Abstract
For more than two decades sociological debates over religion and secularization have been characterized by a confrontation between (often American) critics and (mostly European) defenders of ...secularization theories. At the same time, there was a remarkable rise in public debates about the role of secularism in political regimes and in national as well as civilizational frameworks. Against this backdrop this paper presents the conceptual framework of "multiple secularities" with a view to refocusing sociological research on religion and secularity. We will demonstrate that it can stimulate new ways of theorizing the relationship of religion and secularity in a variety of modern environments. Arguing for a reformulation of this relationship within the framework of cultural sociology, we conceptualize "secularity" in terms of the cultural meanings underlying the differentiation between religion and non-religious spheres. Building on Max Weber we distinguish four basic ideal-types of secularity that are related to specific reference problems and associated with specific guiding ideas. Finally, we illustrate the use of the concept with regard to selected case-studies.
In The Shadow of God, Michael Rosen argues that modern moral philosophy in the tradition of German Idealism is profoundly shaped by religious views these thinkers could not overcome. However, a ...closer look at Rosen's critique of Kant's and Kantian conceptions of morality raises the possibility that Rosen's view may itself be haunted by the shadow of God. In particular, Rosen appears to believe that a moral imperative of respect for human dignity necessarily requires a religious-transcendent grounding, such that there is no purely moral answer to the question of why such respect is owed. In relegating morality to an impersonal realm that alienates us from our personal understandings of the good, Rosen fails to recognize not only that Kantian morality is meant to alienate us from certain ends (e.g., racist or sexist), but that it is also meant to overcome alienation. This is because Kantian morality is not so much impersonal, as it is interpersonal: it recognizes us as belonging to a community of free and equal persons, who are autonomous when we morally reflect on, or even reject, certain ends.
•Adult literacy education generally has a negative effect on religious trust.•Formal education does not exercise strong, consistent effects on religious attitudes.•Ethnicity appears to mediate the ...effects of education on religious trust.•Koranic schooling does not always raise individuals’ commitment to religious authorities.
Although the relationship between religious attachment and education has received much attention, few studies have examined it in the African context. Using data from a survey of 1,484 rural Senegalese citizens and Afrobarometer survey data, this article examines the relationship between different types of education (adult literacy education, Koranic education and formal education), ethnicity, and trust in religious leaders and institutions in the West African and overwhelmingly Muslim setting of Senegal. The results indicate that adult literacy education (ALE) generally has a negative effect on religious trust while the effects of formal education and Koranic education appear more variable. Ethnicity is also strongly linked to religious trust and appears to mediate the effects of education on religious trust.
In his 2018 survey of twenty-first-century American Judaism entitled The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice their Judaism Today, Jack Wertheimer references a 2015 Pew Research study that ...presupposes the secular-religion binary as the analytical metric for its determination that both the American public and American Jews are becoming less religious. Nonetheless, Wertheimer’s use of this analytical frame prohibits him from making sense of many details of the twenty-first-century American Jewish life that he seeks to describe. Indeed, any survey of the contemporary American Jewish scene is remiss if it does not discuss the rise of orthodox Jewish feminism, current trends towards substantial denominational change, and/or the emergence of a “post-ethnic” Judaism. Even so, recent historical-ethnographic accounts have outpaced analytical challenges to the secular-religion binary. Contemporary historians and ethnographers find themselves forced to choose between an analytically deficient model and a default rejection of analytical tools altogether. Arguably, the roots of the current impasse are derived from the influence of what scholars refer to as the secularization thesis. Therefore, to overcome this impasse, ethnographers and historians of American Judaism need access to a more refined categorical lens. In this essay, I argue that they may find the analytical support they need by turning away from the secularization thesis and turning toward far more complex accounts of the relationship between Judaism and modernity provided by the canon of modern Jewish thought. Such a turn yields an analytical category we may refer to as the “new secularity” which, when applied to studies in Jewish life in America (and potentially elsewhere) sheds light on communal realities that the secular-religious account misses.
Many Americans exhibit declining religiosity during early adulthood. There is no consensus about why this occurs, though longstanding assumptions suggest the secularizing effects of higher education, ...normative deviance and life course factors. We evaluate these effects on decreasing frequency of religious practice, diminished importance of religion and disaffiliation from religion altogether. Results from analyses of the Add Health study indicate that only religious participation suffers substantial declines in young adulthood. Contrary to expectations, emerging adults that avoid college exhibit the most extensive patterns of religious decline, undermining conventional wisdom about the secularizing effect of higher education. Marriage curbs religious decline, while cohabitation, nonmarital sex, drugs and alcohol use each accelerate diminished religiosity - especially religious participation - during early adulthood.
Some contemporary social phenomena, despite secularization, are still linked to religion. However, this same secularization seems to have accompanied a progressive process of religious illiteracy. ...Therefore, the capacity to address religious inspired issues is lower than the magnitude of the problems at work, be violent right-wing movement and Islamist terrorism or ethical debates on the beginning and end of life, to name but a few. Hence, this paper aims to fulfil three goals: to revisit secularism and some liberal assumptions that might prevent a correct understanding of these phenomena, to assess some of the consequences of the critique of ideologies and to propose an alternative approach to address religious inspired social phenomena.
This article addresses the religious policies of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) targeted at promoting Islam among the Turkish Cypriot community. For the secular circles of the Turkish ...Cypriot community, the AKP's imposed religious policies constitute a threat to its fundamental features and social fabric. Islamisation policies are regarded as cultural imperialism of the AKP government, with the aim of generating a religious youth, a conservative mentality, and more widespread religious practice in North Cyprus. Within this context, this article analyzes the historical account of the secularization experience of the Turkish Cypriot community, the politicization of religion with reference to education, and the penetration of AKP's religious policies in North Cyprus.
Si la querelle de la moralité du théâtre au XVIIᵉ siècle est bien connue, ses derniers rebondissements au temps des Lumières n'ont que peu retenu l'attention de l'historiographie. La dénonciation ...catholique de l'immoralité des théâtres et des spectacles est pourtant l'un des terrains d'élection où se manifeste à la mi-XVIIIᵉ siècle l'intensité de l'affrontement opposant les partisans d'une morale indulgente aux tenants de la sévérité. Publié en 1752, le traité De spectaculis theatralibus du dominicain italien Daniele Concina constitue la plus ferme synthèse qui ait été produite par un théologien rigoriste contre les spectacles au XVIIIᵉ siècle. Ses protestations antithéâtrales témoignent à leur manière de l'épuisement du dynamisme de la création confessionnelle propre au catholicisme tridentin devant la montée en puissance du processus de sécularisation.
If the quarrel about theater morality in the seventeenth century is well known, its development during the Enlightenment have received little attention from historiographer. The Catholic denunciation of the immorality of theaters and shows is, however, one of the breeding grounds in which, in the mid-eighteenth century, the intensity of the clash between the partisans of an indulgent morality and the severity is relevant. Published in 1752, the treatise De spectaculis theatralibus by the Italian Dominican Daniele Concina constitutes the firmest synthesis against spectacles produced by a rigorous theologian in the eighteenth century. His antitheatrical criticism reveal the exhaustion of the dynamism of the confessional creation peculiar to Tridentine Catholicism facing the rise of secularization.
Si la disputa sobre la moralidad teatral en el siglo XVII es bien conocida, sus últimas manifestaciones durante la Ilustración han recibido poca atención por parte de la historiografía. La denuncia católica de la inmoralidad de los teatros y espectáculos es, sin embargo, uno de los terrenos en donde, a mediados del siglo XVIII, la intensidad del enfrentamiento que opone a los partidarios de una moralidad indulgente y a los partidarios de la severidad. Publicado en 1752, el tratado del dominicano italiano Daniele Concina De spectaculis theatralibus, constituye la síntesis más contundente que haya sido producida por un teólogo rigorista contra los espectáculos en el siglo XVIII. Sus protestas anti-teatrales revelan, a su manera, el agotamiento del dinamismo de la creación confesional propia al catolicismo tridentino frente a la creciente avanzada del proceso de secularización.
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