Secularisation is the idea that religion is going into decline – the process of becoming less religious in terms of sacred, faith and belief. Some sociologists believe that secularisation is occurring in one form or another and their aim is to explore and explain the process of secularisation, others are uncertain as to whether secularisation is happening, and the rest see a transformation to a different type of religious practise happening, like an evolution of religion, rather than a decline in it.
Woodhead and Heelas have identified two views of the secularisation process – The disappearance thesis – where religion has gone into decline because of modernity, and been over taken by other parts of life such as the media. They’ve called this the death of religion, and believe it will continue to decline until it has fully disappeared. This opposes view that religion remains constant. The second thesis is the differentiation thesis – where they believe that religion isn’t going into decline fully because people are still religious but in different forms – public religion is less significant but it has transformed into a private expression of religion as it does no longer influence the major institutions in society, such as the family and education, so it is not so apparent in wider society but still important in peoples every day private lives. This supports the view that religion remains constant.
It is also important to note that Bruce does not see that secularisation is a Global process, he believes it is only happening in the West – Europe, North America and Australasia, suggesting that religion is varying from place to place, however it is not remaining constant because it is declining in some parts of the world.
First of the sociologists, Marx believes in a theory that supports the view of the disappearance of secularisation. He believes that the need for