• Increasing rationalisation

This is not to say that society becomes less irrational or superstitious, but rather that it is organised more and more on the basis of routines, procedures, predictabil­ity and order. The growing prestige of sci­ence undermines the status of religious explanations of life, the universe and everything. Creationism (the belief that God created the Earth in 6 days and rested on the seventh as it is claimed in the Bible) and the theory of evolution are not compatible, and, in the modern world, it is the former that crumbles.

For Bruce the processes of modernisation fundamentally undermine the place of Christianity in Western society. Religion no longer provides education, welfare and social control. Now, specialised bureaucracies provide these services. Modern societies based on the nation-state eclipse local com­munities, in which religion once acted as a form of social glue. The growth of bureau­cracies and the nation-state goes hand-in-hand with the increasing rationalisation of society. Abstract scientific principles and standardised routines and procedures increasingly govern our lives. God, if He still exists, not only doesn't play dice with the universe, he plays hide and seek.

'Secularisation^’

Powerful as Bruce's argument may seem, it is not without its critics. Bruce has traded many intellectual blows over the last decade with the American sociologist, Rodney Stark

When people did go to church, Stark claims, they did so unwillingly and behaved in inappropriate ways. In other words, there is no demonstrable long-term decline in Euro­pean religious participation because reli­gious participation was never very high anyway. Bruce is also wrong, according to Stark, in claiming that religion is in decline in the modern world because it is, in fact, not only persisting, but is flourishing. In the USA, he states, church membership hasn't declined but has trebled.

Similarly, research in Western Europe reveals that a significant proportion of the population clings to specifically religious beliefs, although people do not express this way of thinking through attendance at church services. Therefore, Stark claims, the picture is actually quite good for religious beliefs: people believe in religion as they always have; the only real change is that they don't express these beliefs through church attendance. However, bearing in mind their behaviour when they did attend church, Stark might add is this non-attendance at church today really such a bad thing?

“Believing without Belonging”

There is a third position in the secularisation debate, one that accepts neither Bruce's story of the triumph of secularisation nor Stark's reading of history. According to the British sociologist Grace Davie (1994), the fact that religious participation and the power of the religious institutions are in decline does not mean that personal religiosity is in decline also. Far from it. As she sees it, the picture presented by various surveys reveals that a great number of individuals are 'believers' without necessarily being 'belongers', that is, people may have given up on religious insti­tutions but they have not abandoned reli­gious beliefs completely.

This may, initially, sound a little strange, but if we take a look at the evidence Davie enlists the picture becomes clearer. In 1991 the British Social Attitudes Survey reported that only just over 8% of the British population attended religious services. Only 10% and 14% of those sampled claimed to be atheists or agnostics, respectively. It would appear, therefore, that around three-quarters of the adult popula­tion in Britain hold some sort of nominal religious belief, although this would not appear to be strong enough to tempt them into any religious involvement. Similarly, the 1993 European Values Study found that 71% of the UK population reported a belief in God, 64% a belief in the existence of a soul, 57% in the existence of Heaven and 30% in the existence of the devil. Davie sees all this as evidence that belief is flourishing — but outside religion. She claims that the reaction of the public to events such as the Hillsborough football tragedy or the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, gives us a glimpse into the nature of this private religiosity. After these events, she argues, questions of a sacred nature come to the forefront: 'Why did it occur?' Why my family?' 'How can a loving God have let it happen?' as does, more importantly, a curious mixture of conventional and non-conventional religiosity. One sees pilgrimages and the creation of shrines. The pilgrimages are not to sacred sites but to places such as the Anfield football sta­dium or to Althorp where Diana was buried. The shrines are not devoted to deities or ancestors, but to deceased foot­ball fans or 'the people's princess'.

Conclusion

Secularisation is an extremely contested term. Sociologists of religion can spend their whole careers immersed in the secularisation debate, with every new survey or study published being enlisted in the fight. What is clear is that both sides dis­play an almost 'religious' belief in the validity of the evidence they enlist for their cause. If we accept Bruce's vision, the future of Christianity in the UK is bleak. If we agree with Stark or Davie the picture is slightly brighter, with personal religiosity flourishing outside its (arguably declining) institutional forms.

Whether the current situation represents a last-but-one stage in the process of secu­larisation no one can yet tell. What is clear is that, without a dramatic shift in current trends, institutional forms of Christianity may well be approaching the most crucial time in their history. Whether they cease to exist or transform themselves into new 'spir­itual outlets' are developments that only the next generation of sociologists can address.

 Task 3. Try to systematize the arguments for and against each of the three points of view presented in the article filling in this chart:

Steve Bruce

Rodney Stark

Grace Davie

Main thesis

Main thesis

Main thesis

Argument 1

Counterargument 1

Counterargument 1

Proofs

Proofs

Proofs

Argument 2

Sociological Explanations:

1

2

3

Argument 3

Argument 4

 Task 4. Be ready to compare your chart with that of your group-mate and comment on the blocks you have filled in.

 Task 5. For a sociologist it is important not only to conduct independent research but also to use the findings of different surveys carried out by other scientists in various countries and, thus, to be able to present them in a special, logically organized way. A survey report is an informative formal piece of writing which presents and analyses information gathered from door-to-door surveys/questionnaires/etc, including conclusions drawn from this information and suggestions or recommendations.