Why Didn't Religion Disappear?
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Titel Why Didn’t Religion Disappear? Re-examining the Secularization Thesis By Ronald Inglehart Seminal thinkers of the 19th century from Marx and Weber, to Durkheim and Zusammenfassung Freud, predicted that religion would cease to be significant with the emergence Mehr Religiosität weltweit of industrial society. In recent years however, this thesis has experienced a sus- tained challenge. Critics claim it is time to bury the secularization thesis. Mit der Modernisierung von Gesell- schaften schwindet die Überlebens- It would be premature to do so. The critique relies too heavily on selected fähigkeit von Religionen, die durch anomalies and focuses too heavily on the United States (a striking deviant case) einen höheren Lebensstandard und rather than comparing systematic evidence across the full range of societies. das Aufkommen des Wohlfahrts- staats an Attraktivität einbüßen. This study draws on a massive base of new evidence generated by the four Aber die säkularisierten reichen Na- waves of the World Values Survey/European Values Survey, which has carried tionen machen einen immer kleiner out representative national surveys in eighty societies, covering all of the werdenden Anteil der gesamten world’s major faiths and including 85 percent of the world’s population. The Weltbevölkerung aus. Daher surveys in Germany and a number of ex-communist societies were directed by wächst weltweit die Zahl jener Hans-Dieter Klingemann of the WZB, with whom the author has worked Menschen, für die Religion bedeut- closely since 1974. sam ist. It is obvious that religion has not disappeared from the world, nor does it seem likely to do so. Nevertheless, the concept of secularization captures an impor- tant part of what is going on. This article presents a revised version of secular- ization theory that emphasizes the extent to which people have a sense of ex- istential security – that is, the feeling that survival can be taken for granted. The feeling that survival is uncertain has shaped the lives of most people throughout most of history, and the need for a sense of reassurance in a highly uncertain world, has been a key factor underlying the mass appeal of religion. As this need diminishes, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs tends to occur. The need for a sense of assurance in face of existential insecurity is not the only motivation underlying religion. Throughout history, philosophers and theologians have turned to religion in seeking answers to the meaning of life. But for the vast majority of the popu- lation, the prime appeal of religion was that it helped them cope with existential insecurity. During the 20th century in nearly all post-industrial nations church attendance has declined markedly. The United States remains exceptional, showing much higher rates of church attendance, and higher emphasis on religion, than is found in almost any other advanced industrial society (though ranking far be- low most pre-industrial societies). Theories of Secularization But despite clear evidence of secularization in rich nations, the world as a whole has not become less religious. Two things are true: (1) The publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving to- ward more secular orientations during the past fifty years. Nevertheless, (2) the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before – and they constitute a growing proportion of the world’s popula- tion. Though these two propositions may initially seem contradictory, they are not, as we will demonstrate. The idea that the rise of a rational worldview has undermined the foundations of faith in the supernatural, the mysterious, and the magical predated Weber, WZB-Mitteilungen Heft 105 September 2004 7 but was strongly influenced by his work. Leading sociologists advanced the ra- tionalist argument farther during the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that the rise of science and technology rendered the central claims of the Church implausible in modern societies, blowing away the vestiges of superstitious dogma. Weber viewed the mysterious as something to be conquered by human reason. The dazzling achievements of medicine, engineering, and mathematics – and the material products generated by the rise of modern capitalism, technology, and manufacturing industry during the 19th century – reinforced the idea of mankind’s control of nature. The division of church and state, and the rise of secular-rational bureaucratic states and representative governments, displaced the rule of spiritual leaders, ecclesiastical institutions, and hereditary rulers claiming authority from God. According to Weber, industrialization brought the fragmentation of the life- world, the decline of community, the rise of bureaucracy, and technological con- sciousness – all of which made religion less arresting and less plausible than it had been in pre-modern societies. But if a rational worldview generates wide- spread skepticism about the existence of God, then those societies which ex- press most confidence in science might be expected to prove least religious; in fact, as data from the World Values Survey demonstrates, exactly the opposite is true: today, the advanced industrial societies in which secularization is most advanced, show the lowest levels of confidence in science and technology – far lower than those found in low-income societies. Moreover, the Weberian interpretation emphasizes cognitive factors that tend to be irreversible and universal: the spread of scientific knowledge does not dis- appear in times of crisis or economic downturn. If it were the dominant cause of secularization, we would not expect to find fluctuations in religiosity linked with varying levels of security – but we do. A related explanation for secularization was offered by Durkheim’s theory of functional differentiation in industrialized societies. By the 1950s this perspec- tive had become the predominant sociological view. Functionalists argue that religion is not simply a system of beliefs and ideas; it is also a system of rituals and ceremonies that help sustain social cohesion and stability. But in industrialized societies specialized professionals and organizations, dedi- cated to healthcare, education, social control, politics, and welfare, replaced most of the tasks once carried out by religious organizations. Stripped of their core social purposes, religious institutions play greatly diminished roles. If this thesis is correct, one would expect that religion should have declined most in affluent societies that have developed extensive welfare states, such as in Swe- den, the Netherlands and France – and indeed much of the evidence is consist- ent with this account. Yet in recent decades growing numbers of critics have expressed reservations about the core claims of the functionalist interpretation, pointing to a resur- gence of religiosity evident in the success of Islamic movements and parties, the popularity of Evangelicalism in Latin America, ethno-religious bloodshed in Ni- geria. Traditional secularization theory is now widely challenged and the sup- ply-side school of rational choice theorists that emerged in the early 1990s, has become the most popular alternative. This school assumes that the public’s de- mand for religion is constant, and focuses on how conditions of religious free- Religion will not disappear through- dom, and the work of competing religious institutions, actively generate its out the world. Rather, the world as “supply”. a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever Religion Important in Agrarian Societies before – and they constitute a growing proportion of the world’s The earlier view was that pluralism eroded religious faith, destroying the un- population. Economic development questioned power of a single pervasive theological faith, sowing the seeds of reduces the need for religion but skepticism and doubt. Drawing on the analogy of firms struggling for custom- rich societies contain a dwindling ers in the economic market, supply-side theory assumes the opposite. Its core share of the world’s population. proposition is that vigorous competition between religious denominations has 8 WZB-Mitteilungen Heft 105 September 2004 a positive effect on religious involvement. The more churches, denominations, creeds and sects compete in a local community, the harder rival leaders need to strive to maintain their congregations. This school argues that the continued vitality of religious beliefs and practices in the United States reflects strong competition among many religious institu- tions. By contrast, where a single religious organization predominates through government regulation and subsidies, it encourages a complacent clergy, just as state-owned industries and corporate monopolies generate inefficiency and lack of innovation in the economic market. Thus, the state-subsidized churches of Northern Europe have produced an unmotivated clergy and an indifferent pub- lic. Nevertheless, after more than a decade of debate, the supply-side claim that religious pluralism fosters religious participation remains in dispute. It has dif- ficulty accounting for the relative vigor of church attendance in Southern Eu- Ronald F. Inglehart [Foto: Marc Schelewsky] ropean countries where the Roman Catholic church has a near-monopoly. Ronald F. Inglehart, born 1934 in Moreover, evidence from the World Values Survey demonstrates that religious Milwaukee, Wisconsin (U.S.A.), is belief is far more intense