Impact Of Secularisation On The 21st Century Church

Secularisation theory has argued that modernisation has undermined religion. The importance of science and technology on economic development and rational worldview on which they depend on are seen as destroying the belief in supernatural. However religion can contribute to development, but most recently sociologists have examined what role religion may play in development in today’s globalising world.

Today’s world is all about decisions. Should we get that new television? What about that new iPhone? Maybe the new Apple Watch? Notice how none of those questions had to deal with anything transcendent or in relation to God. Rather these questions focused on the material items that are available practically at the snap of one’s fingers. There is a lack of religious authority in cultural and social organizations in the modern society that we live in. Charles Taylor, in A Secular Age, focuses on showing that God is still present in our secular society, even when it seems as if He is removed. Taylor gives three separate understandings of secularization: separation between state and church with the movement of corporate practices without God, more

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and into the duration of the Renaissance, the Medieval Church’s social and political power dwindled. Centuries prior the Catholic Church gained a surplus of control, largely due to the stability it maintained during the chaotic breakdown of the Western Roman Empire . Yet toward the end of the Middle Ages the Church set in motion factors that would ultimately lead to its downfall as the definitive figure of authority. However, despite political and social controversy surrounding the church, the institutions it established cleared a path for a new way of thinking, shaping society in an enduring way.

From The Catholic Church: Our Mission in History (white book by the window) on pages 126-128. How did the different kings of the 400s effect The Christian faith? What were the positives and negatives of each?

New circumstances called for re-appraisal of the church: its position and purposes. A pragmatic response to changed

Lyon, a postmodernist, supports the idea that traditional religion is giving way to a variety of new religious beliefs and practices because we are living in a postmodern society. In this society globalisation, the increased importance of the media and communications and the growth of consumerism all create a new era of diversity and choice in all aspects of life. Lyon demonstrates how these have affected religion. We are now exposed to a wider range of religious ideas than ever before and these have become ‘disembedded’ from their original local contexts so we can now adapt ideas and beliefs to suit our own purposes. Much new religious belief is simply a watered down version of Eastern religions, adapted to suit Western tastes. Practice of worship is also different because it is no longer necessary to attend a local church. Instead the ‘electronic church’ on the internet and televangelism allow us to stay at home. However, if it is difficult to get convincing statistics of how many people attend church and what effect this has on them, it is even more difficult to research the numbers involved in and the influence of this new form of worship.

Sociologists argue that in Britain, there has been an overall steady decline in the importance of religion since the 19th century, which has led some sociologists to suggest there was a ‘golden age’ of religiosity. Many sociologists have proposed explanations for the secularisation thesis, for example Weber, Berger and Bruce. However Postmodernists criticise the secularisation theory as they believe that religion hasn’t declined it has just become modernised. Other theories, such as religious market theory and existential security theory, also go against the view that Britain is becoming a secular society as they believe religion takes form in

Throughout history there have been examples of religion being regarded as traditional and of people dissenting from the traditional religion. This essay will trace the footsteps of tradition and dissent of Christianity in England between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries by looking at the statement “… a previous generation’s “dissent” itself becomes “tradition”, and a previously dominant tradition becomes dissent.” (Tradition and Dissent p72). With particular reference to the differences between Protestants and Catholics.

What happens when people start to break away from the entity that bound an entire civilization together for over a thousand years? How does one go from unparalleled devotion to God to the exploration of what man could do? From absolute acceptance to intense scrutiny? Sheeple to independent thinkers? Like all revolutions preceding it, the Protestant Reformation did not happen overnight. Catholics had begun to lose faith in the once infallible Church ever since the Great Schism, when there were two popes, each declaring that the other was the antichrist. Two things in particular can be identified as the final catalyst: a new philosophy and simple disgust. The expanding influence of humanism and the corruption of the Catholic Church

In this report I will be both contrasting and comparing the religious view of Catholicism and the world view of Secular Humanism. The three questions I will be analysing through the religious view of Catholicism and the world view Secular Humanism include:

Clark, Anna. The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working

In our days we percieve for the advace secularism- the ausence of God in the structure of our society, a society that finishes seting or putting God "in parentesis"

In this report I will be comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between the religious tradition Christianity, with the world view of Secular Humanism.

We need to pay close attention to the effects of secularism: confining the role of religion to the private domain of the individual and creating a dichotomy between "religious" and "worldly," between "private" and "public." It denies religion and its mediating institutions any public function and influence in shaping matters of public policy.

Berger defines secularization as the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols. Removal of religion from social structures refers to the separation of the church from the state, and the emancipation of education from religious authority. Removal from the cultural sector refers to the separation of religion from art, philosophy and literature, and the rise of science. (107)He states that the process has a subjective manifestation as well, the secularization of individuals consciousness.(108) This construction of the secularization process presents a linear, reductive process where the world departs from “nomos” into “anomy”. Nomos is defined as the laws and customs which enable a sense of connection and meaning, a world where religion and everyday life exists together as part of the cosmos. Anomy is described as a sense of separation from the world, the absence of nomos characterized by chaos. (slides). Secularization is bought about by the shrinkage in the