Religion within society, and society within religion spans far further than just mainstream churches such as Catholicism, Islam and Judaism. Within faith communities, different people have different ideas. For example, if we take the Christian Church, up until 1517, the Church was mainly considered to be Roman Catholic, A German man named Martin Luther devised the Protestantism movement after what was considered to be errors in the teachings and practices of the Catholic church, hence Christianity split into what we now consider to be the two most worshipped communities, the Traditional Catholic Church, and the Protestant Church.
This was really the start of secularisation, as many people began to question their own beliefs and chose which religion they wanted to follow – however, religion was still fundamental within society and it played a part on the way people lived their life; from the way they dressed to the way they worshiped.
In the 2011 Census, 65.2% of people identifies themselves as Christians, and 0.84% of people Identified as Muslim. Also, 27.8% of the people identified as ‘No Religion’. This all changed in the 2011 Census where 53.8% of people identifies them selves as Christian – a drop of almost 11.4%. The number of people who identified as Muslim increased to 1.4% – which may or may not be linked to other social factors such as immigration, and population growth. What is really interesting in my opinion, is that 37% of people identified themselves as ‘No Religion’. Does this prove the theory that secularisation is also linked to de-Christianisation? And does it mean that once regarded one of the most important social factors in the Western World, people no longer feel the need for the faith and religion? Or does it indeed prove that secularisation is not the lose of faith, but in fact the channelling of spirituality to other sources within Western culture and society?
Many theorists and highly regarded sociologists have looked at religions place in society. Amongst the most popular theories, is the one of Karl Marx (1818-1883) where he suggests that religion is just ‘the opium of the people’ used to bear their pain and suffering. He also saw it as a tool to oppress and control the masses, giving false consciousness in oppressed people to accept their predicament. He felt that the promise of a better life was just created as part of a capitalist illusion; which included the creation of a man-made God.
Max Weber (1864-1920) had a completely different idea of the place of religion. He suggested that the protestant church founded by Luther, gave rise to the Western world as it is today. He claimed that Protestantism contributed to the socio-economic patters within the Western society, enabling an atmosphere in which the capitalist system could thrive in this sector of the world and in Western society. He saw religion as an agent of social change.
So what about ‘unchurched’ spirituality? What causes it? Well, after the tutorials today, I figured that the leading cause of ‘unchurched’ spirituality is secularisation itself. So that leads to the question – what causes people o lose faith in religion itself?
Modern Education systems expose young people to the sciences and to a program of natural thinking, allowing them to find the facts that science has uncovered, and apply that to the real world. Guleski (2013) believes education gives young people the empowerment to make decisions based on their understanding. Take Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (1859) for example. People are now believing the facts uncovered around evolution as it can be backed up with evidence. Whereas there is no evidence proving or disproving the existence of a God or the doctrines of the Church suggesting the story of Genesis.
Also, with a booming Western society, people now have the money to afford leisure and necessity, and poorer people tend to turn to supernatural meaning for answers. Due to the income that many families now have, they no longer need to rely on the Church for prayer in the hope of gaining what they need, as they can just go out to a shop and find it. Ingleheart backs this up when he stated “When material conditions improve, the need for religious solace depreciates”.
So in theory we could say that secularisation and de-Christianisation is caused by the boom in the western World caused by Protestantism, meaning that the fall in worshippers of the Catholic and Protestant church, could be in turn related to the division of the Church itself.
I feel it is important to express at this point that this piece of writing is not an attack of any religion or form of spirituality, but just a summary of my understanding to secularisation and ‘unchurched’ spirituality and how that impacts on society today. If I have offended anybody in any way, then I do sincerely apologise, I insist that it was not intended.
Sean
