Religion and Post-Modernity

The secularisation thesis claims religion is declining as societies modernise. An alternative view is that religion has not disappeared but become privatised — a private, personal matter rather than a public, institutional one. This essay describes and assesses that view, arguing that there is strong evidence for privatisation but that its significance is contested.

The case for privatisation. Davie argues that many people show 'believing without belonging': they keep religious belief even after they stop attending or formally belonging to a church. Falling attendance therefore measures a fall in belonging, not necessarily in belief. Davie also describes 'vicarious religion', where a small minority of active believers practise religion on behalf of a much larger majority who draw on the church only at key moments — births, marriages, deaths and national tragedies — and who approve of it existing even if they rarely attend. On this view, religion has moved from the public sphere into private, personal life.

Why this challenges secularisation. If religion has become private, then institutional decline is not the same as the death of religion. Attendance statistics capture only the public, institutional side of religion and miss persisting private belief, so they overstate the decline. Religion would then be changing form, not disappearing.

The case against. Secularisation theorists such as Bruce argue that 'believing without belonging' often refers to a vague, weak, residual belief that no longer shapes how people live. If private belief has no real effect on behaviour, it may be a stage on the way to full secularisation rather than evidence against it. Critics also note that genuine religion is communal, so a purely private faith may be a weakened form of religion.

Assessment. The evidence for privatisation is strong: belief clearly persists where attendance has fallen, which shows that measuring religion only by attendance is misleading. However, whether privatised religion is 'alive and well' or 'fading away' depends on how seriously we take private belief.

Conclusion. Religion has, to a significant extent, become privatised, and this rightly challenges any simple reading of falling attendance as the death of religion. But because privatised belief may be weak, the safest conclusion is that religion has changed form — moving from the public to the private sphere — rather than either thriving or dying outright.

New religious movements (NRMs) and the New Age have grown as traditional religion has declined. This essay assesses their significance for understanding religion today, arguing that they show religion changing form, but that their small scale limits how far they can offset mainstream decline.

The significance of NRMs. Wallis classified NRMs into world-affirming movements (which help members succeed within mainstream society), world-rejecting movements (which withdraw from society and demand high commitment) and world-accommodating movements (which renew members' faith alongside ordinary life). Stark and Bainbridge argued that sects and cults persist because religion provides unique 'compensators' — rewards and meanings that nothing else supplies. The variety of NRMs shows religion adapting to a modern, consumer society rather than dying out.

The significance of the New Age. The New Age is a loose 'holistic milieu' of spiritualities focused on the self, healing, well-being and personal growth. Heelas and Woodhead describe a 'subjective turn' — a shift from external religious authority to the inner self as the source of meaning — and their 'spiritual revolution' thesis predicts a move from traditional religion to personal spirituality. This suggests the sacred is returning in new, individualised forms (resacralisation), so religion is changing rather than declining.

The case for caution. Secularisation theorists such as Bruce argue that NRMs and the New Age are small, fragmented and consumer-like. Crucially, Heelas and Woodhead's own research suggested the holistic milieu was far smaller than the churches it was supposed to replace, so it cannot offset mainstream institutional decline. New forms may also be shallow and short-lived.

Evaluation. NRMs and the New Age are significant for understanding HOW religion is changing — becoming individualised, self-focused and de-institutionalised. But they are not significant enough in scale to prove that religion overall is thriving.

Conclusion. NRMs and the New Age are significant because they reveal religion transforming into individualised, post-modern forms, supporting the view that religion is changing rather than simply declining. However, because they remain small compared with the religion they replace, they qualify rather than overturn the secularisation thesis.

Post-modern theorists argue that religion has been transformed by consumerism, individualism and the media. The concept of 'spiritual shopping' captures the idea that people now pick and mix beliefs from a spiritual marketplace. This essay assesses how useful the concept is for understanding religiosity today, arguing that it usefully explains modern individualised belief but exaggerates how healthy religion is.

The usefulness of the concept. Hervieu-Léger argues that as the traditional 'chain of memory' passing religion down the generations weakens, religion becomes individualised and consumer-like. People become 'pilgrims' on individual spiritual journeys, drawing on many sources, or 'converts' who join groups offering strong belonging. Lyon's idea of 'Jesus in Disneyland' adds that religion relocates out of formal institutions and into the consumer and media sphere — televangelism, online worship and spiritual festivals — so belief becomes de-institutionalised, fluid and personalised. The concept is useful because it explains a real puzzle: why institutions can decline while interest in spirituality persists. It also fits the wider post-modern themes of choice, fragmentation and identity-construction.

The case against its usefulness. Critics argue that spiritual shopping describes a shallow, commercialised spirituality that lacks the binding, community-building power of traditional religion. If religion becomes just another consumer choice, it may be weakening rather than thriving. Secularisation theorists such as Bruce see pick-and-mix spirituality as evidence of decline, not vitality. The concept may also overstate how widespread spiritual shopping really is, since most people are not active spiritual seekers.

Evaluation. The concept is genuinely useful for describing HOW religiosity has changed — from inherited, institutional faith to chosen, individual spirituality. Its weakness is that it can be read in two opposite ways: as religion flourishing in a new marketplace, or as religion dissolving into weak consumer choices.

Conclusion. 'Spiritual shopping' is a useful concept because it captures the individualisation and consumerisation of belief in post-modernity, explaining why spirituality persists as institutions decline. However, it is less useful as proof that religion is thriving, since pick-and-mix belief may be shallow. It best supports the view that religion is changing form rather than either dying or flourishing.

Alongside privatisation and new spirituality, post-modernity has seen the growth of fundamentalism — movements asserting a return to fundamental religious truths and traditional authority. This essay evaluates the main explanations for this growth, arguing that each explains part of the picture but that, taken together, they show fundamentalism is a reaction to the conditions of post-modernity. Fundamentalism is analysed here neutrally, as a sociological phenomenon.

Cultural defence. Bruce argues fundamentalism can defend a group's identity and tradition against secularism, globalisation or Western influence, making religion a focus of solidarity and resistance. This usefully explains fundamentalism that arises where a community feels its way of life is threatened.

Cultural transition. Religion can provide support and certainty during upheaval — for example, for migrants adjusting to a new society or people facing rapid social change. It offers continuity and community when life is disrupted. This explains fundamentalism among groups experiencing dislocation.

Disengagement, marginality and revival. Disengagement explains believers withdrawing from a society they see as corrupt or godless. Marginality explains the appeal of fundamentalism to excluded groups, offering meaning, dignity and belonging. Religious revival points to a broader reawakening of commitment, reasserting certainty against a relativist age.

Fundamentalism as a reaction to post-modernity. Giddens argues fundamentalism is a defensive reaction to globalisation and cosmopolitanism: in a world of endless choice and uncertainty, it offers the security of absolute truth. Bauman similarly links it to post-modern insecurity. This is the strongest framing because it explains why fundamentalism is growing NOW, rather than treating it as a survival from the past.

Evaluation. No single explanation fits every case, and they often overlap — cultural defence, transition and marginality can operate together. The Giddens-Bauman approach is powerful because it links the others to a common cause: the uncertainty of a globalised, post-traditional world. However, it can underplay the specific local and political contexts of particular movements.

Conclusion. The growth of fundamentalism is best explained not by one factor but by several overlapping ones — cultural defence, transition, disengagement, marginality and revival — unified by the insight that fundamentalism is a reaction to the uncertainty of globalisation. Far from being a relic, it is a feature of post-modernity, which strongly supports the view that religion is reviving and changing rather than simply declining.

The secularisation thesis claims religion is declining as societies modernise. The view that religion is 'not declining but simply changing form' challenges this by arguing that religion is being transformed by post-modernity rather than dying. This essay evaluates that view, arguing that it is largely persuasive but overstated, since traditional institutional religion really is declining in some societies even as religion revives in new forms.

The case that religion is changing form. Several developments support this view. Davie's 'believing without belonging' and 'vicarious religion' show belief persisting privately even as attendance falls, so religion has become privatised rather than extinct. Hervieu-Léger's 'spiritual shopping' and Lyon's 'Jesus in Disneyland' show religion relocating into the consumer and media marketplace as individualised, pick-and-mix belief. NRMs (Wallis's typology) and the New Age, with Heelas and Woodhead's 'subjective turn' and 'spiritual revolution' thesis, suggest a resacralisation — the sacred returning in self-focused forms. Finally, fundamentalism is growing: Giddens argues it is a defensive reaction to globalisation, showing religion not just surviving but reviving and becoming more assertive. Across all these, religion is changing direction, not disappearing.

The case against the view. Secularisation theorists such as Bruce reply that the new forms are weak and small. Privatised belief is often vague and residual, with little effect on behaviour. Spiritual shopping is shallow and commercialised, lacking the binding power of traditional religion. The New Age and NRMs are tiny and fragmented — by Heelas and Woodhead's own data the holistic milieu was much smaller than the churches it was meant to replace — so they cannot offset mainstream decline. On this view, falling attendance and membership reflect real decline, and the 'change' is too small to count as a replacement.

Evaluation. The view's strength is that it correctly exposes the error of measuring religion by attendance alone: belief, spirituality and fundamentalist revival all show religion persisting and transforming. Its weakness is that it can ignore the scale of institutional decline in some societies. The judgement therefore depends on a criterion: measured by institutional attendance, decline wins; measured by belief, spirituality and global revival, change wins.

Conclusion. Religion is best understood as changing form rather than simply declining: it has become privatised, individualised, consumerised and, in fundamentalism, newly assertive. But the view is overstated if it denies that traditional institutional religion is declining in some societies. The most accurate position is that religion is declining in its old institutional form while reviving and transforming in new ones — so 'change' fits the evidence better than simple 'decline', but both are happening at once.

Resacralisation is the claim that post-modernity sees a return of the sacred — a revival of spirituality and religious interest, directly against the secularisation thesis. This essay assesses the view that resacralisation is a feature of post-modernity, arguing that there is genuine evidence of religion reviving in new forms, but that the scale of this revival is contested.

The case for resacralisation. Several developments suggest the sacred is returning. The growth of NRMs, classified by Wallis into world-affirming, world-rejecting and world-accommodating types, shows religion adapting to a consumer society rather than fading. Stark and Bainbridge argue religion persists because it offers unique 'compensators' that nothing else can. The New Age 'holistic milieu' focuses on the self, healing and personal growth, and Heelas and Woodhead's 'subjective turn' and 'spiritual revolution' thesis predicts a shift from traditional religion to personal spirituality. Spiritual shopping (Hervieu-Léger) and Lyon's 'Jesus in Disneyland' show belief flourishing in the marketplace and media. Most strikingly, fundamentalism is growing: Giddens links it to globalisation, showing religion not merely surviving but reviving and becoming politically assertive. Together these suggest the sacred is being reasserted in post-modern forms.

The case against resacralisation. Secularisation theorists such as Bruce argue the evidence is far weaker than it looks. The New Age and NRMs are small, fragmented and consumer-like, and Heelas and Woodhead's own research found the holistic milieu was much smaller than the declining churches. Privatised belief may be vague and residual. On this view, what looks like resacralisation is really a scattering of weak, individual spiritualities that cannot reverse the overall decline of religion.

Evaluation. Resacralisation is best understood as a question of evidence rather than assertion, and the data are mixed. The 'spiritual revolution' is a testable claim, and its results show new spirituality growing but remaining small. Fundamentalism, however, is a powerful counter to secularisation that cannot be dismissed as marginal. The judgement depends on whether 'resacralisation' means a large-scale return of religion or simply its persistence and transformation in new forms.

Conclusion. Resacralisation is a feature of post-modernity in the sense that the sacred persists and re-emerges in new, individualised and fundamentalist forms rather than disappearing. But it is overstated if it implies a large-scale reversal of decline, since the new spiritualities remain small relative to the institutions they replace. The strongest position is that post-modernity brings a partial, transformed resacralisation alongside continuing institutional decline — religion is changing form more than it is straightforwardly returning.