Secularization

So, I've been reading all fall for my first comprehensive exam. I have somewhere near 40 texts on this exam and it is held on Jan 5th. I'll be glad to get it finished.

Secularization is one of the key issues that many texts address. In it's barbaric form. Secularization theory says that society develops in three stages from the religious, to the metaphysical, and on to the scientific society. This is August Comte's theory, who attempted to factor out all faith based claims from his worldview, establishing a positivist system of knowledge. He was not successful. After Comte, Weber came waddling along and devised a little theory known as the protestant work ethic. He blamed Calvinists and their gosh darn anxiety for producing capitalism. His rational follows: Calvinists (read Puritans) weren't sure if they were elected to heaven or hell. They needed to prove this in a way that medieval Christians hadn't (after all they were moderns - which means empiricism people!). So they utilized journals. They wanted to chart the good works that God was doing in their lives and thus prove that they were of the elect. What is the American way to prove grace? You guessed it: Money! How do you get money? By working hard. Did Calvinists put two and two together? No. This is why Calvinism is called a vanishing mediator by Marxist thinker Fredric Jameson. Calvinism (this-worldly aestheticism) is the mediator between medieval Catholicism (other worldly aestheticism) and capitalism (this-worldly indulgence). After Calvinism brings about capitalism it is supposed that it is polite enough to blow away with the wind. This is secularism from an economic stand point. What does Weber leave us with? The iron cage of modernity, trapped in rationality.

Now many people have refuted this for good reason. One: Capitalism emerges in Catholic Italian city states before Calvin was a glimmer in his father's eye. Two: Weber reads history with a sort of providence devoid of a prime mover (God). Causality isn't as clear cut as Weber would have us believe. Still, Weber's theories were smoking hot and the fire burned through out the 20th century (that's right BJoel, he started it). Christiano's diagram shows you several popular theories of secularization by sociological superstars.


As it happens, Sociologists are fond of crib notes. Steve Bruce, master of subtlety and author of God is Dead, has produced his own image/theory, which, if you look below, you will notice is a amalgam of most of the theories above.


Since these images need no explanation (he hum) I will say that Jose Casanova has refuted them (well at least Bruce). Bruce makes these claims about secularization:
1. It leads to structural differentiation of spheres (economic, political, religious);
2. This differentiation undermines the socio-cultural authority of religious leaders;
3. Which leads to the decline of practices, beliefs, and any other conduct associated with belief (this is the dry up and blow away part).

Casanova says no. He's not dry (drinks wine one would suppose)nor blowing away (...not dead yet). He says that yes structural differentiation has occurred, but belief hasn't diminished. Why? Well, he says, the idea that belief would diminish is linked with a Kantian myth of the enlightenment, that claims the public will become religion-less because religion will be privatized. Casanova claims that privatization isn't a necessity, and that the privatization that has already occurred has been sustained because the elite has pressured, hacked and chased the religious villagers into interior realms.

Casanova isn't for the return of the villagers without a change, however. In a democracy, Casanova claims, freedom of conscience must be privileged. This is what necessitates the differentiation of religion from political and economic realms. He then says that "good" modern religions, like the Baptists, will allow for freedom of conscience (or the inner testimony of the spirit), while "bad" traditional religions like the Catholics will hold on to Church authority, in an attempt to reshape the political through their influence. These bad traditions will not prosper in modernity, Casanova claims, because they don't obey the rules. They will attract negative attention. Thus, Catholicism should not order it's parishioners to vote one way or the other, and instead work for cultural change in the civil sphere. Religion should become public, so it can free up the private.

I think he might be polishing over some burrs here. How, for instance, is a church supposed to tiptoe around freedom of conscience and preach/teach on the orientation toward the good? Can an idea of sin exist in such a framework, as sin creates situations where certain choices are discouraged. Furthermore, does any institution, club, or group, allow for such liberty if it has an orientation toward the good (which I assure you it does)? I think Casanova, who is a theologian, needs to re-evaluate his theology of sin and church authority.