpowers is doomed to die out, all over the world"because, as BryanWilson (1975: 81) explained,"The rationalstructure of society itself precludes much indulgence in supernaturalistthinking." This is verysignificant because in recentyears secularization has been definedin several ways (Hanson 1997; Tschannen 1991; Dobbelaere 1987; Shiner1967) and, unfortunately,this permits some proponents of the thesisto shiftdefinitions as needed in orderescape inconvenientfacts (cf., Dobbelaere 1987, 1997; Lechner1991, 1996; Yamane 1997). One definition,often referred to as the macro version(cf., Lechner 1996), identifiessecularization as de-

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 252 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION institutionalization(Dobbelaere 1987; Martin1978). This refersto a decline in the social powerof once-dominantreligious whereby other social institutions,especially political and educationalinstitutions, have escapedfrom priorreligious domination. If thiswere all thatsecularization means, there would be nothingto argue about.Everyone must agree that, in contemporaryEurope, for example, Catholic bishopshave lesspolitical power than they once possessed,and thesame is true ofLutheran and Anglicanbishops (although bishops probably never were nearly so powerfulas theynow are thoughtto have been). Nor are primaryaspects of publiclife any longersuffused with religious symbols, rhetoric, or .These changes have, of course, aroused scholarly interest,resulting in some distinguishedstudies (Casanova 1994; Martin 1978). But, the prophetsof secularizationtheory were not and are not merelywriting about something so obviousor limited.At issueis not a narrowprediction concerning a growing separationof churchand state. Instead,as we have seen, fromthe startthe prophetsof secularizationhave stressedpersonal piety, and to the extentthat theyexpressed macro interests it has been to claimthat they are so linkedthat a decline in one necessitatesa decline in the other.Thus, ifthe churcheslose power,personal piety will fade;if personal piety fades, the churcheswill lose power.Indeed, Peter Berger, long the mostsophisticated modern proponent of the secularizationthesis, was entirely candid on thispoint. Having outlined the macroaspects of secularization, Berger (1967: 107-108)noted:

Moreover,it is impliedhere that the process of secularization has a subjectiveside as well.As thereis a secularizationofsociety and culture, so thereis a secularizationofconsciousness. Put simply,this means that the modemWest has producedan increasingnumber of individualswho look upon the world and theirown lives without the benefit of religious interpretations.

As noted,recently Berger (1997) gracefullywithdrew his supportfor the theoryof secularization. I cite this passage from his earlier work not to emphasize myprevious disagreement with Berger, whose work I alwayshave muchadmired, butas a contrastto the recenttactic by other proponents of secularization, who seekto evade thegrowing mountain of contrary evidence by pretending that the theorymerely pertains to deinstitutionalizationand anytrends in personalpiety are irrelevant.Let me noteKarel Dobbelaere's breathtaking evasion in his article in this issue,"the religiousnessof individualsis nota valid indicatorin eval- uatingthe processof secularization."Such revisionismis not onlyhistorically false,it is insincere.Those who employit revertto celebratingthe demiseof individualpiety wheneverthey see a fact that seems to be supportiveor wheneverthey believe theyare speakingto an audience of fellowdevotees. Thus, at a conferencein Rome in 1993, Lilliane Voye and Karel Dobbelaere (1994: 95) explainedthat because science is "a thoroughlysecular perspective on the world"and has come to dominatethe educationalcurricula, this has

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 253 resultedin "desacrilizingthecontent of learning and the world-view of students."Citing earlier essays by Dobbelaere, they went on to claim:

thesuccessful removal by science of all kinds of anthropomorphisms fromour thinking have transformedthetraditional concept of "God as a person"into a beliefin a life-force,a power ofspirit and this has also gradually promoted agnosticism andatheism -which explainsthe long-termdecline of religious practices.

Exactly!That is preciselywhat the secularization thesis has always been, and Voyeand Dobbelaere's empirical claims, if true, would fully satisfy Woolston's prophesy- albeit a bitlate. But, as willbe seen,it isn't so. What is so, is that secularizationpredicts a marked decline in the religiousness ofthe individual. Thethird thing to notice about the secularization thesis is that, implicit in allversions and explicit in most, is the claim that of all aspects of modernization, itis science that has the most deadly implications forreligion. For Comte and Wallace,as forVoye and Dobbelaere, it is sciencethat will free us from the superstitiousfetters offaith. Or, in the odd formulation byBryan Wilson (1968: 86),"Christianity, withthe impact of scientific and social scientific hindsights, haslost general theological plausibility." Ifthis is so, then scientists ought to be expectedto be a relativelyirreligious lot.But, as will be seen, scientists areabout as religiousas anyone else, and the presumed incompatibility between religion andscience seems mythical. Fourth,secularization isregarded asan absorbing state - thatonce achieved it is irreversible,instilling mystical immunity. However, events and trends in easternEurope and the nations of the former Soviet Union do not support these expectations.Instead, as AndrewGreeley (1994: 272) so aptly put it, after more than70 yearsof militant efforts by the state to achievesecularization, "St. Vladimirhas routed ." Fifthand finally, while most discussions ofsecularization focus on Christen- dom,all leading proponents ofthe thesis apply it globally. Thus, it is not merely beliefin Christ that is "doomedto die out," but, as Wallaceexplained in the passagequoted above, "belief in supernaturalpowers," and thisis goingto happen"all over the world."Hence, Allah is fatedto join Jehovahas only"an interestinghistorical memory." However, no one has botheredto explainthis to Muslims,as willbe seen. Now forspecifics.

THE OF RELIGIOUS DECLINE

Manyscholars appear to believethat if rates of individual religious belief and participationfor most nations of northernand westernEurope were graphed, theywould be reciprocalto the trendsin modernization.Beginning with high levels of faithand practiceat the end of the eighteenthcentury, the master trendsare assumedto have been ever downward,culminating in verylow

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 254 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION currentlevels of religiousness. And thelatter are regarded as butinsignificant residuals,soon to disappear too (Wilson 1966, 1982; Bruce 1995; Lechner 1991, 1996).For evidence in supportof these claims, we are directed to notea steep declinein churchattendance in muchof Europeand to inferfrom this an erosionof individualfaith as well,on the groundsthat participation is low becauseof a lackof the beliefs needed to motivateattendance. These views are wrongin all respects. DavidMartin ( 1965) was the first contemporary sociologist toreject the secu- larizationthesis outright, even proposing that the concept of secularization be eliminatedfrom social scientific discourse on thegrounds that it had served only ideologicaland polemical, rather than theoretical, functions and because there wasno evidencein favorof any general or consistent "shift from a religiousper- iodin human affairs to a secularperiod" (Martin 1991: 465). And,astounding as it mayseem, the secularization thesis has been inconsistent with plain facts from thevery start. For example, having noted the popularity of the secularization doctrineamong eighteenth-century philosophers, Alexis de Tocquevillethen commented:

Unfortunately,thefacts by no means accord with their theory. There are certain populations in Europewhose unbelief is only equalled by their ignorance and debasement; while in America,one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, the people fulfill with fervorallthe outward duties of religion ([18401 1956: 319).

In themore than 150 years since Tocqueville made those observations, not onlyhas Americanreligiousness not gone intodecline, the rateof church membershipactually has more than trebled (Finke and Stark 1992), while other indicesof commitment have held steady or have risen modestly (Greeley 1989). Moreover,although the American case continuesto offera devastatingchal- lengeto thesecularization doctrine, itfails in Europetoo. First, there has been no demonstrablelong-term decline in Europeanreligious participation! Granted, participationprobably has variedfrom time to timein responseto profound socialdislocations such as warsand revolutions,but the far more important pointis that religious participation was very low in northern and western Europe manycenturies before the onset of modernization. The secondreason to rejectclaims about the secularization ofEurope is that currentdata do notreveal the arrival of an ageof "scientific ." Levels of subjectivereligiousness remain high - to classifya nationas highlysecularized whenthe large majority of its inhabitants believe in God is absurd.Indeed, the importantquestion about is, as GraceDavie (1990b: 395) put it, notwhy do peopleno longerbelieve, but why do they"persist in believing butsee no needto participatewith even minimal regularity in their religious institutions?"Of these two major bases for rejecting claims about the secular- izationof Europe, the claim that religious participation was never very high in northernand western Europe is the one that must strike most readers as dubious.

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 255 THE MYTHOF PAST PIETY

Everyone"knows" that once upona timethe world was pious - thatin oldendays most people exhibited levels of religious practice and concern that todaylinger only in isolatedsocial subcultures such as theAmish, ultra-orthodox Jews,or Muslim fundamentalists. But, like so manyonce-upon-a-time tales, this conceptionof a piouspast is merenostalgia; most prominent historians of medievalreligion now agree that there never was an "Ageof Faith" (Morris 1993;Duffy 1992; Sommerville 1992; Bossy 1985; Obelkevich 1979; Murray 1972;Thomas 1971; Coulton1938). Writingin the eleventhcentury, the Englishmonk William of Malmesbury complained that the aristocracy rarely attendedchurch and even the more pious among them "attended" mass at home, inbed:

Theydidn't go to churchin the mornings in a Christianfashion; but in theirbedchambers, lyingin thearms of theirwives, they did but taste with their ears the solemnities of the morningmass rushed through by a priestin a hurry(in Fletcher1997: 476).

As forthe ordinary people, during the and during the Renaissance, the massesrarely entered a church,and theirprivate was directed towardan arrayof spiritsand supernaturalagencies, only some of them recognizablyChristian (Gentilecore 1992; Schneider 1990; Delumeau 1977; Thomas1971). Alexander Murray's assessment ofmedieval Italian religious life is typical:"substantial sections of thirteenth-centurysociety hardly attended churchat all."The Dominicanprior Humbert of Romans in hishandbook On theTeaching of Preachers, Murray notes, advised his friars that "reaching the laity involvescatching them at marketsand tournaments, inships, and so on,"which Murrayinterprets as "a fairenough sign that they were not to be caughtin churches."Indeed, Humbert frankly acknowledged that the masses "rarely go to church,and [when they do attend]rarely to sermons;so theyknow little of what pertainsto theirsalvation." Finally, Humbert admitted that the regular wereso involvedin gambling,pleasure, and "worsethings," that they too "scarcelycome to church."In similarterms, Blessed Giordano of Rivalto reportedthat, upon arriving in Florenceto preach,he suggestedto a local womanthat she take her daughter to churchat leaston feastdays, only to be informedthat "It is not thecustom" (Murray 1972: 92-94). The anonymous Englishauthor of Dives and Pauper ([circa 14101 1976: 189) complainedthat "thepeople these days. . . areloath to hear God's Service. [And when they must attend]they come late and leave early. They would rather go to a tavernthan to HolyChurch."1 In about1430, St. Antonino (in Coulton1938: 192) wrote that

1 Mytranslation from Middle English.

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Tuscanpeasants seldom attend mass and that "very many of them do notconfess once a year,and farfewer are thosewho takecommunion. . . . Theyuse enchantmentsforthemselves and for their beasts . . beingignorant, and caring littlefor their own or for keeping God's commandments, which they know not."Antonino went on to blamemost of thison "thecarelessness and evil conscienceof their parish priests." In furthersupport of these reports, an extensivesurvey of surviving parish churchesin variousparts of Europe reveals them to be too smallto haveheld morethan a tinyfraction of local inhabitants(Brooke and Brooke1984). Indeed,it wasn't until the late middle ages that there even were more than a few parishchurches outside of the cities and larger towns (not counting the private chapelsmaintained for the local nobility), at a timewhen nearly everyone lived in ruralareas (Morris 1993). Moreover,as EamonDuffy noted, a largepercen- tageof whatrural parishes did existlacked a pastormuch of the time.He estimatedthat during the sixteenth century, for example, at least25 percentof theparishes in the Diocese of Strasbourg and up to 80 percentin the Diocese of Genevahad no clergy.To makematters worse, even wherethere was an assignedpastor, "Absenteeism was rife" (Duffy 1987: 88). The bishop'svisitation of 192parishes in Oxfordshireduring 1520 found 58 absentees(Coulton 1938: 156). Indeed,P.H. Sawyer(1982: 139) notedthat in northernEurope "Bishops whonever visited their sees were not unknown." Indeed, many such dioceses weregiven to papal proteges without any obligation to reside (Coulton 1938). That religiousparticipation was lackingeven in the citiesis not very surprisingwhen we realizethat going to churchin, say, the fifteenth century, requiredthe average person to standin an unheatedbuilding to heara service whichwas conducted entirely in incomprehensibleLatin by priests who may indeednot have beenspeaking Latin at all, butmany of whom were simply mumblingnonsense syllables. The VenerableBede ([7301 1955: 340) advisedthe futurebishop Egbert that because so fewEnglish priests and monksknew any Latin"I havefrequently offered translations ofboth the [Apostle's] and theLord's into English to manyunlearned priests." In 1222the Council of Oxforddescribed the parishclergy as "dumbdogs" (Coulton 1938: 157). Almosta thousandyears after Bede's efforts to teachclergy at leastthe Lord's Prayer,nothing had changed. William Tyndale noted in 1530that hardly any of thepriests and curatesin Englandknew the Lord's Prayer or could translate it intoEnglish. This was confirmedwhen in 1551 the Bishopof Gloucester systematicallytested his diocesan clergy. Of 311 pastors,171 could not repeat theTen Commandmentsand 27 didnot know the author of the Lord's Prayer (Thomas1971: 164). Indeed,the next year Bishop Hooper found "scores of parishclergy who could not tellwho was the author of the Lord's Prayer, or whereit was to be found"(Coulton 1938: 158). Across the channel, St. Vincent de Pauldiscovered in 1617that his localpriest knew no Latin,not even the wordsof absolution (Delumeau 1977). Similarly, in 1547Archbishop Giovanni

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Bovio,of the Brindisi-Oriadiocese in southernItaly, found that most of his priests"could barely read and couldnot understand Latin" (Gentilcore 1992: 42). Clericalignorance is not surprisingwhen we recognizethat "there were virtuallyno seminaries"and therefore most priests "learned rubrics" and a "smat- teringof Latin" as an apprenticeto "a priestwho had himselfhad littleor no training."In thefifteenth century, St.'Bernardino of Siena observeda priest "whoknew only the Hail Mary,and used it evenat theelevation of the Mass" (Duffy1987: 88). EamonDuffy (1992) has effectivelydemonstrated the ignor- anceof the parish clergy from the contents of the very first "primers" for clergy thatbegan to be distributedin thefourteenth and fifteenthcenturies. That booklets,most of them written in thelocal language rather than in Latinand preparedfor those who already were serving as clergy,were limited to themost elementaryaspects of doctrine and practice - forexample, simple lists of the sacramentsand of the sinsthat should be confessed- showsthat church officialsthought most serving clergy knew considerably less than a modern10- year-oldattending parochial school. Givensuch clerical ignorance, it is no wonderthat the masses knew next to nothingin termsof basic . The LateranCouncil of 1215,in additionto requiringall Catholicsto confessand to takecommunion at least once a yearduring the Easterseason, proposed that a massivecampaign of elementaryreligious instruction ofthe laity be undertaken.Thus, at theCouncil of Lambethin 1281,the Englishbishops responded by adopting the aim of teachingthe laity the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary,and the Apostle's Creed. Later thiswas expanded to includethe Ten Commandments,the Seven Works of Mercy,the Seven Sacraments, and the Seven Deadly Sins (Duffy 1992). Similar plansto catechize the laity were adopted throughout Europe. Despite these very modestgoals, it seems unlikely that many of the laity, other than members of the educatedelite, ever mastered these simple lessons - sinceso manypriests did not.As ColinMorris (1993: 232) putit, "Ignorance of the formal content of faithwas general." Morris then recounted an instanceof a villagepriest who managedto teachmany in his congregation to recite the "Our Father" in Latin, notingthat they had not the slightest idea of what it meant(possibly the priest didn'teither). Other examples come from investigations ofscores of incidents involvingreligious apparitions (mostly of Mary) in Spainduring the fourteenth andfifteenth centuries. These hearings revealed that most parishioners reporting suchvisions were ignorant of the Ten Commandmentsand theSeven Deadly Sins. It wasn'tmerely that they could not recitethem, but thatthey were entirelyignorant of theircontents. A typicalinstance involved a manwho claimedfrequent visions of Mary and who, during an interrogationin 1518, was askedif he knewthe Ten Commandmentsand the Seven Deadly Sins. "He said he didnot know any of these in whole or in part. . . . He wasasked if pride or envyor lust or killing a manor insulting someone with offensive words was a sin,

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 258 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION to eachof these he repliedthat he didnot know. He wasasked if theft was a sin, andhe saidthat, God preserveus, theft was a verygreat sin" (in Christian1981: 154). It mustbe notedtoo, that even when people back then did go to church theyoften did so unwillinglyand behaved very inappropriately while there. The eminenthistorian Keith Thomas not only noted that in latemedieval times "it is problematicalas to whethercertain sections of the population [of Britain] at thistime had any religion at all,"but "that many of those who did [go to church] wentwith considerable reluctance." When the common people did show up in church,often under compulsion, they so misbehaved"as to turn the service into a travestyof whatwas intended"according to Thomas.Presentations before ecclesiasticalcourts and scores of clerical memoirs report how "Members of the populationjostled for pews, nudged their neighbours, hawked and spat, knitted, madecoarse remarks, told jokes, fell asleep, and even let offguns." Church recordstell of a manin Cambridgeshirewho was charged with misbehaving in churchin 1598after his "most loathsome farting, striking, and scoffing speeches" hadresulted in "thegreat offence of the good and the great rejoicing of the bad" (Thomas1971: 159-162).A manwho issued loathsome farts in churchtoday surelywould not drawcheers from part of the congregationin any British church,even if he accompaniedhis efforts with scoffing speeches. An additionalsign of the times was that people often did gather regularly andeagerly within churches, but to conductentirely unreligious activities. The Archbishopof Florence denounced the Tuscan peasants of his diocese because "in the churchesthemselves they sometimes dance and leap and singwith women"(in Coulton1938: 193). Indeed,through the centuries there was a constantflow of complaintsand threatsdirected toward local parishes,and, oftenenough even toward those in chargeof cathedrals, to ceaseusing them primarilyfor indoor marketplaces and forstorage of cropsand sheltering livestock.For example,between 1229 and 1367 in Englandalone therewere elevenepiscopal "fulminat(tions) against holding markets . . . in churches" (Coulton1938: 189). Summingup his surveyof popularreligion in thirteenth-centuryItaly, AlexanderMurray (1972: 83) disputed"the notion of an Age ofFaith." Instead, he pointedout (1972: 106), 'The friars[of that era] were not typical figures in a freakishage, but,morally, freakish figures in a typicalage. Theirmendicant life was a lastingwonder to contemporaries.They werea smallminority: OVirgins arefew, martyrs are few, preachers are few,'said Fra Giordano." To be sure,there were periodic explosions of massreligious enthusiasm in medievaltimes as new sectarianmovements - includingthe Waldensians and the Albigensians- attractedlarge followings (Lambert 1992). However,as I have clarifiedelsewhere, such outburstsare not to be expectedwhere conven- tional religiousorganizations are strong,but onlywhere religious apathy and alienationare widespread(Stark 1996a, 1996b). That is, religiousrebellions

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 259 duringmedieval times offer additional testimony against images of widespread involvementin . As Europepassed out of medieval times, religious participation seems not to haveimproved - however, the statistics onreligious behavior do. Someof the bestof these can be found in the reports written byvarious Anglican bishops andarchbishops following lengthy visitation trips to their parishes. Thus the Oxforddiocesan visitations report that 30 parishesin Oxfordshiredrew a combinedtotalof 911 communicants in1738, based on the four "Great Festivals" - Easter,Ascension, Whitsun, and Christmas. This turnout amounted tofar lessthan five percent of the total population ofthese parishes taking com- munionduring a given year. Other visitation reports yield similarly low rates of participationincommunion over the remainder ofthe eighteenth century (Currieet al. 1977).Indeed, Peter Laslett (1965) reported that only 125 of 400 adultsin a particularEnglish village took Easter communion late in the eighteenthcentury and went on to note"much smaller attendances" inother villages.Incredibly, Laslett uses these data to demonstrate theunanimity offaith in thisera - thetitle of his book is Theworld we have losL2 Were these twentieth-centurystatistics, they would be cited routinely as proof of massive secularization. Ifwe use 1800 as thebenchmark, then church membership inBritain is substantiallyhigher today. In 1800,only 12 percent ofthe British population belongedtoa specificreligious congregation. Thisrose to 17 percent in 1850 andthen stabilized - thesame percentage belonged in 1990(Stark and lannaccone1995). In his remarkable reconstruction ofreligious participation in theBritish communities ofOldham and Saddleworth, MarkSmith (1996) found therehad been no change between 1740 and 1865 - a periodof intensive industrialization.As will be noted,Laurence lannaccone (1996) has recon- structeda time series that does show a modestdecline in church attendance in Britainduring the twentieth century. This finding isoffset both by the lack of similardeclines inmost other European nations, aswell as by studies suggesting recentincreases inchurch participation inlower-class, British, urban neigh- borhoodswhich had long been notable for their very low rates of attendance (G. Smith1996). The "market" theory of religiousness developed in myearlier publications(Stark 1985, 1998b; Stark and lannaccone 1993, 1994; Finke and Stark1988, 1992) is compatible with religious variation: with increases aswell as decreasesinreligiousness, indeed its usual prediction isfor relatively stable levels of religiouscommitment in societies.In contrast,the secularization thesis is incompatiblewith either stability orincrease: itrequires a general, long-trm patternof religious decline. It makesno provisionfor reports such as thatof GabrielLa Bras(1963) that French Catholics today participate more willingly andfrequently, withfar greater comprehension ofwhat they are doing, than was

2 He alsowrote (p.7) that "All our ancestors were literal Christian believers, all ofthe time."

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 260 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION thecase 200 years ago. The evidenceis clear that claimsabout a majordecline in religious participationin Europe are based in part on veryexaggerated perceptions ofpast religiousness.Participation may be lowtoday in manynations, but not because of modernization;therefore the secularizationthesis is irrelevant.But, what about veryrecent times, maybe the secularizationtheorists simply were prematurein theirpredictions? As mentioned,Laurence lannaccone (1996) has been able to use surveydata to reconstructchurch attendance rates for 18 nations(most of them European) beginning in 1920.In 15 ofthe 18 nations Jannacconecould detect no trendseven vaguelyconsistent with the secularizationthesis: only in EastGermany, , and Great Britain did he observedownward trends that could possiblybe claimedas supportfor secularization,and the British trend may already have been reversed, while the declines in Slovenia and East Germanybegan withthe impositionof Communistregimes. Littlewonder, then, that historians have longexpressed dismay at "un- historicallyminded sociologists" for clinging to themyth of Europe's lost piety, complainingthat "not enough justice has beendone to thevolume of apathy, heterodoxy,and agnosticismthat existed long before the onsetof industri- alization"(Thomas 1971: 173). For,as AndrewGreeley (1995: 63) put it so crisply,"There could be no de-ChristianizationofEurope . . . becausethere neverwas any Christianizationin the firstplace. ChristianEurope never existed."

THE FAILURE TO CHRISTIANIZE

Thisraises a mostsignificant question: Why wasn't the Christianization of Europeaccomplished? At thestart of thefourth century Christianity was an immensemass movement sweeping over the Roman Empire, and by the middle ofthe century a majority of the population probably had been converted (Stark 1996a).What happened then? The failureof the early church to Christianize theouter reaches of the empire and the rest of Europe is entirely in keeping with the marketmodel of religiousness(Stark 1985; Stark and lannaccone1994; Stark1998b). The Christianitythat triumphed over Rome was a masssocial movementin a highlycompetitive environment. The Christianitythat subse- quentlyleft most of Europe only nominally converted, at best,was an estab- lished,subsidized, state church that soughtto extenditself, not through missionizingthe population, but by baptizing kings (Davies 1996: 275) andthen canonizingthem as nationalsaints (Vauchez 1997). That is,the Christianity thatprevailed in Europewas an elaboratepatchwork of statechurches that settledfor the allegiance of the elite and for imposing official requirements for conformity,but that made little sustained effort to Christianizethe peasant masses(Duffy 1987; Greeley 1995). Thus, it isn'tmerely that the state churches

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 261 ofScandinavia and northern Europe currently lack the motivation and energy to filltheir churches, they have always been like this. The 'Christianization"of a Norsekingdom, for example, often involved little more than the baptism of the nobilityand legalrecognition of the ecclesiastical sovereignty ofthe church. Thisleft the task of missionizing the masses to a "kept"clergy whose welfare was almostentirely independent ofmass assent or support, with a predictablelack of results. Indeed,corruption and sloth, as wellas powerstruggles and enforcedcon- formity,became prominent features of the Christian movement in thefourth century,almost immediately upon its having become the official state church (Johnson1976). Contrary to receivedwisdom, the conversion of Constantine did notcause the triumph of Christianity. Rather, it wasthe first and most significantstep in slowing its , draining its vigor, and distorting itsmoral vision.Most of the evils associated with European Christianity since the middle ofthe fourth century can be tracedto establishment. The "conversion"of Scandinaviais instructive.Denmark was the first "Christian"nation in thenorth, as a successionof kings accepted, rejected, or wereindifferent to Christianity, culminating in the ascensionof thedevout Christian,Knut the Great, in 1016 (Sawyer1982; Roesdahl 1980; Jones 1968; Br0ndsted1965). This now is regardedas the "official"date of the ChristianizationofDenmark. However, most historians do notequate this with theChristianization ofthe Danish people, writing instead that this followed only"gradually" (Br0ndsted 1965: 310) andnoting that the conversions of the monarchswere "[niever the result of popular demand" (Sawyer 1982: 139). Nextcame the "Christianization" ofNorway. Olaf Tryggvason, an English- educated,Christian convert, seized the throne of Norway in 995 whereuponhe attemptedto covertthe country by force, killing some who resisted and burning theirestates. These and other repressive measures aroused sufficient opposition to defeathim in theBattle of Svolder (about the year 1000) during which he died.Fifteen years later, Olaf Haraldsson, who had beenbaptized in France, conqueredNorway, and he too usedfire and swordin an effortto compel Christianization.And he tooprovoked widespread hatred leading to rebellion, and wasdriven into exile. When he attemptedto returnleading a newarmy raisedin Kiev,he wasdefeated and killed at theBattle of Stikklestad in 1030. Despitethis, he soon was canonizedas St. Olaf and is creditedwith the Christianizationof Norway, which seems to have consistedprimarily of the reimpositionofOlaf's official policies of intolerance (Sawyer 1982; Jones 1968). The conversionof Icelandfollowed a somewhatsimilar pattern as both NorwegianOlafs successively extended their efforts at forcedconversion upon theircolony. At a meetingof theAlthing in 1000the Icelanders yielded to Norwegianpressure by adoptingthe "thatall people shouldbecome Christianand thosewho here in the land wereyet unbaptized should be baptized."But, the law readon: "peoplemight to the old godsin

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 262 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION private"(Byock 1988:142). Although subsequently was outlawed, aspectsof paganismstill linger among Icelanders, and theirChristianization neverresulted in more than the most minimal participation inthe church. The Swedishcourt remained pagan into the twelfth century, and Finland remainedofficially pagan until the thirteenth (Sawyer 1982; Br0ndsted 1965). It seemsrevealing as to thelack of effort to Christianizethe general population thatno missionarieswere even sentto the Lappsuntil the middleof the sixteenthcentury (Baldwin 1900). In reality,it is not clearwhen popular paganismactually began to wanein Scandinaviaand, as in thecase of Iceland, thereis reasonto supposeit neverdid entirely disappear (Sawyer and Sawyer 1993). The famousChristian to Scandinavia,Adam of Bremen, wroteat lengthof ceremonies (including human ) conducted in the luxuriouspagan temple of Uppsala () during the eleventh century (Jones 1968;Br0ndsted 1965). Indeed,it seemsto havebeen typical for the Norse to "convert"by including Christ and various Christian saints (especially Olaf) into thepagan . Thus, it waswritten in theIcelandic Landnumabok that Helgithe Lean "was very mixed in his faith; he believedin Christ,but invoked Thorin mattersof seafaringand direnecesssity" (in Br0ndsted1965: 306). JohannesBr0ndsted (1965: 307) notedthat "a changeof gods at thesummit of societymight occur easily enough; but lower down on thescale therewas a naturalresistance." Indeed, Br0ndstedsuggests that the conversionof Scandinaviaoccurred "only . . . whenChristianity took over old [pagan] superstitionsand useages and allowed them to liveunder a newguise." Thus, the popularChristianity that eventually emerged was a strangeamalgam, including a greatdeal in theway of pagan traditions and celebrations,some of them only thinlyChristianized (Davies 1996).Consequently, as AndrewGreeley (1996: 66) haspointed out, Christian commitment was never deep enough in northern Europeto generatemuch mass attendance, nor "deep enough to survivechanges in the religiousaffiliation of their political leaders during the Reformation, sometimesback and forth across denominational lines." Bothof Greeley's points are easily demonstrated quantitatively. I began with the 16 nationsof westernEurope.3 For each, I calculatedthe numberof centuriessince their supposed Christianization (20 minusthe century), with valuesranging from 16 forItaly down to 7 forFinland (Davies 1996;Barrett 1982; Sawyer1982; Roesdahl1980; Shepherd 1980; Jones 1968; Br0ndsted 1965). This variableis basedon the assumptionthat the morerecent the Christianization,themore superficial. Turning to the1990-1991 World Values Surveys,I created a variablebased on therate of church attendance. As would be predicted,the duration of Christianization isextremely highly correlated with

3 (Centuryof supposed Christianization) Austria (9), Belgium(7), Denmark(11), Finland (13), France (6), Germany(9), GreatBritain (9), Iceland(11), Ireland(5), Italy(4), Netherlands(8), Norway(11), Portugal(4), Spain(4), Sweden(12), and Switzerland (8).

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 263 contemporaryrates of church attendance (.72). In similarfashion, the most plausiblemeasure of participationin the Reformation(since some of these modernnations include many areas thatwere independent states in the sixteenthcentury) is thepercent Catholic, which I tookfrom the 1996 Catholic Almanac.Again, as predicted,this variable is veryhighly correlated (.89) with theduration of Christianization.

SUBJECTIVERELIGIOUSNESS

SteveBruce of the University of Aberdeen has longbeen one ofthe most die-hardproponents of the secularization thesis. Recently, even he admitted that,in terms of organized participation, the Golden Age of Faith never existed. Indeed,Bruce (1997: 674) proposesthat the medievalchurch was noteven especiallyconcerned to bringthe people to massas "ivasclear from the very architectureofchurches and forms of service." But, rather than giving up on the secularizationthesis, Bruce now claimsthat the GoldenAge of medieval religiousnesswas subjective, that people strongly embraced supernatural beliefs, Christianor otherwise.Put another way, Bruce now claims that even ifthe medievalmasses seldom went to church,most people in thisera still must be regardedas religiousbecause they believed. I agree.Certainly most people in medievaltimes seem to have held religious beliefs, even if these were somewhat vagueand includedas muchmagic and animismas Christianity,and thus throughbelief, if not through practice, these were religious societies (cf., Duffy 1992),keeping in mindthat a substantialproportion of medieval populations did nottake their religious beliefs very seriously. Nor mustwe forgetthat a significantnumber, probably about the same as today,rejected religious beliefs. As FranklinBaumer (1960: 99) putit, "Contraryto popularsupposition there wasplenty of scepticism in theMiddle Ages, and some of it wasquite radical." Judgingfrom the prevalence of blasphemous graffiti on thewalls of Pompeii, the samemust be saidof the Greco-Roman era (MacMullen 1981; Stark 1996a). Nevertheless,I too assumethat belief was widespread, and I interpretthe prevalenceof religious beliefs as representinga potential demand for organized religionin thesesocieties - a potentialin thesense that it awaited activation bysuch aggressive suppliers as theWaldensians. However, rather than restoring a benchmarkof past piety against which to demonstratethe secularization of modern-dayEurope, the same observation applies with equal force today. That is, whilerates of religious participation are far lower in Europethan in theUnited States,differences are small when comparisons are based on subjectivemeasures offaith (Stark and lannaccone 1994; Stark 1998a). Mycolleagues and I arehardly the first to noticethis phenomenon. There is a substantialBritish research literature on whatGrace Davie (1990a,1990b, 1994) refersto as "believingwithout belonging." In a recentaddition to this literature,Michael Winter and Christopher Short (1993: 635, 648) summedup:

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'What is clear is thatmost surveys of religiousbelief in northernEurope demonstratecontinuing high levels of beliefin God and someof the more generaltenets of the Christian faith but rather low levels of church attendance." Theyadd that their research has "revealed a relatively, and perhaps surprisingly, lowlevel of secularization" - andperhaps for that reason their work has not beenmuch cited by other European social scientists. But it is true,nonetheless: subjectivereligiousness remains high in the nations most often cited as examples ofsecularization, places where it isclaimed that people have outgrown religion forgood. It seems useful to examine one case in greater detail. BecauseIceland has been proposedas the firstfully (or nearlyfully) secularizednation on earth(cf., Tomasson 1980), it seemsan appropriatetest case.The claimthat Iceland is extremelysecularized is taken as self-evidenton thebasis of its empty churches - about2 percentattend weekly. Nevertheless, on thebasis of extensive fieldwork, William Swatos (1984) reportedhigh levels ofin-the-home religion in Icelandtoday, high rates of baptism, that nearly all weddingsoccur in church,and that"affirmations ofpersonal immortality are typical"in newspaperobituaries, which usually are written by a closefriend of thedeceased rather than by a newswriter.It is hardlysurprising, therefore, that the 1990World Values Surveys report that 81 percentof Icelandersexpress confidencethat there is lifeafter death, 88 percentsay they believe humans havea ,and 40 percentbelieve in reincarnation.And whenasked '"How oftendo youpray to God outsideof religiousservices?" 82 percentsaid they prayedsometimes, and one offour said they did so "often."Moreover, only 2.4 percentof the population of Iceland say they are "convinced atheists." Surely thisis notwhat usually is meantby a "secularizedsociety." Moreover, that 4 in 10 believein reincarnationserves to remindus thatthe secularization theory neverhas been limitedto Christianity;all beliefsin the supernaturalare pertinentand evena massiveshift from belief in Jesusto theworship of the goddessKali wouldnot constitute secularization. It is worthnoting, therefore, thatspiritualism also is extremelywidespread in Iceland,popular even among leadingintellectuals and academics (Swatos and Gissurarson 1997). In lightof thesedata, claims that Iceland is thefirst secularized nation seem as fatuousas do theclaims, once so popularamong western leftists, that true Communism was beingachieved in under Mao's leadership.

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Ifsecularization isto show up anywhere itmust show up among scientists! In an earlierstudy, my colleagues and I examinedevidence that the conflict betweenreligion and scienceis largelyfictional and thatscientists are not notablyirreligious, being as likelyto attend church as isthe general public. Even morerevealing is thefact that among American academics, the proportion who regardthemselves as religiousis higherthe morescientific their field. For

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 265 example,physical and natural scientists, including mathematicians, aremore thantwice as likelyto identifythemselves as "a religiousperson" as are anthropologistsand psychologists(Stark et al. 1996,1998). But,aren't some scientistsmilitant atheists who write books to discreditreligion - Richard Dawkinsand Carl Sagan, for example? Of course. But, it also is worth note that mostof those, like Dawkins and Sagan, are marginal tothe scientific community forlack of significant scientific work. Aid possiblyeven more important isthe factthat theologians (cf., Cupitt 1997) and professors ofreligious studies (cf., Mack1996) are a farmore prolific source of popular works of atheism. Recently,quite amazing time series data on thebeliefs of scientists were publishedin Nature.In 1914the American psychologist James Lueba sent questionnairestoa random sample of persons listed in American Men of Science. Eachwas asked to selectone of the following statements "concerning belief in God"(all italics in the original):

1. I believein a God to whomone may pray in the expectation of receiving an answer.By "answer,"I mean more than the subjective, psychological effect ofprayer. 2. I do notbelieve in God as deinedabove. 3. I haveno definite belief regarding this question.

Leuba'sstandard for belief in God is so stringent itwould exclude a substantial portionof"mainline" clergy, and that obviously was intentional onhis part.4 He wantedto show that men of science were irreligious. To his dismay, Leuba found that41.8 percent of his sample of prominent scientists selected option one, therebytaking a positionmany would regard as "fundamentalist."Another 41.5 percentselected the second option (many of whom, as Leubaacknowledged, no doubtbelieved in a somewhatless active deity), and 16.7percent took the indefinitealternative. Clearly, these results were not what Leuba had expected andhoped. So he gavegreat emphasis to the fact that, as measured,believers werenot in the majority and went on to express his faith in the future, claiming thatthese data demonstrated a rejection of"fundamental dogmas - a rejection apparentlydestined to extend parallel with the diffusion ofknowledge" (1916: 280). In 1996Edward J.Larson and Larry Witham (1997) replicated Leuba's study exactly.They found that nowadays 39.3 percent of eminent scientists selected optionone, which is not significantly different from the 41.8 percent who did so in1914. This time 45.3 percent chose option two, and 14.5 percent took option three.Thus, over an 82-yearperiod, there has been no decline in a veryliteral

4 In a 1968sample of Protestant clergy in , only 45 percentof pastors of the United Church of Christcould agree "I knowGod reallyexists and I haveno doubtsabout it" (Stark et al. 1971).Of Methodist clergy,52 percentagreed. Notice that this item is much less stringent than the one used by Leuba since clergy werefree to define God as theywished. Given that the majority ofthese same clergy doubted the divinity of Jesus,one must suppose that many of them asserted their beliefs in a ratherremote and vague conception of God,not one who hears and answers .

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 266 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION beliefin God among scientists. Secularization, indeed!

EASTERN REVIVALS

The collapseof Soviet Communism had manyremarkable consequences, notthe least of which was to revealthe abject failure of several generations of dedicatedefforts to indoctrinateatheism in easternEurope and the former SovietUnion. As AndrewGreeley (1994: 253) putit, "Never before in human historyhas there been such a concertedeffort to stampout not merely a religion, butall traceof religion. . . . AtheisticCommunism thought of itself as pushing forwardthe inevitableprocess of secularizationin whichreligion would disappearfrom the face of the earth - a processwhich, in perhaps milder form, isan articleof faith for many dogmatic social scientists." And the results?Atheists are few,not moreprevalent than in western Europeor, indeed, in theUnited States. In mostof these countries the majority pray,and by 1990 church attendance already had recovered to levelscomparable to westernEurope. Moreover, church attendance continues to rise,as do other formsof religiousness. In Hungary, for example, monthly church attendance rose from16 percentin 1981to 25 percentin 1991,while the percent attending less thanonce a yearfell from 62 percentto 44 percent.Meanwhile, the percent of Hungarianswho said they were "convinced atheists" fell from 14 to 4. In Russia, 53 percentof respondents said they were not religious in 1991.In onlyfive years thisfell to 37 percent. Byany measure, major religious revivals are underwayduring these early daysof the post-Communist erain the old Soviet bloc. This seems to have taken mostsocial scientists entirely by surprise (as haveall recentsigns of religious vitality).As MaryDouglas pointed out as longago as 1982:

No one,however, foresaw the recent revivals of traditional religious forms.... According to an extensiveliterature, religious change in moderntimes happens in onlytwo ways - the fallingoff of traditional Christian churches [or whatever the traditional religious expressions ofa society],and the appearance of new , not expected to endure.No onecredited the traditionalreligions with enough vitality to inspirelarge-scale political revolt . . . the explicitlyCatholic uprising in Poland,which evokes deep Western admiration, was as unpredictedas the rise of the fundamentalist churches in America.

It wouldbe needlesslyvindictive for me to quotevarious social scientists who once werecertain that "enlightened"educators in "socialist"nations were "freeingchildren" from the gripof superstitionand launchinga new era of permanentsecularity. But, my will-power does not go so faras toprevent a bit of crowing,hence I quotea paperI initiallypresented at a conferencein 1979:

[Slecularstates cannot root out religion, and ... to theextent that they try to rootit out, theywill be vulnerable to religiousopposition.... Lenin's body may be displayedunder glass, butno one supposesthat he hasascended to siton theright hand, or even the left hand, of

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Marx.And, dams along the Volga do notlight up themeaning of the universe. Moreover, repressivestates seem to increaselevels of individual deprivation and, in so doing,to fuel the religiousimpulse. In makingfaith more costly, they also make it more necessary and valuable. Perhapsreligion isnever so robustas whenit is an undergroundchurch (Stark 1981: 175).

Andso it was.

ISLAM

The evidenceexamined thus far has been limitedto Christiannations. Now let us shiftto religioustrends in . In extraordinarycontradiction to the secularizationdoctrine, there seems to be a profoundcompatibility ofthe Islamic faithand modernization- severalstudies from quite different parts of the world suggestthat Muslim commitment increases with modernization! In a studyof Muslimsin Java,Joseph Tamney (1979, 1980) foundthat religiouscommitment was positivelycorrelated with education and with occupationalprestige. That is, people who had attendedcollege and/orheld highstatus occupations were substantially more likely to praythe requiredfive timesa day,to give alms,and to fastin accordwith orthodox Islamic practice thanwere Muslims with little education and/or low statusoccupations. Tamney also recognizedthat his findingsimplied that Muslim practice would increase as modernizationproceeded. In a subsequentwork, Tamney (1992) has analyzed the "resilience"of religion,how it has been able to adjust to challengesof modernity. A studyof the leading Muslim"fundamentalist" movement in Pakistan foundthat the leadersare highlyeducated (all havingadvanced degrees), and supportersof the movementare drawnoverwhelmingly from "the new middle class"(Ahmad 1991). This is confirmedby data on Turkishstudents based on an actual time series. Since 1978 therehas been a remarkableincrease in the proportionof studentsat the Universityof Ankara who hold orthodoxIslamic beliefs,and in 1991 the overwhelmingmajority of studentsheld theseviews. Thus, in 1978, 36 percentof studentsexpressed firm belief that "thereis a Heaven and a Hell," while in 1991 three-fourthsheld thisview. As Kayhan Mutlu(1996: 355) explained,faith in "theessential elements of Islamic beliefs is becomingwidespread among the universitystudents i.e., the prospectiveelites, in Ankara."These studentsare thefuture political and intellectualleaders of the nation,including its futurescientists and engineers.Moreover, Turkey is, by mostmeasures, the mostmodernized of Islamicnations and, beginningin the 1920s,experienced decades of official state and semi-officialirreligion, althoughthese policies have wanedin recenttimes (for reasons entirely clear in thedata). Of course,these Islamic data are fragmentary.On the other hand, no informedobserver even needs data such as these to detect the thunderous

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 268 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION vitalityof contemporary Islam and to realizethat it is in directproportion to modernization.

ASIAN "FOLK' RELIGIONS

FollowingWorld War 11, all observersexpected rapid and profound religious changesin Asianreligions, especially in Japanand in therapidly westernizing Chinese enclaves,such as in Taiwan,Hong Kong,and Malaysia. More specifically,it was assumedthat the traditional,and highlymagical, "folk" religionsfound in thesesettings would rapidly give way to modernity(Chen 1995;Tan 1994).Summing up the scholarly consensus, John Nelson (1992: 77) notedthat " religious practices would seem a highlylikely candidate for extinctionwithin Japan's high-tech consumer society." But, that's not what happened.In Taiwantoday, there are proportionately more folk temples than therewere a centuryago, and a largerproportion of thepopulation (about 70 percent)frequent these temples than ever before (Chen 1995).In HongKong, traditionalChinese also flourishes, with the Temple of Wong Tai Sin,"a refugeegod" imported from China in 1915,having the largest following (Langand Ragvald 1993). In Malaysia,the "continues to thrive"(Tan 1994:274). Meanwhile,in Japan, Shinto is veryvigorous (Nelson 1992). In all fourcontexts an "oldfashioned," traditional faith has provedso adaptableas tocome to be seenas especiallysuitable for modern life. That is, folk religiondoes not lingeramong elderly, uneducated peasants, but flourishes amongthe young, successful, educated urbanites (Chen 1995;Tan 1994;Lang and Ragvold1993; Nelson 1992). Consequently, in Japan"it is commonplace thatnew cars be blessedat a [Shinto]shrine, that new residences, offices, or factoriesbe builtafter exorcism ceremonies purify and calmthe landand its deity,that children are dedicatedthere" (Nelson 1992: 77). Indeed,Shinto ritualsseem to play a moreprominent role in Japan today than in the pre-World WarII days,back when the Emperor was thought to be divineand Shinto was the statereligion. That Shintowas strengthenedby beingdisestablished is entirelyin accord with the market theory of religion.

WHAT ABOUT CHANGE?

RecentlyI spoke to a groupof Christian historians, some of whom found it verydifficult to acceptthat secularization is not far along. One mentionedthat religiousnessrose precipitously in Germany in thelatter half of the nineteenth centuryonly to fallsubstantially in the twentieth. Another went on at length aboutdoctrinal changes over the past several centuries, and another chided me forfailing to seesecularization in the decline in beliefin witchcraft. I had some difficultyin seeing how some of this related to thesecularization thesis until I realizedthat these remarks came from people who somehow believed that this

This content downloaded from 134.139.29.9 on Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:27:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SECULARIZATION,R.I.P. 269 articleproposes that there is no suchthing as religiouschange! Of course, religionchanges. Of course,there is morereligious participation and even greaterbelief in the supernatural at some times and places than in others, just as religiousorganizations have more secular power in some times and places than in others.Of course,doctrines change - Aquinaswas not Augustine, and both wouldfind heresy in the work of Avery Dulles. But change does not equate with decline!If next year everyone in Canadabecame a piousHindu this could have manyinterpretations, butsecularization would not be among them. Indeed, what is neededis a bodyof theory to explainreligious variation, to tell us whenand whyvarious aspects of religiousness rise and fall, or are stable (Stark 1998b). In thatregard, the secularization theory is as uselessas a hotelelevator that only goesdown.

CONCLUSION

Letme emphasize that no one can prove that one day religion will not wither away.Perhaps the day will come when religion has been relegated to memory andmuseums. Ifso, however, this will not have been caused by modernization, andthe demise of faith will bear no resemblancetothe process postulated by the secularizationdoctrine. Therefore, once and forall, let us declarean end to socialscientific faith in thetheory of secularization, recognizing that it wasthe productof wishfulthinking. As a requiem,I offerfinal remarks by three distinguishedscholars: an anthropologist,then a medievalhistorian, and finally bya sociologist. MaryDouglas (1982: 29) hasargued forcefully and persuasively against the secularizationdoctrine as having"been constructed to flatterprejudged ideas" whichwill need to be discarded"when religious sociology modernizes." It simply is nottrue, Douglas notes, that modern life contrasts sharply with life in simple societieswhen it comesto the prevalenceof religiousbelief. With Clifford Geertz(1966), she recognizesthat unbelief is notuncommon in pre-literate societiesor, indeed, in Old Testament times:

Uncriticalnostalgia for past ages of faith being out of place in , let us note at once thatthere is no goodevidence that a highlevel of had generallybeen reachedby the mass of mankind in past times.... Nor does (] teach that modem timesshow a declinefrom ancient standards ofpiety.

AlexanderMurray (1972: 106), havingdemonstrated that the original sourcesare nearly unanimous in theiradmission of widespread irreligiousness in medievaltimes, asked from whence came the notion of the Age ofFaith. He concluded:

Thescientific enlightenment wastempted to conceive faith not as a virtue,but as an original sin,from which the Messiah of knowledge came to rescue it. Itfollows from that view that, in

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theolden days, men must have believed all theChurch told them. This paper has triedto shakethe historical part of that conception.

Andfinally, Peter Berger (1997: 974):

I thinkwhat I andmost other sociologists ofreligion wrote in the 1960s about secularization wasa mistake.Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go handin hand.With more modernization comes more secularization. It wasn't a crazytheory. There wassome evidence for it. But I thinkit's basically wrong. Most of the world today is certainly notsecular. It's very religious.

Afternearly three centuries of utterlyfailed prophesies and misrepresen- tationsof bothpresent and past,it seemstime to carrythe secularization doctrineto thegraveyard offailed , and thereto whisper "requiescat in pace."

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