Do all societies become secular?

Ryan Schram

Mills 169 (A26)

ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au

11 May 2015

Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2667/10

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In many parts of the world, religions seems to be on the decline.

• In Australia, 65.3% say religion is 'not very important' or 'not at all important' (World Values Survey 2014).
• In Scandinavian countries, 60% of people say religion is unimportant (ibid.).
• In some Western European countries, notably France, 40-30% of people profess no belief in any God, spirit, or life force (Eurobarometer 2010).
• In these same countries, over half do not attend any religious service.

In other parts of the world, religious identity seems to have a new prominence.

• The “Islamic Revival” in the Middle East and other Muslim-majority countries.
• The revival of Orthodox Christianity in former Soviet states.
• The house church movement in China, and a general revival of interest in religious practice.
• The growth of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on Weber's ideas about religion and change, he predicted that as society became more complex, and its division of labor became more specialized and rational, religion would become restricted to certain areas of life, and many areas of life would be completely secular and indifferent to religious ideas. This has become the secularization thesis.

A thesis statement is one possible answer among many to a research question.

There are two pretty obvious problems with this thesis:

• Is it based on a flawed assumption about social change.
• It really doesn't look at all the relevant changes in this area, only the decline of religious observance among some people.

In short, the secularization thesis is wrong, but then again, we can see now that it was really asking the wrong question. Sociology is still recoving from this.

Secularism means neutrality with respect to religion, and the absence of religious influence. Specifically, one normally associates this concept with:

• The separation of church and state, or official neutrality on religion.
• One's religion is private matter, and does not affect other roles.
• One has freedom to worship and freedom of belief.
• In some cases, religious expression of any kind is banned in some areas of life, e.g. in French public schools. French secularism is better known as laïcité.

• France: Headscarf controversies, 1989-1994 (Jones 2009); burqa ban, 2014.
• Australia: Ban of face coverings in the gallery of Federal Parliament, 2014.
• US: Sultaana Freeman denied a Florida driver's license, 2002.
• Turkey: Ban on headscarves in universities lifted, 2008.

The freedom of belief, thought, or conscience has historically had two elements in international law (Slotte 2010, ):

• forum internum (internal forum)
• forum externum (external forum)

What is the difference?

What is this?

https://www.facebook.com/pages/WISH-Women-In-Solidarity-with-Hijabis/778080655582205?sk=photos_stream

Share what you know about this. What do you think? What are people doing here?

Eurobarometer. 2010. “Special Eurobarometer 341, Wave 73.1: Biotechnology Report.” http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_341_en.pdf

Eurobarometer. 2012. “Special Eurobarometer 393, Wave EB77.4: Discrimination in the EU 2012.” http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_393_en.pdf

Jones, Nicky. 2009. “Beneath the Veil: Muslim Girls and Islamic Headscarves in Secular France.” Macquarie Law Journal 9: 47.

Petkoff, Peter. 2012. “Forum Internum and Forum Externum in Canon Law and Public International Law with a Particular Reference to the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.” Religion and Human Rights 7 (3): 183–214. doi:10.1163/18710328-12341236.

Slotte, Pamela. 2010. “The Religious and the Secular in European Human Rights Discourse.” The Finnish Yearbook of International Law 21 (1): 231–86. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2592380.

World Values Survey. 2014. “World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014: Online Data Analysis: V.9 Important in Life, Religion.” World Values Survey Database. Accessed June 30, 2014. http://worldvaluessurvey.org/.