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201 In part 4 I deal with subjects that have been prominent in the sociology of religion: secularization and fundamentalism (or, the term I prefer, neotraditionalism) (chapter 10) and public religion (chapter 11). If secularization and neotraditionalism occur together, polarization, a process I discuss in chapter 10, is possible. Perhaps no subject has been as contentious in the sociology of religion as secularization , but the multiplication of definitions, dimensions, and measurements of secularization has made it increasingly difficult to single out “the secularization thesis .”1 Among the multidimensional frameworks for the analysis of secularization, the framework suggested by José Casanova is particularly helpful for my purposes because it was formulated with particular reference to the importance of public religion , which I discuss in chapter 11. Three dimensions of secularization are distinguished : (1) the differentiation of secular spheres from religious norms and institutions , (2) a decline of religious beliefs and practices, and (3) the marginalization of religion to a privatized sphere. The first dimension, differentiation, is common to all Western societies, but of particular relevance here is the variation among societies with respect to the differentiation of nationalist ideologies from religion and the differentiation of state and religion. The second dimension, the decline of religious beliefs and practices, is less encompassing of Western societies than differentiation, and, as Casanova notes, the more the religious institutions resisted differentiation, the more religion declined. The third dimension, privatization, has been a historical trend in many societies, but Casanova emphasizes that, unlike differentiation, it is not a modern structural trend. It is a “historical option” found particularly in those societies that have experienced religious decline, and in recent decades there have been important trends of deprivatization.2 The subsuming of the privatization of religion under the rubric “secularization ” has been challenged,3 but the greatest dispute among sociologists of religion has been over whether religious beliefs and practices in Western societies have declined (Casanova’s second dimension). The authors of a number of discussions of the secularization thesis have begun by noting that the conventional view among sociologists is to support the thesis and that by questioning the thesis, the author is questioning and doing battle against accepted wisdom.4 However, readers of the sociology of religion since the 1970s might easily obtain the impression that, at least in the United States, it is the antisecularization thesis that has become the accepted wisdom and that the supporters of the secularization thesis are now in the introduction to part 4 04 Part 4.indd 201 9/20/10 10:25 AM 202 i n t r o d ucti o n t o pa r t 4 minority. The antisecularization thesis is not new,5 but the number of its proponents among sociologists of religion grew considerably in the 1970s and 1980s.6 Among Western societies the United States appears to be among the most religious , and American sociologists have been prominent in refuting the secularization thesis. With one exception, indications of religiosity among Americans appear to have changed little since 1990. Recent polls continue to show that close to 90 percent of Americans continue to proclaim their belief in the existence of God and almost 60 percent say that they believe that religion is important in their lives. Church membership and attendance, after reaching peak figures in the 1950s, declined after 1960, but most of the decline took place in the 1960s and 1970s, and since then the decline has been small. However, the proportion of Americans who do not espouse a religious identity has markedly increased, from one-tenth in 1990 to nearly onesixth in recent surveys. More Americans say that they have no religion or describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, secular, or humanist.7 Few American sociologists of religion see this as a significant indicator of secularization. They tend to argue that many Americans have become skeptical of conventional religious institutions and have become highly subjective and selective in their approaches to religion. The secularization thesis is held to be refuted empirically by studies that show that religion is alive and well in the modern world and has not been affected adversely by dimensions of “modernization,” such as urbanization and the development of the mass media.8 The growth of conservative religious movements, the success of television evangelism, and the proliferation of new religious movements are believed by many American scholars to demonstrate the invalidity of the secularization thesis.9 This conclusion has been challenged by those who have argued that the growth...

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