What is it about?
Tendencies of secularization have been found abundantly in comparative survey research. They are taken as starting point to examine what the theory of secularization predicts and which predictions have been con-firmed. It is shown that the three canonical theories of the change of religiosity – seculariza-tion, individualization, and market theory – are identical in their structure und can be inte-grated as the secularization theory. It postulates a multi-level-model, where two macrosocial tendencies affect personal religiosity which in turn is aggregated to a macrosocial seculari-zation. Such a model implies a minimal program of micro impacts upon religiosity, in par-ticular a specification of a cohort succession effect.
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Why is it important?
It is often contended that there has been a rise of religiosity in Western, European and - above all . in Non-Western socieities such that the world at large becomes more religious. As far as representative population surveys can tell - this is not the case. Church leaders must know this fact. And is essential for the self-understanding of modern societies.
Perspectives
The following questions arise. - What forms of religion will survive when Christian belief and church practices continue to shrink? - Will religiosity become essentially be reduced to a personal phenomenon, without a community and without a binding teaching?
Prof. Dr. Heiner Meulemann
University of Cologne
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This page is a summary of: The Secularization Theory—Not Disconfirmed, Yet Rarely Tested, Analyse & Kritik, January 2017, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/auk-2017-0018.
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