Chapter 20

Secularism and
secularization
Grace Davie, Linda Woodhead,
and Rebecca Catto

■ Introduction 552
■ Definitions 552
■ Secularization in Europe: classical theories 554
■ Multidimensional models of secularization 555
■ Pluralism and secularization: moving beyond Europe 557
■ The secular 560
■ The postsecular 561
■ The growth of nonreligion and its study 562
■ Summary 566
■ Key terms 568
■ Suggested reading 569
552 Grace Davie et al.

Introduction

Since ‘secularization’ refers to the process whereby religion declines and even dies,
it may seem strange to include a chapter on this topic in a book that is primarily
concerned with religions in the modern world. However, the theme is important for a
number of reasons. First, the topic of secularization has, rightly or wrongly, dominated
the sociological study of religion since its inception in the nineteenth century. And as
such, it has influenced the way in which many Western scholars still approach – or
ignore – religion. Second, as will be clear to anyone who reads even a few chapters
in this book, religion changes very significantly in the modern period, and for some
types of religion – such as many historic churches in Europe – this change takes the
form of decline. And third, secularism is a powerful force in the modern world, a
force that sets itself in opposition to religion and that has become increasingly mili-
tant. The religious and the secular help to construct one another. Fourth, the study of
nonreligious identities is emerging as a field in its own right within the social scientific
study of religion. For these reasons, if we wish to appreciate religion in the modern
world, it is important to pay some attention to the distinct, but interlinked topics of
secularization, secularism, and the secular.

Definitions

For the purpose of initial orientation, secularization can be defined as the process
whereby (a) religious institutions decline, (b) religion declines in importance for soci-
ety, and (c) religion declines in importance for individuals. Some accounts stress one of
these three aspects more than the others. As such, secularization describes rather than
explains. But ‘secularization theories’, including those inspired by the classic sociolo-
gists Weber and Durkheim, do not merely describe, they also explain the process of
secularization. Weber, for example, explains it in terms of the increasing rationaliza-
tion of modern societies, whereas Durkheim pays more attention to the breakdown of
small-scale communities and collective gatherings. In other words, theories of secular-
ization try to explain religious decline in terms of the impact of one or more aspects
of the process of modernization. The strongest versions of secularization theory
(we can call them ‘hard’ versions of secularization) postulate that modernization inevi-
tably involves secularization – and thus that religion and modernity are ultimately
incompatible. Softer versions of secularization theory believe there is a connection
between some aspects of modernization and some forms of secularization but do not
Secularism and secularization 553

see modernity per se as incompatible with religion per se. As we will see, these softer
versions may, for example, point out some particular features of modernization in
Europe that have undermined the historic churches but that do not operate in other
contexts and in relation to other forms of religion.
Secularism is something different. Political or state secularism simply advocates
a separation of religion from the state. Religious people may hold such a view, and in
this sense, there can be ‘religious secularists’. State secularism takes differing forms
in different contexts and is subject to change. For example, it is only since 2010 that
Muslim women have begun to be allowed to wear a headscarf in public universities
in Turkey, whilst in the same time frame Belgium, France, and the Canadian province
of Quebec have moved to ban the wearing of a face covering in any public space.
In its harder forms, state secularism opposes any kind of religion in public life and
argues that religion should be a purely private matter. Since religion always has some
form of public expression, this is a strongly antireligious stance. Strongly antireligious
forms of secularism, like that made popular by Richard Dawkins, hold that religion is
a dangerous illusion that should be eliminated for the good of humanity.
Although secularization and secularism are distinct and distinguishable, there are
often important links between them – especially between ‘hard’ versions of seculariza-
tion theory and secularism. Even though secularization theory may be presented as a
completely objective, neutral, scientific description of reality – decline of religion – it
may reflect and reinforce a secularist agenda.
‘Modernity’ is often a normative ideal as much as a neutral description, and when it
is an ideal, it often builds in the idea of secularity. Thus the idea that lies behind some
hard versions of secularization theory – that the process of modernization necessarily
undermines religion – may be part and parcel of a wider ideological commitment to
bringing about the reality it describes. Religion is seen as antimodern, antiprogressive,
and benighted. Here neutral description slides into normative prescription. Theoretical
and empirical work is increasingly engaged in uncovering how ‘the secular’ itself, like
secularization, is a constructed, contested concept, which is not neutral.
The current debates over secularization, which we examine in this chapter,
reflect a growing awareness of the way in which secularist commitments may influ-
ence secularization theories. This awareness has been strengthened, above all, by
a challenge to the dominance of the European, and European-colonial, points of
view. Whereas the classic versions of secularization theory looked at Europe and
extrapolated from what was happening there to the rest of the modern world, the
globalization of the study of religion (both in terms of who is doing the studying
and what they are looking at) has undermined this Eurocentric view. Once the gaze
lifts from Europe to the rest of the world, it looks as if Europe may not be the norm
where secularization is concerned, but the exception. The rest of the world seems
as ‘furiously religious as ever’, as Peter Berger (1999) puts it. Moreover, once the
idea that Europe is at the vanguard of civilization is dropped, the assumption of
hard secularization theory that it is the ‘lead society’ in modernization that other
societies will inevitably follow as they too modernize, becomes far less plausible.
554 Grace Davie et al.

Instead, the idea that there may be several versions of modernization and modernity
begins to gain ground.

Secularization in Europe: classical theories

The classical sociologists were not mistaken in viewing the modernization process in
Europe as corrosive of its historic forms of religion. For centuries, Europe’s churches
had been associated not only with political power but with the exercise of such power
at the local as well as national or supranational level, not least in the parish (see
Chapter 7, Christianity). European religion was, and to some extent still is, rooted in
localities, and herein lies both its strength and weakness. It can still evoke powerful
emotions, clearly illustrated in local celebrations and feast days. The local parish as
both a geographical and sociological entity was, however, profoundly disturbed by the
industrial revolution and urbanization, a shock from which the mainstream religions
of Europe have never fully recovered. In short, both civil and ecclesiastical parishes
fitted easily into the dominant patterns of premodern rural life, much less so into
rapidly growing industrial cities.
The decline, however, was slow at first and was not the same in every country. Nor
did it affect all sectors of society in the same way – for example, women continued
to be more active in church than men far into the twentieth century. And in many
parts of Europe, the traditional model endured well into the postwar period, until the
1960s or 1970s. The collapse was all the more dramatic when it happened. In Britain,
for example, churchgoing roughly halved in the century between 1875 and 1975 but
halved again in the final quarter of the twentieth century, with regular Sunday church-
going now involving less than 5 percent of the population (though higher percentages
of people attend on a monthly and annual basis). Although levels and patterns differ,
almost all the historic churches in Europe – both Catholic and Protestant – have suf-
fered decline from the twentieth century onwards.
Thus the classic sociologists like Weber and Durkheim rightly spotted that a criti-
cal disjunction was occurring in the religious life in Europe and that it was linked to
processes of modernization. Some contemporary sociologists, like Steve Bruce, have
continued to draw attention to the reality of secularization in Europe and to postulate
a necessary incompatibility between religion per se and modern, primarily urban, life.
Bruce offers an excellent example of a hard version of secularization theory. For him,
the key connections between modernization and secularization lie in the rise both of
individualism and of rationality, currents that were to change fundamentally the nature
of religion and its place in the modern world. Bruce expresses these essential connec-
tions, the basis of his argument, as follows: ‘[I]ndividualism threatened the communal
basis of religious belief and behaviour, while rationality removed many of the purposes
of religion and rendered many of its beliefs implausible’ (1996).
Bruce is clear that the process should not be oversimplified; it is both complex
and long term. An underlying pattern can nonetheless be discerned, which took four
Secularism and secularization 555

centuries to complete. These centuries were, moreover, typified by the emergence

of the nation state as the effective form of political organization in Europe, a pro-
cess inseparable from the breakup of Christendom. Gradually toleration of difference
became the norm both within and between the states of Europe. But toleration is itself
two-edged; it implies a lack of conviction, a capacity to live and let live that becomes
not only dominant but pervasive. So, in the late modern period, the concept of God
becomes increasingly subjective; individuals simply ‘pick and mix’ from the diversity
on offer. For Bruce then, religion has entered the world of options, lifestyles, and prefer-
ences. Religious institutions evolve accordingly: church and sect, which both maintain
they have exclusive truth, give way in Bruce’s terminology to denomination and cult,
which are less bounded and less exclusivist and reflect the increasing individualism and
fragility of religious life. From its position at the heart of social and political life, reli-
gion becomes nothing more than a matter of personal preference and entertainment.
Bruce returns to these themes in his book God Is Dead (2002) in which he sets
out the evidence for and against the secularization thesis, looking at the British case
in particular. He is sanguine about this geographical limitation, claiming that much
‘of what matters here can be found elsewhere’. Thus Britain becomes an exemplar of
Western democracy, which, in his view, contains within itself inevitably secularizing
tendencies. Embedded in this approach is the notion of a lead society: that which
British (or Northern European) societies do today, others will do tomorrow, all other
things being equal. This assumption is crucial to Bruce’s understanding of the secu-
larization process and is reinforced in Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable
Theory (2011). Precisely this idea, however, is increasingly challenged by recent trends
in sociological thinking, and, arguably, in world history.

Multidimensional models of secularization

We are now beginning to see that the picture of secularization may be more compli-
cated than that suggested by models that take Europe as their focus. This insight is
assisted by models of secularization that distinguish between several different dimen-
sions of secularization. The essential point is that a wide variety of ideas are embedded
within the single concept of secularization, not all of which are compatible with each
other – hence the need to disentangle the threads. Two scholars in particular have
helped in this task, Karel Dobbelaere, in a book called Secularization: An Analysis at
Three Levels (2002, but first published as an article in 1981), and José Casanova, in
his book Public Religions in the Modern World (1994).
Dobbelaere distinguishes three dimensions of secularization, which operate at
different levels of society: the societal, the organizational, and the individual. At
the societal level, he places emphasis on the process of ‘functional differentiation’
whereby sectors of society that historically were controlled by the church begin
gradually to emerge as separate and autonomous spheres. No longer do people look to
the church as the primary provider of healthcare, education, or social services – this