Secularization

Secularization is a generally discussed and a worldwide phenomenon today. The word secularization comes from the Latin word secularis, which means worldly or profane. In the Christian world this term was used to differentiate the Christian concepts of supernatural from all that was mundane or profane, and was widely invoked to assert the superiority of the supernatural or the sacred.

Before defining it, we have to make a clear distinction between secularization and secularism which is sometimes confusing. Secularization is a process of decline in religious activities, beliefs, ways of thinking, and institutions that occurs primarily in association with, or as an unconscious or unintended consequence of, other processes of social structural change. It need not necessarily deny God or the supernatural, but indifferent to it. Secularism is an ideology; its proponents consciously denounce all forms of supernaturalism and the agencies devoted to it. Secularism may contribute to the process of secularization, but much less than the other causes.

Briefly defined, secularization is the process in which religious consciousness, activities, and institutions are loosing their social significance. Steve Bruce defines it in a threefold way: (1) the declining importance of religion for the operation of non religious roles and institutions such as, those of the state and the economy; (2) a decline in the social standing of religious roles and institutions; and (3) a decline in the extend to which people engage in religious practice, display beliefs of a religious kind, and conduct other aspects of their lives in a manner informed by such beliefs.

In a pre-modern European society, a structure of religious values, norms, symbols and convictions overarched the nexus of society almost like sacred canopy. But today, on the first level of meaning, these religious connections become increasingly marginalized, with its sphere of competence becoming limited to only the church. It indicates that religion becomes marginal to the operation of social system, and that the essential functions for the operation of the society become rationalised, passing out of the control of agencies devoted to the supernatural.

Sociologists use this term to indicate a variety of processes in which the various social institutions became gradually distinct from one another and increasingly free of the matrix of religious assumptions that had earlier inspired and dominated their operation. This constitutes the second level of meaning.

The third level of meaning points to the personal sense of religion of the people. Religion has gradually been losing its influence even in the minds of people. This process is accelerating. It finds expression in official disaffiliation from the Church or in reduced membership in the Church or a decline of members actually participating in church activities.

To unravel completely the complex tissue of casual agencies contributing to secularization would be tantamount to reconstructing the entire web of social history. Any trend as pervasive and persistent in the course of human affairs as this one must be extensively related to all other facets of social change. We may note here only three specific aspects contributed to this process.

First are the things that favour differentiation, for example increase of population, technological progress, political centralization, scientific discoveries, and the influence of capital in the age of exploration. The application of science, particularly to productive activities, and the evolution of new techniques reduced man’s sense of dependence on the divine. As society became industrialized and urbanized, increasing proportion of people began to be removed from nature. Thus the possible intervention of religion in to everyday life became less plausible. Man’s increased capacity to asses and supply his own needs led to the assumption that social well-being depended not on God’s providence but on social planning.

Secondly, there are the secularizing functions of some Judeo-Christian ideas such as God’s absolute transcendence. These ideas demystified the world. Secularization found here unintended theological legitimation.

Thirdly, we may note the role of the elite in the autonomous spheres, those who as the ‘professional vanguard’ knew how to systematically eliminate religious and, in part, ethical factors when defining economic, political, legal, and academic problems.

In its crudest form, secularization says that industrial society produces rational persons and that rational persons reject religion. However, most sociologists recognize that secularization is a multidimensional phenomenon at both religious and socio cultural levels. At the cognitive level there has been decline of religious content in arts, literature, and philosophy, while science has become autonomous. At the experiential level, of individual consciousness, many persons understand the world and live out their lives without reference to religious interpretations in which they no longer believe.

Just as religious institutions have ceased to be central in society, and just as society no longer endorses religious goals as its primary ends, religious consciousness appears to have diminished.

The Church is always aware of the threat of secularization. Pope John Paul II writes in his Encyclical Redemtoris Missio: “The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily secularized world a “gradual secularization of salvation” has taken place…” Pope Benedict XVI has declared that ongoing secularization to be a fundamental problem of modern society. He argues, while speaking of secularization, for the necessity of certain moral principles for maintaining a free state as well as for the importance of a genuine reason and authentic religion, in order to uphold the state’s moral foundation. He insists that proponents of secular reason and religious conviction should learn from each other, even as they differ over the particular ways that mutual learning should occur.

As the conclusion, I would to like to present a theological refection on this issue. Many thought that by secularization religion would disappear. But we can see in the contemporary world a shift form secularity to spirituality. In spite of the exploration in to the secrets of nature we are not able to escape the supernatural. But at the same time we should not forget the fact that every walk of life such as morality, law and politics are undergoing an intense secularization. This should impel religion to discover its real role and fulfil it in a fitting manner.