Secularism in Retreat  

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"Secularism in Retreat" (1996, The National Interest) is a text by Peter L. Berger.

Abstract

"The 'secularization theory' of the 1950s and the 1960s that was proposed by historians and social scientists, which held that modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion in the society and in individuals, has been proven false. Although modernization may have had some secularizing effects in some areas, it has also given rise to counter-secularization. This means that some old and new religious beliefs and practices continue in the lives of individuals. Meanwhile, religiously identified institutions can motivate socially or politically despite their having very limited memberships."

Excerpts

"An important characteristic of the Islamic revival is that it is by no means restricted to the less modernized or "backward" sectors of society, as progressive intellectuals still like to think. On the contrary, it is very strong in cities with a high degree of modernization, and in a number of countries it is particularly visible among people with Western-style higher education; in Egypt and Turkey, for example, it is often the daughters of secularized professionals who are putting on the veil and other accoutrements expressing so-called Islamic modesty."

Exceptions to desecularization

The first apparent exception is in Western Europe, where, if nowhere else, the old secularization theory seems to hold. With increasing modernization there has been an increase in the key indicators of secularization: on the level of expressed beliefs (especially such as could be called orthodox in Protestant or Catholic terms), and dramatically on the level of church-related behavior (attendance at services of worship, adherence to church-dictated codes of personal behavior-especially with regard to sexuality, reproduction, and marriage), and finally, with respect to recruitment to the clergy. These phenomena had been observed for a long time in the northern countries of the continent; since the Second World War they have quickly engulfed the south. Thus Italy and Spain have experienced a rapid decline in church-related religion - as has Greece (thus undercutting the claim of Catholic conservatives that Vatican II is to be blamed for the decline). There is now a massively secular Euro-culture and what has happened in the south can be simply described (though not thereby explained) as the invasion of these countries by that culture. It is not fanciful to predict that there will be similar developments in Eastern Europe, precisely to the degree that these countries too will be integrated into the new Europe.

"The other exception to the desecularization thesis is less ambiguous: There exists an international subculture composed of people with Western-type higher education, especially in the humanities and social sciences, which is indeed secularized by any measure. This subculture is the principal "carrier" of progressive, Enlightenment beliefs and values. While the people in this subculture are relatively thin on the ground, they are very influential, as they control the institutions that provide the "official" definitions of reality (notably the educational system, the media of mass communication, and the higher reaches of the legal system). They are remarkably similar all over the world today as they have been for a long time (though, as we have seen, there are also defectors from this subculture, especially in the Muslim countries). Why it is that people with this type of education should be so prone to secularization is not entirely clear, but there is, without question, a globalized elite culture. It follows, then, that in country after country religious upsurges have a strongly populist character: Over and beyond the purely religious motives, these are movements of protest and resistance against a secular elite. The so-called "culture war" in the United States emphatically shares this feature."

See also

• Secularism
• Desecularization