Multireligious Society

Dealing with Religious Diversity in Theory and Practice

Francisco Colom Gonzalez,Gianni D'Amato

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315407562
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

With the theory of secularization increasingly contested as a plausible development at a global scale, this book focuses on the changing significance of the religious element within a context of complex diversity. This concept reflects the rationale behind the deep transformations that have taken place in the dynamics of social change, giving way to a recombination of social, political and cultural cleavages that overlap and compete for legitimacy at a national and supranational level. Far from disappearing with modernization, new forms of religious diversity have emerged that continue to demand specific policies from the state, putting pressure on the established practices of religious governance while creating a series of normative dilemmas. European societies have been a testing ground for many of these changes, but for decades Canada has been viewed as a pioneering country in the management of diversity, thus offering some interesting similarities and contrasts with the former. Accordingly, the book deals with the diverging routes that political secularization has followed in Europe and Canada, the patterns of religious governance that can be recognized in each region, and the practices for accommodating the demands of religious minorities concerning their legal regulation, the management of public institutions, and the provision of social services.

Part I

Reframing the narratives of secularism

1 Secularization and beyond

Valeriano Esteban Sánchez

In the West, the relation between culture, politics and religion has traditionally revolved around the theory and practice of secularism, sometimes in conflict, sometimes in an uncertain balance, but never completely resolved. In any case, the Western secular movement in all its variations was always supported by a concept of religious change, secularization, which counted with the robust support of sociological theory, until it was virtually accepted as a fact. This fact alone is worth examining. Sociology is rife with debates between polarized positions, whether on inequality, the condition of modern society, methodology or even on the very nature of the discipline itself. This has often led it to be characterized as a multi-paradigmatic discipline, in contrast to other natural and social sciences, which tend more towards a methodological consensus. The 1970s was one of the most divisive periods for sociology, marked by a bitter confrontation between a defiant Marxist approach and a more compliant functionalist stance. It should be noticed though that a peculiar convergence took place within the sociology of religion around this same period. This convergence, which did not eliminate significant nuances here and there, was referred to as the theory of secularization. This theory had a clear central message: as societies modernize, they become more secular. In other words, there is a direct, visible and predictable relation between modernization and secularization.

The consensus on the validity of this central idea became so widespread that even sociologists who were believers accepted it as true. The Sacred Canopy (Berger 1967), written by the Austrian-born American sociologist Peter Berger, a Protestant himself, was a very influential book in this regard. In it, Berger sustained that secularization could not be reduced to a single cause, as it was a complex process that had been occurring over a long period of time. Echoing Weber, Berger argued that the roots of secularization were paradoxically religious. It all began with the process of religious simplification and rationalization in ancient Judaism – a religion characterized by a particular aversion to magic and correlative emphasis on monotheism, a single God upon which ultimate reality depended exclusively. This rationalizing impulse was later found in Protestantism, which eliminated rituals, sacraments and other mediating elements that were common in Catholicism. The Protestant Reformation notably accelerated the process of reducing the reach of the sacred and its institutions and decisively contributed to separating it from the profane.

It is worth noting that secularization is quite complex conceptually, because over time, different layers of meaning have been added, something of which not everyone is aware. This has condemned the concept to permanent ambiguity, and this lack of clarity often leads to misunderstandings, even among specialists. One of the first meanings that this term acquired is closely tied to a particular European experience: the separation and reduction of religious institutions. According to Berger, these processes, along with rationalist thinking, contributed to the rise of science, capitalism and industry, creating the conditions in which large segments of the population began to live without religion being an important part of their existence. Purely secular temporal structures began gaining ground and created a truly autonomous space liberated from religion, which grew incessantly. Religion, which had been the overarching canopy guaranteeing social integration, covering all of society and imbuing it with meaning, could no longer serve this function. But while this was important, it was not everything.

The fragmentation of the Christian tradition after the Reformation represented a move towards religious pluralism. Faced with competition and the need to adapt to the modern world, religious authorities reacted by progressively implementing rationalized strategies that were focused on worldly concerns. Eventually, individuals began viewing the once unquestioned claims of religious authorities with growing skepticism, and a crisis of credibility emerged from this plurality. Secularization was allegedly born from this type of structural differentiation that eventually reached individual consciences and practices. This brings us to another layer of the concept of secularization that is more recent and therefore more familiar to us. Although related, these two layers, the contraction and separation of religious institutions and the decline in religious belief and practices, are different and occurred in different historical moments.

In the 1970s, the golden age of secularization studies, other important figures of European sociology also provided in-depth contributions on this issue, not all of them concordant, with diverse messages and methodologies. For instance, Thomas Luckman, Berger’s “celebrated collaborator” and also a religious believer, felt that in modern society religion is privatized and changes meaning, but does not lose importance. This is another dimension of the concept of secularization: the privatization of religion, which has migrated from the public to the private sphere, but not necessarily disappeared (Luckmann 1963). Meanwhile, Bryan Wilson tried to systematize the study of secularization in the present by identifying variables, constructing models and using surveys and statistical series on religious participation. He concluded that the consubstantial rationalization of modernity meant that religion would continue being marginalized from public life until the majority of society became indifferent to it (Wilson 1985). Rather than make projections, other sociologists, such as David Martin, tried to explain the varying paths that led to secularization in Europe using a comparative framework. Martin saw an inverse relationship between the degree of religious pluralism on the institutional level and secularization on the individual level. The greater the religious monopoly in a country, the greater and sharper would be the tendency towards secularization. On the contrary, a plural religious environment was usually accompanied by a much more gradual tendency towards secularization (Martin 1978).

Despite these differences, it can be stated that around the 1970s a theory emerged, or even better, a paradigm, that while not commanding a massive consensus, provided a common conceptual framework on the relationship between society and religion in the modern world and a series of hypotheses which helped organize the research. The overall idea was that religion in modern society was in serious danger. Although the seeds of secularization were sowed in traditional society, this was still consubstantially a religious society. On the contrary, modern society and religion did not mix well and in order to understand this situation, the best concept available was secularization.¹

Deconstructing secularization

In the 1980s, the idea that modern societies were moving towards secularization was increasingly questioned. Various factors were often indicated to refute this idea, including the growing importance of religion in international politics, the appearance of revolutionary regimes headed by religious leaders and the vitality of new and old fundamentalisms in Europe and other parts of the world. The decline of Marxism as a secular religion was cited less often than the resurgence of historical religions, but it may have been equally important. For a time, some experts considered the idea that Marxism could be the best example of how historical religions could be replaced with charismatic secular movements imbued with a profound sense of ethics. But the truth is that Marxism as a collective movement did not survive its routinization, unlike historic religions. In any case, these factors opened the door to a series of critics of secularization whose virulence moves us to wonder if they had never been totally convinced by the idea and were thus anxiously awaiting an opportunity to voice their disagreement. These critiques were activated when the three main components of secularization (separation and contraction of religious institutions, privatization of religious practice and decline in individual belief) became questionable in certain fields.

As it became apparent that the dominant paradigm could be successfully challenged, the discipline of sociology itself, which had come to be so closely identified with it, was also questioned by extension. Some even claimed that sociology held sacred its commitment to secularization. According to them, the predominance of secularist thought among the founding fathers of sociology (Comte, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Spencer, etc.) derived from the confrontation between liberal Europe and religion and had been transmitted throughout the discipline generation after generation like a ritual chain. Without realizing it, we have held them sacred. We should remember that the founder of sociology and the positivist approach, August Comte, coined the term sociology at the beginning of the nineteenth century to identify a new field of knowledge that would replace religious mystification as our moral guide in the turbulent and disorienting industrial world. He even defended establishing a new religion of humanity based on the new positivist and progressive principles. Comte was not alone. His predecessor Saint-Simon had stated similar things, and later Durkheim would say them as well, although more moderately. Despite their opposing political visions, other authorities in sociology, such as Marx or Spencer, shared a ferocious anti-clericalism and a deep mistrust of religion. This is why the critics of secularization could say that this theory goes beyond empirical or theoretical evidence. They believed that the theory had mainly been the creation of European and Eurocentric sociologists who had romanticized the religious past of their countries. They had acritically used an evolutionist framework and specified a starting point – a traditional homogenously believing society – and an end point – a modern society progressively liberated from the influence of religion in the public and private realms. A good look at the theory of secularization reveals that it is built on beliefs about the past as well as the present. But these beliefs had not been accompanied by sufficient data and no effort had been made to refute alternative hypotheses of religious change. It could have been that Christianity was only in a temporary decline, as had occurred in the past, and not dying out. Only by not examining the alternatives or studying what really occurred could the secularization theorists maintain the theory intact, which in this light suddenly appeared less scientific and conclusive.

These doubts extend to the current situation of secularization. In principle, if we reduce the theory of secularization to its most empirical and immediately verifiable components, we should find a positive relationship between indicators of modernization and secularization in practices and beliefs. But variations within the Western world do not clearly validate these affirmations. The United States maintains surprisingly high percentages of religious participation compared to Europe. Within Europe itself, Western Germany is more modern but less secular than Eastern Germany. Outside of the West, neither Japan nor any of the late industrialization countries, such as South Korea, are going through a process of secularization. In light of this, perhaps secularization is not a general theory and was only valid for a very specific period of European history. This appears to be Berger’s current position. After having been one of the most influential proponents of this theory, he has foresworn it. It is time to admit, he says, that although modernization has had secularizing effects, more in some places than in others, it has also provoked powerful anti-secularization movements and, therefore, it makes no sense to focus on a general assumption of secularization. Instead the focus should be on the unique secularity of Europe, where belief persists but participation is very low. Europe would be an exception within the new thesis of the desecularization of the world. Due to its history, Quebec should be an extension of secularist Europe – a bridgehead in North America in the same way that the media and university campuses occasionally are, especially the social sciences where the percentage of believers is significantly lower than in the natural sciences (Berger 1999).

Other sociologists have gone even further and tried to construct a paradigm to rival secularization. In this undertaking, the most notable effort has been put forth by Rodney Stark, who along with a series of collaborators has developed an ingenious theory of religious economy or of religious market around the concepts of religious demand – individual practice and belief – and religious supply – the different churches and organizations that try to meet that demand (Stark 2006). In Europe, the real question is why, despite the high levels of believers indicated by the surveys, these believers do not see the need to participate in religious institutions regularly. Stark tries to resolve this question with a series of axioms and reasoning. He starts with the idea that the truly important variable, that which explains variations in religious involvement, is the supply, the activity of the organizations. According to him, aggregate religious demand remains more or less constant through time and space, although sometimes it is latent. Individuals, however, vary in their needs and tastes in religion just like in everything else; some demand a great deal of involvement and others less. Consequently, a single religious institution cannot entirely satisfy so much individual diversity. From this we can ascertain that the natural state of religion in all times and places is religious pluralism, i.e. the diversity of organizations which compete for believers or individual demand for religion.

Historically, however, this natural plural state has often been suppressed in favour of official religions, which created religious monopolies. In controlled markets, monopolies have no incentive to attract its congregation, since it is a captive audience, and they could get away with doing a poor job of carrying out their work without being expelled from the market. This explains why religious apathy can exist even in the presence of both religious demand and belief, as studies have revealed: latent religious demand cannot be satisfied by complacent organizations. This also provides insight into why there are so many believers without belonging.² Since religion has traditionally been a controlled market, many specifically demanded religious niches have no longer been filled. Religious apathy is the consequence of centuries of religious regulation. Stark contends that it is no coincidence that states that provide the best salaries to the clergy, such as Germany and Scandinavia, have the highest rates of secularity. Contrary to Berger’s initial idea, the best guarantee of religious vitality was found in situations with a healthy competitive pluralism, as shown by how Islam is bolstered by the struggle between different sects and also the religious rebirth of Latin America, which must be attributed to an enterprising evangelical movement which has carved a place in a market that was previously dominated by a soporific Catholic monopoly (Stark 2006).

Although the economic theory of religious practice has been strongly criticized, the truth is that it has stimulated researchers to mount a defense of the secularization paradigm through new empirical work and theoretical models. Some of the most important and recent work in this area are by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris who, using survey data from more than 60 countries in different stages of modernization, have arrived at the conclusion that there is sufficient evidence to talk about a process of secularization of beliefs, but only in societies that are rich and provide their citizens with a sufficient feeling of personal and social security. The absence of sufficient social protection in the United States helps to explain its particular religious vitality. Religion prospers with uncertainty and vulnerability, not necessarily pluralism (Inglehart and Norris 2004). But above all, Stark’s challenge has moved the theorists of secularization to reformulate their views in much stricter terms.

The gauntlet thrown down by Stark has been picked up by the British sociologist Steve Bruce (Bruce 2002, 2006). Bruce does not believe that international comparisons support Stark’s conclusions. After all, in Europe, religious affiliation is much stronger in countries monopolized by a single church, such as Ireland or Poland, than in more diverse countries, such as Great Britain. Bruce believes that the correct strategy to approach this issue consists in using diachronic studies of a specific country. What such studies...