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Secularization, R.I.P. Author(s): Rodney Stark Source: Sociology of Religion, 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 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and Association for the Sociology of Religion, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sociology of Religion. http://www.jstor.org 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 Secularization,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] theory," 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 Faith. 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 societies showing that not even the highly magical"folk religions" 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 intellectuals havebeen promising the end of religion. Each generation has beenconfident thatwithin another few decades, or possibly a bit longer, humans will "outgrow" beliefin the supernatural.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 modernity would have triumphed over faith. Writing in about 1710,he expressedhis confidencethat Christianity 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 society was outgrowing the "theological stage" of social evolutionand a newage wasdawning in whichthe science 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 gods 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 Sigmund Freud 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 the overallprocess is not volatile.If secularization is the resultof 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 education.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 Jesus, implausible and would limit themselvesto the minimalistconception of God sustainedby Unitarians.What mostconcerned Engels were not bishops,but the religious "fantasies"of the masses.Freud wrote about religious illusions,
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  • Bibliography

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