Sociology, religion and secularization: an orientation

✍ Scribed by David Martin

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 635 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0048-721X
• DOI: 10.1016/s0048-721x(05)80016-8

✦ Synopsis

This personal account of a thirty year long encounter with secularization theory indicates its location in sociological culture and its unchallenged status until the sixties. From that time on, the critique of secularization has come from varied standpoints, but arguably the viable core of the notion lies in pluralism and differentiation rather than rationalization and privatization. It emphasizes the variations in the secularization process according to specific historical context. It notes the continuing secularization of western Europe and takes up the issue raised by Peter Berger of 'European Exceptionalism'.