SOCIOLOGY SECULARISATION

Sociology Secularisation

Sociology Secularisation

Secular

Secular is often defined as a national or political identity. For example, the state of India is officially secular in its orientation. The state does not endorse a particular religion, and its institutions and offices are free from religious control. Secularism, in this context, becomes tied to the idea of national identity and is inseparable from it. The notion of a secular national identity developed along several lines in the 19th and 20th centuries, and often, quite surprisingly, arose from religious contexts. One such secular identity was Zionism.

Traditional religious Judaism was based partly on the assumption that individual Jews would not participate in the larger secular or religious cultures that surrounded them. Jews in Poland in the 18th century, for instance, were viewed primarily as Jews who existed within their own religious community. Jewish identity, as such, was derived from apolitical Jewish religious sources. Jewish identity before the formation of Zionism came from a mix of religious, cultural, and linguistic elements that combined to create a matrix of assumptions. One of the most important assumptions was that Jews would be restored to their homeland of Palestine, or the Land of Israel, by a God-appointed savior who would return Jews to their land and provide them with a Jewish government. This future messianic age would be completely in God's hands and would not be under the control of individual or collective Jews. Before the creation of Zionism, Jewish political identity was submerged in Jewish religious beliefs. Jews could not hasten the coming of the messiah and their return to the Land of Israel and their own government. (Steffy, 2010)

The concept of secular identity was first developed in the mid-19th century to describe a set of beliefs about freedom of religion for the individual in a modern, national state. Secular identity grew with the expanding power and relevance of the state in the life of its citizens in European countries and the United States.

Early scholarly discussion of secular identity was dominated by its connection with the rise of power in the West. The sociologist Max Weber saw the decline in religious identity as marked by the changing social order caused by mass-market economies, industrialization, and universal ideas of citizenship in a state. The sociologist Paul Berger saw the West as predisposed to the rise of a secular identity because of its Judeo-Christian tradition of monotheism and ethical rationalization. For such thinkers, religion was increasingly viewed as less relevant to modern life. Emile Durkheim saw the rise of specialization in government and societal agencies as pushing religion to an ever-decreasing place in the lives of modern people. This view of secular identity is most easily understood by reviewing specific historical instances. The case of Zionism illuminates the new awareness of a changing identity especially well.

With the 20th-century emergence of fundamentalism (or the idea that religious doctrines and practices should be taken literally) in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, secular-versus-religious debates have become part of an overall global dispute about the role of ...