Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory - Hardcover

Bruce, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199584400 ISBN 13: 9780199584406

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2011

Synopsis

The decline in power, popularity and prestige of religion across the modern world is not a short-term or localized trend nor is it an accident. It is a consequence of subtle but powerful features of modernization.

Renowned sociologist, Steve Bruce, elaborates the secularization paradigm and defends it against a wide variety of recent attempts at rebuttal and refutation. Using the best available statistical and qualitative evidence Bruce considers the implications for the secularization paradigm of the extent to which new religious movements or New Age spiritualities are replacing religion; changes in the nature and power of folk religion and superstition; rational choice alternatives to the secularization paradigm; the popularity and political influence of religion in the USA; religious change in the developing world; reactions to Islam in Europe; and the effects of recent controversies over the public place of religion.

Bruce presents a robust defence of the secularization paradigm, clarifying its arguments for the benefit of all sides of the debate.

About this title

Review

Bruce conceives of a delightful analogy for secularisation. He imagines a wave on a retreating tide every time the wave rises to meet the shore, it moves a little further out to sea. He argues that although religion experiences ebbs and flows, it is ultimately retreating as its transmission from one generation to the next weakens. It is the use of such powerful analogies, as well as the author having a masterful overview of the subject, that makes this an impressively clear and comprehensive book. It offers students an accessible guide to the study of secularisation and, as academic books go, it is a page-turner. (Journal of Contemporary Religion)

hard-hitting but clear and sometimes witty... a useful critique... It is a book which will help some people to face the facts about the decline of religion in the West more honestly. (Graham Gould, Journal of Theological Studies)

a passionate, compelling and responsive book that acts as a useful collation of all recent studies on belief and religiosity seen through a critical eye. (Eliza Filby, Journal of Ecclesiastical History)

About the Author

Steve Bruce is Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199584400
• ISBN 13: 9780199584406
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 254