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77-821: Secularism's origins can be traced to the Bible itself and fleshed out throughout Christian history into the modern era. " Secular " is a part of the Christian church's history, which even has secular clergy since the medieval period. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. Significant contributions to principles used in modern secularism came from prominent theologians and Christian writers such as St. Augustine , William of Ockham , Marsilius of Padua , Martin Luther , Roger Williams , John Locke and Talleyrand . The term "secularization" can also mean

154-775: A prayer derived from religious text or doctrine, worshipping through the context of a religion, performing corporal and spiritual works of mercy , and attending a religious seminary school or monastery are examples of religious (non-secular) activities. In many cultures, there is little dichotomy between "natural" and "supernatural", "religious" and "not-religious", especially since people have beliefs in other supernatural or spiritual things irrespective of belief in God or gods. Other cultures stress practice of ritual rather than belief. Conceptions of both "secular" and "religious", while sometimes having some parallels in local cultures, were generally imported along with Western worldviews, often in

231-441: A theory and as a political process. 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 formal religiosity . Study of this process seeks to determine the manner in which, or extent to which religious creeds , practices, and institutions are losing social significance. Some theorists argue that

308-589: A church (2019). Similarly, divorce was legalized in 1981, as was abortion and same-sex marriage soon after. Like other European countries, Germany has recorded a decrease in religiosity (in terms of proportion of individuals affiliated to a Church and baptisms for example) but the trends in East and West Germany are significantly different. In East Germany, the process of secularization has been significantly quicker. These differences are explained by sociologists ( Jörg Stolz , Detlef Pollack and Nan Dirk de Graaf ) by

385-417: A consequence, seem to encourage pre-marital sex. However, in other countries, such as Jordan and Palestine , support for sharia and Islamist ideas seems to grow. Even in countries in which secularization is growing, there are backlashes. For instance, the president of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi , has banned hundreds of newspapers and websites who may provoke opposition. Secular Secularity , also

462-478: A different name. The secularization thesis expresses the idea that through the lens of the European enlightenment modernization , rationalization , combined with the ascent of science and technology, religious authority diminishes in all aspects of social life and governance. In recent years, the secularization thesis has been challenged due to some global studies indicating that the irreligious population of

539-420: A dominant role in public life or in other aspects of decision making. Jack David Eller (2010) outlined Peter Glasner's 10 different institutional, normative, or cognitive versions of secularization, most of which do not lead to irreligion or atheism: C. John Sommerville (1998) outlined six uses of the term secularization in the scientific literature. The first five are more along the lines of 'definitions' while

616-403: A parallel language to religion, and intensifies Protestant features such as iconoclasm, skepticism towards rituals, and emphasizes beliefs. In doing so, secularism perpetuates Christian traits under a different name. Most cultures around the world do not have tension or dichotomous views of religion and secularity. Since religion and secular are both Western concepts that were formed under

693-496: A political object of secularist movements. In the 20th century, "secularization" had diversified into various versions in light of the diversity of experiences from different cultures and institutions. Scholars recognize that secularity is structured by Protestant models of Christianity, shares a parallel language to religion, and intensifies Protestant features such as iconoclasm, skepticism towards rituals, and emphasizes beliefs. In doing so, secularism perpetuates Christian traits under

770-414: A process by which anything becomes secular is named secularization , though the term is mainly reserved for the secularization of society ; and any concept or ideology promoting the secular may be termed secularism , a term generally applied to the ideology dictating no religious influence on the public sphere . Scholars recognize that secularity is structured by Protestant models of Christianity, shares

847-407: A process of functional differentiation and emancipation of the secular spheres—primarily the state, the economy, and science—from the religious sphere and the concomitant differentiation and specialization of religion within its own newly found religious sphere". Casanova also describes this as the theory of "privatization" of religion, which he partially criticizes. While criticizing certain aspects of

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924-530: A religion, but who now identify as having no religion, so-called "non-verts", had different rates of leaving the religion of their upbringing, namely 14% for Jews, 10% for Muslims and Sikhs, and 6% for Hindus. The proportions of the non-religious who convert to a faith are small: 3% now identify as Anglicans, less than 0.5% convert to Catholicism, 2% join other Christian denominations, and 2% convert to non-Christian faiths. In 2018, Pew Research Center that large majority (89%) of those who were raised as Christians in

1001-533: A religion, still hold religious beliefs and participate in religious practices, thus complicating the situation. Secularization, in the main, sociological meaning of the term, involves the historical process in which religion declines in social and cultural significance. As a result of secularization the role of religion in modern societies becomes restricted. In secularized societies faith lacks cultural authority, and religious organizations have little social power. Secularization has many levels of meaning, both as

1078-523: A sign of modernity [...] has ironically left China for centuries without a powerful and stable source of morality and law. All this simply means that the pursuit of wealth or power or simply the competition for survival can be and often has been ruthless without any sense of restraint. [...] Along with the early secularization of Chinese society which was equally early, the concomitant demise of feudalism and hereditary aristocracy, another remarkable development, transformed China earlier than any other country into

1155-889: A unitary system politically, with one single power centre. It also rendered Chinese society much more egalitarian than Western Europe and Japan. In this arguably secular setting, the Chinese Communist Party régime of the People's Republic of China (in power on the Chinese mainland from 1949) promoted deliberate secularization. Many countries in the Arab world show signs of increasing secularization. For instance, in Egypt , support for imposing sharia (Islamic law) fell from 84% in 2011 to 34% in 2016. Egyptians also pray less: among older Egyptians (55+) 90% prayed daily in 2011. Among

1232-684: Is an American sociologist , currently the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame . Smith's research focuses primarily on religion in modernity , adolescents and emerging adults, sociological theory , philosophy of science, the science of generosity, American evangelicalism , and culture. Smith is well known for his contributions to the sociology of religion , particularly his research into adolescent spirituality, as well as for his contributions to sociological theory and his advocacy of critical realism . Smith

1309-485: Is best understood not as being "anti-religious", but as being "religiously neutral" since many activities in religious bodies are secular themselves, and most versions of secularity do not lead to irreligiosity. The idea of a dichotomy between religion and the secular originated in the European Enlightenment . Furthermore, since religion and secular are both Western concepts that were formed under

1386-454: Is compatible with religion since most versions of secularity do not lead to atheism or irreligion. The term "secularization" also has additional meanings, primarily historical and religious. Applied to church property , historically it refers to the seizure of church lands and buildings, such as Henry VIII 's 16th-century dissolution of the monasteries in England and the later acts during

1463-449: Is sometimes credited both to the cultural shifts in society following the emergence of rationality and the development of science as a substitute for superstition — Max Weber called this process the "disenchantment of the world"—and to the changes made by religious institutions to compensate. At the most basic stages, this begins with a slow transition from oral traditions to a writing culture that diffuses knowledge. This first reduces

1540-830: The American Sociological Association section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity awarded Smith with the Distinguished Career Award. He was awarded the Lilly Fellows Program Distinguished Book Award in 2011 for his 2009 book, co-authored with Patricia Snell, Souls in Transition: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults . He was also awarded Christianity Today 's 2010 Distinguished Book Award for

1617-487: The Latin word saeculum which meant ' of a generation, belonging to an age ' or denoted a period of about one hundred years. The Christian doctrine that God exists outside time led medieval Western culture to use secular to indicate separation from specifically religious affairs and involvement in temporal ones. Secular does not necessarily imply hostility or rejection of God or religion, though some use

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1694-595: The New Testament in the Vulgate translation ( c.  410 ) of the original Koine Greek phrase εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων ( eis toùs aionas ton aiṓnōn ), e.g. at Galatians 1:5 , was used in the early Christian church (and is still used today), in the doxologies , to denote the coming and going of the ages, the grant of eternal life, and the long duration of created things from their beginning to forever and ever . Secular and secularity derive from

1771-504: The 18th-century French Revolution , as well as by various anti-clerical enlightened absolutist European governments during the 18th and 19th centuries, which resulted in the expulsion and suppression of the religious communities which occupied them. The 19th-century Kulturkampf in Germany and Switzerland and similar events in many other countries also were expressions of secularization. Still another form of secularization refers to

1848-475: The 1910s " legal realism " gained prominence, de-emphasizing the religious basis for law . That same decade publishing houses emerged that were independent of the Protestant establishment. During the 1920s secularization extended into popular culture and mass public education ceased to be under Protestant cultural influence. Although the general public was still highly religious during this time period, by 1930

1925-480: The 1960s as part of a much larger social and cultural revolution. Until then the postwar years had seen a revival of religiosity in Britain. Sociologists and historians have engaged in vigorous debates over when it started, how fast it happened, and what caused it. Sponsorship by royalty, aristocracy, and influential local gentry provided an important support system for organized religion. The sponsorship faded away in

2002-438: The 20th century, as the local élites were no longer so powerful or so financially able to subsidize their favorite activities. In coal-mining districts, local collieries typically funded local chapels, but that ended as the industry grew distressed and the unionized miners rejected élite interference in their local affairs. This allowed secularizing forces to gain strength. Data from the annual British Social Attitudes survey and

2079-926: The Graduate Student Association, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith was co-author with Mark Regnerus on the 1999 "Outstanding Article Award", granted by the American Sociological Association Section on the Sociology of Religion, for "Selective Deprivatization Among American Religious Traditions: The Reversal of the Great Reversal", published in Social Forces . In his 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers co-written with Melinda Lundquist Denton, he introduced

2156-863: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Lilly Endowment Inc., the John Templeton Foundation , the Templeton Religion Trust, and other foundations and institutes. Smith received the Notre Dame Graduate Student Union’s Graduate Student Mentoring Award for 2020-2021. The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion granted Smith its Distinguished Book Award, 2018, for his 2017 book, Religion: What it Is, How it Works, and Why it Matters (Princeton). In 2012,

2233-688: The State repression in the 1950s and 1960s, which challenges predictions of natural cohort replacements stated by the Voas model. India , post-independence, has seen the emergence of an assertive secular state. One traditional view of Chinese culture sees the teachings of Confucianism - influential over many centuries - as basically secular. Chang Pao-min summarises perceived historical consequences of very early secularization in China: The early secularization of Chinese society, which must be recognized as

2310-512: The USA - a country that was co-founded by many religious sectarians who were expelled from their home countries and where witches were still being persecuted in 1692. Detlef Pollack [3] , on the other hand, argues that the higher religiosity of Americans compared to Europeans is well compatible with the assumptions of secularization theory: among other things, it can be explained by the unusually high degree of existential insecurity and social inequality in

2387-527: The USA and the millions of religious immigrants from Latin America. However, liberal Americans have increasingly distanced themselves from church and religion due to the growing fusion of evangelical and conservative positions. [4] Another point of criticism in the discourse on secularization is the inadequate examination of the Eurocentric nature of general terms, concepts, and definitions. For example,

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2464-612: The United Kingdom still identify as such, while the remainder mostly self-identify as religiously unaffiliated. Spain used to be one of the most religious countries in Europe, but secularization has progressed fast during the past few decades. This was partly due to the role of the Catholic Church constituting the "doctrinal basis of the most significant organizations of the anti-democratic and anti-liberal right-wing" and

2541-486: The United States (a debate still taking place). Finally, some claim that demographic forces offset the process of secularization, and may do so to such an extent that individuals can consistently drift away from religion even as society becomes more religious. This is especially the case in societies like Israel (with the ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionists ) where committed religious groups have several times

2618-550: The act of Prince-Bishops or holders of a position in a Monastic or Military Order - holding a combined religious and secular authority under the Catholic Church - who broke away and made themselves into completely secular (typically, Protestant ) hereditary rulers. For example, Gotthard Kettler (1517–1587), the last Master of the Livonian Order , converted to Lutheranism , secularised (and took to himself)

2695-436: The authority of clerics as the custodians of revealed knowledge. The shift of responsibility for education from the family and community to the state has had two consequences: A major issue in the study of secularization is the extent to which certain trends such as decreased attendance at places of worship indicate a decrease in religiosity or simply a privatization of religious belief, where religious beliefs no longer play

2772-551: The biennial European Social Survey suggest that the proportion of Britons who identify as Christian fell from 55% (in 1983) to 43% (in 2015). While members of non-Christian religions – principally Muslims and Hindus – quadrupled, the non-religious ("nones") now make up 53% of the British population. More than six in 10 "nones" were brought up as Christians, mainly Anglican or Catholic. Only 2% of "nones" were raised in religions other than Christian. People who were brought up to practice

2849-458: The birth rate of seculars. The religious fertility effect operates to a greater or lesser extent in all countries, and is amplified in the West by religious immigration. For instance, even as the white British became more secular, London , England, has become more religious in the past 25 years as religious immigrants and their descendants have increased their share of the population. Across the board,

2926-628: The conditions, not the prevalence, of belief, and these conditions are understood to be shared across a given society, irrespective of belief or lack thereof. Taylor's thorough account of secularity as a socio-historical condition, rather than the absence or diminished importance of religion, has been highly influential in subsequent philosophy of religion and sociology of religion , particularly as older sociological narratives about secularisation , desecularisation , and disenchantment have come under increased criticism. Christian Smith (sociologist) Christian Stephen Smith (born 1960)

3003-472: The context of colonialism . Attempts to define either the "secular" or the "religious" in non-Western societies, accompanying local modernization and Westernization processes, were often and still are fraught with tension. Due to all these factors, secular as a general term of reference was much deprecated in social sciences, and is used carefully and with qualifications. Philosopher Charles Taylor in his 2007 book A Secular Age understands and discusses

3080-890: The contrary that the modern age, including its belief in progress, grew out of a new secular self-affirmation of culture against the Christian tradition ." Wolfhart Pannenberg , a student of Löwith, has continued the debate against Blumenberg. Hans Blumberg's assumption that secularization did not exactly grow out of a western-christian tradition also seems to be in line with more recent findings by Christoph Kleine and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr who have shown that similar historical developments can also be found in largely non-christian contexts such as Japan or Sri Lanka. Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007) challenges what he calls 'the subtraction thesis' – that science leads to religion being subtracted from more and more areas of life. Proponents of "secularization theory" demonstrate widespread declines in

3157-521: The fact that their values , morality , or sense of life's meaning are no longer underpinned by communally-accepted religious facts. All religious beliefs or irreligious philosophical positions are, in a secular society, held with an awareness that there are a wide range of other contradictory positions available to any individual; belief in general becomes a different type of experience when all particular beliefs are optional. A plethora of competing religious and irreligious worldviews open up, each rendering

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3234-509: The former Soviet Union or large cities in the Western world with significant amounts of religious immigrants. There is no particular monolithic direction or trend for secularization since even in Europe, the trends in religious history and demographical religious measures (e.g. belief, belonging, etc) are mixed and make the region an exception compared to other parts of the world. Even global studies show that many people who do not identify with

3311-589: The fraction of Americans who did not identify with any particular religion steadily rose from 14.6% in 2008 to 19.6% in 2015. At the same time, the fraction of Americans identifying as Christians sank from 80.1% to 69% in 2021. In December 2021 ~21% of Americans declared no religious identity or preference. Given that non-Christian religions stayed roughly the same (at about 5-7% from 2008 to 2021) secularization thus seems to have affected primarily Christians. However, researchers argue that being unaffiliated does not automatically mean objectively nonreligious since most of

3388-514: The idea of a historical continuity – fundamental to the so-called 'theorem of secularization'; the Modern age in his view represents an independent epoch opposed to Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a rehabilitation of human curiosity in reaction to theological absolutism. "Blumenberg targets Löwith 's argument that progress is the secularization of Hebrew and Christian beliefs and argues to

3465-460: The influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. Historically, the word secular was not related or linked to religion, but was a freestanding term in Latin that would relate to any mundane endeavour. However, the term, saecula saeculorum ( saeculōrum being the genitive plural of saeculum ) as found in

3542-436: The influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. One can regard eating and bathing as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. Nevertheless, some religious traditions see both eating and bathing as sacraments , therefore making them religious activities within those world views . Saying

3619-704: The lands of Semigallia and Courland which he had held on behalf of the order - which enabled him to marry and leave to his descendants the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia . Perhaps the most widely known example of such secularization is that of 1525, which led to the establishment of Prussia , a state which would later become a major power in European politics. The 1960s saw a trend toward increasing secularization in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. This transformation accompanied major social factors: economic prosperity, youth rebelling against

3696-642: The leading Christian sociologists in the country." Michael Emerson and Smith's Divided by Faith was the winner of the "2001 Outstanding Book Award" from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion . Smith was awarded the “Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring, 1995-96” by the Graduate Student Association, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This was followed in 2002 by an “Excellence in Mentoring Award, 2001-2002” by

3773-433: The lifting of monastic restrictions from a member of the clergy, and to deconsecration , removing the consecration of a religious building so that it may be used for other purposes. The first use of "secular" as a change from religion to the mundane is from the 16th century that referred to transforming ecclesiastical possessions for civil purposes, such as monasteries to hospitals; and by the 19th century it gained traction as

3850-535: The medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. The word secular has a meaning very similar to profane as used in a religious context. Today, anything that is not directly connected with religion may be considered secular, in other words, neutral to religion. Secularity does not mean ' anti-religious ' , but ' unrelated to religion ' . Many activities in religious bodies are secular, and though there are multiple types of secularity or secularization, most do not lead to irreligiosity. Linguistically,

3927-524: The most promising general approach to social science for best framing our research and theory. CR, as a philosophy of (social) science (not a sociological theory per se ), offers the best alternative to the problems and limits presented by positivist empiricism, hermeneutical interpretivism, strong social constructionism, and postmodernist deconstruction. It is the meta-theoretical direction in which American sociology needs to move Smith's work in CR involves What

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4004-490: The old Protestant establishment was in "shambles". Key to understanding the secularization, Smith argues, was the rise of an elite intellectual class skeptical of religious orthodoxies and influenced by the European Enlightenment tradition. They consciously sought to displace a Protestant establishment they saw as standing in their way. 2000–2021 . Annual Gallup polls from 2008 through 2015 showed that

4081-415: The original monolithic institutions break up. This is a devolution from single, less differentiated institutions to an increasingly differentiated subset of institutions. Following Parsons, this concept of differentiation has been widely applied. As phrased by José Casanova , this "core and the central thesis of the theory of secularization is the conceptualization of the process of societal modernization as

4158-576: The origins of the modern understanding of secularization from the 19th century can be revealed. [9] 1870–1930 . Christian Smith examined the secularization of American public life between 1870 and 1930. He noted that in 1870 a Protestant establishment thoroughly dominated American culture and its public institutions. By the turn of the 20th century, however, positivism had displaced the Baconian method (which had hitherto bolstered natural theology ) and higher education had been thoroughly secularized. In

4235-425: The other more "fragile". This condition in turn entails for Taylor that even clearly religious beliefs and practices are experienced in a qualitatively different way when they occur in a secular social context. In Taylor's sense of the term, a society could in theory be highly "secular" even if nearly all of its members believed in a deity or even subscribed to a particular religious creed; secularity here has to do with

4312-495: The prevalence of religious belief throughout the West, particularly in Europe. Some scholars (e.g.,  Rodney Stark , Peter Berger ) have argued that levels of religiosity are not declining, while other scholars (e.g., Mark Chaves, N. J. Demerath) have countered by introducing the idea of 'neo-secularization', which broadens the definition of secularization to include the decline of religious authority and its ability to influence society. In other words, rather than using

4389-421: The process of change from the so-called primitive societies to increasingly advanced societies. In the United States, the emphasis was initially on change as an aspect of progress, but Talcott Parsons refocused on society as a system immersed in a constant process of increased differentiation, which he saw as a process in which new institutions take over the tasks necessary in a society to guarantee its survival as

4466-436: The proportion of irreligious apostates as the sole measure of secularity, 'neo-secularization' argues that individuals increasingly look outside of religion for authoritative positions. 'Neo-secularizationists' would argue that religion has diminishing authority on issues such as birth control , and argue that religion's authority is declining and secularization is taking place even if religious affiliation may not be declining in

4543-467: The question of secularization has generated considerable (and occasionally heated) debates in the social sciences. Today, criticism is directed against the assertion that religion has become less important in the modern age. Critics point to developments in South Korea, Russia and the USA. The combination of institutional religion with other interests, such as economic or political interests, leads to

4620-479: The religious studies scholar and intercultural theologian Michael Bergunder [5] criticizes the fact that the terms religion and esotericism [6] are tainted by a Eurocentric origin thinking. This inaccurate use of the terms hinders a constructive discussion about secularization in a global context. As an alternative, Bergunder [7] argues for a historicization from the present of these general terms according to Foucault's [8] . In this way, hitherto unseen connections and

4697-488: The resulting anti-clericalism that was one of the roots of the Spanish civil war . Notably, the dictatorship of Francisco Franco 's core ideology was national Catholicism . However, agreements linked to the constitution of 1978 separated church and state. In 2001, 82% of Spaniards identified as Catholic but only half did in 2021. Only around 20% of Spaniards go to mass regularly and only 20% of weddings are taking place in

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4774-421: The rules and conventions of society, sexual revolution , women's liberation , radical theology, and radical politics. A new study found evidence that a rise in secularization generally has preceded economic growth over the past century. The multilevel, time-lagged regressions also indicate that tolerance for individual rights predicted 20th century economic growth even better than secularization. Secularization

4851-484: The same book, Souls in Transition . He previously won Christianity Today 's 2005 Distinguished Book Award for his 2005 book, co-authored with Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers . In December, Choice Magazine selected What Is a Person? as one of its Top 25 (out of 7000 reviewed) Outstanding Academic Titles of 2011. The book also received

4928-489: The secular or secularness (from Latin saeculum , ' worldly ' or ' of a generation ' ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion . The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era . In the Middle Ages , there were even secular clergy. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in

5005-457: The secularity of Western societies less in terms of how much of a role religion plays in public life ( secularity 1 ), or how religious a society's individual members are ( secularity 2 ), than as a "backdrop" or social context in which religious belief is no longer taken as a given ( secularity 3 ). For Taylor, this third sense of secularity is the unique historical condition in which virtually all individuals – religious or not – have to contend with

5082-562: The secularization of modern civilization partly results from our inability to adapt the broad ethical and spiritual needs of people to the increasingly fast advance of the physical sciences. In contrast to the "modernization" thesis, Christian Smith and others argue that intellectual and cultural élites promote secularization to enhance their own status and influence. Smith believes that intellectuals have an inherent tendency to be hostile to their native cultures, causing them to embrace secularism. According to Jack David Eller, secularization

5159-413: The sixth is more of a 'clarification of use': Abdel Wahab Elmessiri (2002) outlined two meanings of the term secularization: As studied by sociologists, one of the major themes of secularization is that of "differentiation"—i.e., the tendency for areas of life to become more distinct and specialized as a society becomes modernized. European sociology, influenced by anthropology , was interested in

5236-566: The strengthening of these religions in their respective societies. However, there are also factors that lead to a diminishing importance of religion. This is the main trend in Western Europe. [1] Some scholars point to the permanent interplay between secularization and (re)sacralization in Western societies. For example, after the first democratic revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries, religious traditions quickly regained strength. [2] It has also been denied that secularization ever took place in

5313-545: The term moralistic therapeutic deism (abbreviated MTD ) to describe the common religious beliefs exhibited by American youth in a survey. It has also been referred to as egonovism . The book summarized the "National Study of Youth and Religion", privately funded by the Lilly Endowment . They label moralistic therapeutic deism as a religion with the following traits: Critical realism (CR) is, in Smith's view,

5390-639: The term this way (see " secularism ", below); Martin Luther used to speak of "secular work" as a vocation from God for most Christians. Secular has been a part of the Christian church's history, which even developed in the medieval period secular clergy , priests who were defined as the Church's geographically-delimited diocesan clergy and not a part of the diasporal monastic orders. This arrangement continues today. The Waldensians advocated for secularity by separation of church and state. According to cultural anthropologists such as Jack David Eller, secularity

5467-526: The traditional sociological theory of secularization, however, David Martin argues that the concept of social differentiation has been its "most useful element". At present, secularization as understood in the West is being debated in the sociology of religion . In his works Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966) and The Genesis of the Copernican World (1975), Hans Blumenberg has rejected

5544-439: The unaffiliated do still hold some religious and spiritual beliefs. For example, 72% of American unaffiliated or "Nones" believe in God or a Higher Power. The "None" response is more of an indicator for lacking affiliation than an active measure for irreligiosity, and a majority of the "Nones" can either be conventionally religious or "spiritual". In Britain, secularization came much later than in most of Western Europe. It began in

5621-413: The world may be in decline as a percentage of the world population due to irreligious countries having subreplacement fertility rates and religious countries having higher birth rates in general. Christian sociologist Peter L. Berger coined the term desecularization to describe this phenomenon. In addition, secularization rates are stalling or reversing in some countries/regions such as the countries in

5698-576: The younger generation (age 18–24) that fraction was only 70% in 2011. By contrast, in 2016 these numbers had fallen to <80% (55+) and <40% (18–24). The other age groups were in between these values. In Lebanon and Morocco , the number of people listening to daily recitals of the Quran fell by half from 2011 to 2016. Some of these developments seem to be driven by need, e.g. by stagnating incomes which force women to contribute to household income and therefore to work. High living costs delay marriage and, as

5775-554: The “Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize for 2010,” from the International Association for Critical Realism. Smith received for the same book the 2011 Honorable Mention Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence from American Publisher’s, Philosophy category. In 2007, Smith's alma mater , Gordon College, presented him with the "Alumnus of the Year" award in "recognition of his many accomplishments and work as one of

5852-716: Was an assistant professor, full professor, and then Stuart Chapin Professor of Sociology. He remained at North Carolina for 12 years before moving to Notre Dame as the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society . He is also a Faculty Fellow of the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies. Smith has been awarded more than $ 20 million worth of research grants from

5929-515: Was born on October 23, 1960. He attended Wheaton College (1978–1979) and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Gordon College in 1983. Smith earned his Master of Arts (1987) and Doctor of Philosophy (1990) degrees from Harvard University , where he also spent a year studying theology at Harvard Divinity School . Smith began his academic career as an instructor, and then assistant professor at Gordon College. In 1994 he joined University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he

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