Is religion dying?

2. Objectives:
1. define secularization theory and other
religious trends;
2. identify levels of securalization theory; and
3. discuss the role of religion in the formulation
of pulic policy.

3. Religious Trends
• Secularization Theory
–Levels of Secularization
• Sacralization
• Detraditionalization
• Universalization

5. • Secularization theory focuses on the
“demand” for religion and predicts that
religion will decline as societies
develop.
source: https://www.cambridge.org

6. • Secularization has many levels of meaning,
both as a theory and as a historical process.
Social theorists such as Karl Marx (1818–1883),
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Max Weber (1864–
1920), and Émile Durkheim (1858–1917)
postulated that the modernization of society
would include a decline in levels of religiosity.
source: https://www.cambridge.org

7. • Abdel Wahab Elmessiri (2002) outlined two meanings of
the term secularization:
– Partial Secularization: which is the common meaning of the
word, and expresses "The separation between religion and
state".
– Complete Secularization: this definition is not limited to the
partial definition, but exceeds it to "The separation between all
(religion, moral, and human) values, and (not just the state) but
also to (the human nature in its public and private sides), so
that the holiness is removed from the world, and this world is
transformed into a usable matter that can be employed for the
sake of the strong".

9. • Societal Secularization - refers to how
religion, in the process of modernization,
has lost its influence over how social
systemm is to be run.

10. • Organizational Secularization - religious
transformation can take place within
religious organizations, and certain
processes can be described as
secularization without necessarily
implying decline.

11. • Individual Secularization - pertains to how
individuals no longer feel obligedd to
follow a set of doctrines or be subject to
institutional religious practice or
membership.

13. • a concept that has cropped up a few times
above, turns secularization on its head by
showing that religion is, in fact, experiencing,
more than anything, resurgence in modern
times.

14. • often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the
supernatural, commonly associated with traditional
religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in
earthly entities.
• Among systems that have been characterized as secular
religions (sacralization) are capitalism, nationalism,
internationalism, Nazism, fascism, feminism,communism
,etc.

16. • refers to the erosion of tradition in religion (secularization,
agnosticism, religious disaffiliation) and society in
postmodernism.
• Subscribing individuals in traditional societies believe in
established, timeless, authoritative orders and values,
above the individual, and timeless attainable goals. Such
beliefs may manifest as specific behavior.

17. • Factors that contribute to loss of tradition are
endorsement of individual choice and responsibility or the
"sacred" (in Émile Durkheim's sense of the term)
individual itself in democratic societies, and the revolution
in communications.

19. • It is primarily grounded in the “ethic of
humanity” which is premised on the idea that
“ethnic, gendered or national differences
should not be allowed to disguised the fact
that-essentially-we are all humans.”
• In favor of that which unite us all---our
humanity.