Individualisation Thesis

The image is from Sci-Fi Church with its “Jedi Council,” a “Fresh Expression” of church in Sydney, Australia.

The individualisation thesis agrees with the supply-side model that modernisation does not lead to a decline in religious life. It differs on the mode of gathering, on the consequent religious social forms. It expects not simply that religious institutions will continue to lose relevance, but a more general degradation of communal forms of religious life. Much of this follows Thomas Luckmann’s understanding of “privatisation” in which “[p]ersonal identity becomes, essentially, a private phenomenon.” (Luckmann 1967, 97).  This occurs in relation to the fragmentation of an overarching system of ultimate meaning, leading to individual identity being a construct “not only his personal identity but also his [sic] individual system of ‘ultimate’ significance.” (Luckmann 1967, 99). Because we build our own structures of meaning, religious formation requires no formal structures, nor identification with a particular community or social group, but can be satisfied through public and occasional forums such as workshops or seminars or through the selection spiritual practices divorced from any overarching narrative which might lend them coherence. To draw on Pollack and Pickel’s summary: “The individualization thesis utilizes a distinction between church and religion in order to distance itself from the secularization theory. In this view, individuals are increasingly freeing themselves from institutional guidelines in their religious ideas and behaviours, and thus increasingly making their own decisions about their religion. In consequence, ever more subjective forms of religion are purportedly replacing institutionalized ones.” (Pollack and Pickel 2007, 604). One might note this approach make multiple religious belonging possible.

• Cornille, Catherine, ed. Many Mansions?: Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity Orbis Books, 2002.
• Cornille, Catherine. “Double Religious Belonging: Aspects and Questions.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003): 43–49.
• Holmes Jr., Nathaniel. “Lost in Translation? Multiple Religious Participation and Religious Fidelity.” The Journal of Religion 94, no. 4 (2014): 425–35.

Grace Davie set many of the key ideas in place. She observed how “religious belief is inversely rather than directly related to belonging,” meaning that “as the institutional disciplines decline, belief not only persists, but becomes increasingly personal, detached and heterogeneous.” (Davie 2002, 8). This observation lead her to coin the phrase “believing without belonging,” indicating a disconnect between what people professed (‘believing’), and actual churchgoing and religious practice (‘belonging’). The issue becomes one of belonging and its changing form, I.e., belonging is a wider social issue which happens also to include the church. “The split between believing and belonging is therefore a part of a broader pattern of change which happens to affect religious organisations amongst others. It is not a problem unique to religion and does not necessarily arise from the inner dynamics of religious organisations alone.” Citing Beckford (Davie 1994, 19). As an example, Kevin Ward examined the involvement in rugby in NZ, which fell from 400,000 in the 1970s to 120,000 by 2000, even while ‘belief’ in rugby remained strong.

• Ward, Kevin. “Rugby and Church: Worlds in Conflict?” Reality 53 (2002): 26–30.

As a perhaps counterintuitive consequence of “believing but not belonging,” Davie points to the notion of “vicarious religion.” This indicates the willingness of the population to delegate the religious sphere to the professional ministries of the state churches” with Europeans grateful that “churches perform, vicariously, a number of tasks on behalf of the population as a whole.” Though they may not practice it, churches “articulate the sacred” on behalf of individuals, families or society as a whole, of which “more than half aware that they might need to draw on [it] at crucial times in their individual or collective lives.”(Davie 2000, 19). The churches function as “public utilities rather than competing firms.” (Davie 2002, 43-44). Such utility is found in church ‘professionals’ conducting rituals on behalf of others, believing on behalf of others, embodying moral codes on behalf of others, and offering space for the vicarious debate of unresolved social issues (e.g., homosexuality).(Davie 2006, 248-50).

General Bibliography

• Davie, Grace. “Believing without Belonging: Is This the Future of Religion in Britain?” Social Compass 37, no. 4 (1990): 455–69.
• Davie, Grace. Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing without Belonging. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1994.
• Davie, Grace. “Religion in Modern Britain: Changing Sociological Assumptions.” Sociology 34, no. 1 (2000): 113–28.
• Davie, Grace. “Is Europe an Exceptional Case?” International Review of Mission 95 (2006): 247–58.
• Davie, Grace. Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
• Jamieson, Alan. A Churchless Faith: Faith Journeys Beyond the Churches. SPCK Publishing, 2002.
• Kettle, David. “Believing Without Belonging? Cultural Change Seen in Theological Context.” International Review of Mission 94 (2005): 507–23.
• Pollack, Detlef and Gert Pickel. “Religious individualization or secularization? Testing hypotheses of religious change: the case of Eastern and Western Germany.” The British Journal of Sociology 58, no. 4 (2007): 603–32.
• Pollack, Detlef and Daniel V. A. Olson, eds. The Role of Religion in Modern Societies Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2008.
• Voas, David and Alasdair Crockett. “Religion in Britain: Neither Believing nor Belonging.” Sociology 39, no. 1 (2005): 11–28.
• Roof, Wade Clark. Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton University Press, 2001.
• Ward, Kevin. “‘No Longer Believing’ – or – ‘Believing Without Belonging’.” Modern Believing 46, no. 2 (2005): 35–45.
• Ward, Kevin R. Losing Our Religion?: Changing Patterns of Believing and Belonging in Secular Western Societies. Wipf & Stock, 2013.
• Wuthnow, Robert. After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s. University of California Press, 1998.
• Pickel, Gert. “Revitalization of Religiosity as Normalization? – Romania in European Comparative Perspective.” Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai-Sociologia 54, no. 2 (2009): 9–36.
• Heelas, Paul and Linda Woodhead. The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.
• Voas, David. “The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe.” European Sociological Review 25, no. 2 (2009): 155–68.
• Luckmann, Thomas. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: MacMillan, 1967.
• Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: SAGE, 1992.
• Beck, Ulrich, and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and Its Social and Political Consequences. London: SAGE, 2002.
• Hart, Stephen. “Privatization in American Religion and Society.” Sociological Analysis 47, no. 4 (1987): 319–34.
• Berger, Peter L. 1969. The Sacred Canopy. Doubleday Anchor.
• Berger, Peter L. 1979. Facing Up to Modernity. Basic Books.
• Berger, Peter L. 1999. “The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview.” In The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, edited by Peter L. Berger, 1–18. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
• Casanova, José. 2001. “Religion, the New Millennium, and Globalization.” Sociology of Religion 62 (4): 415–41.
• Chaves, Mark. 1994. “Secularization as Declining Religious Authority.” Social forces 72 (3): 749–74.
• Davie, Grace. 1994. Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Davie, Grace. 2000. Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates. Oxford University Press.
• Davie, Grace. 2002. Europe – the Exceptional Case: Parameters of Faith in the Modern World Sarum Theological Lectures. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
• Davie, Grace. 2006. “Is Europe an Exceptional Case?” International Review of Mission 95 247–58.
• Duffy, Eamon. 2005. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580. Yale University Press.
• Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark. 1988. “Religious Economies and Sacred Canopies: Religious Mobilization in American Cities, 1906.” American Sociological Review 41–49.
• Gooren, Henri. 2006. “The Religious Market Model and Conversion: Towards a New Approach.” Exchange 35 (1): 39–60.
• Hadden, Jeffrey K. 1987. “Toward Desacralizing Secularization Theory.” Social Forces 65 (3): 587–611.
• Hervieu-Léger, Daniele. 2001. “The Twofold Limit of the Notion of Secularisation.” In Peter Berger and the Study of Religion, edited by Paul Heelas, David Martin, and Linda Woodhead, 112–26. Routledge.
• Hughey, Michael W. 1979. “The Idea of Secularization in the Works of Max Weber: A Theoretical Outline.” Qualitative Sociology 2 (1): 85–111.
• Inglehart, Ronald, and Wayne E. Baker. 2000. “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values.” American Sociological Review 65 (1): 19–51.
• James, Graham. 2006. “Mission and the Parish-Shaped Church.” Theology 109 (847): 3–11.
• Lemert, Charles C. 1975. “Social Structure and the Absent Center: An Alternative to New Sociologies of Religion.” Sociological Analysis 36 (2): 95–107.
• Lenski, Gerhard. 1963. The Religious Factor: A Sociologist’s Inquiry. Anchor.
• Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: MacMillan.
• 2004. Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context. London: Church House Publishing.
• Pickel, Gert. 2011. “Contextual Secularization: Theoretical Thoughts and Empirical Implications.” Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe 4 (1): 3–20.
• Pollack, Detlef, and Gert Pickel. 2007. “Religious Individualization or Secularization? Testing Hypotheses of Religious Change: The Case of Eastern and Western Germany.” The British Journal of Sociology 58 (4): 603–32.
• Schultz, Kevin M. 2006. “Secularization: A Bibliographic Essay.” Hedgehog Review 8 (1-2): 170–78.
• Simpson, John H. 1990. “The Stark-Bainbridge Theory of Religion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29 (3): 367–71.
• Stark, Rodney, and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. University of California Press.
• Swatos Jr., William H. 1983. “Enchantment and Disenchantment in Modernity: The Significance of ‘Religion’ as a Sociological Category.” Sociological Analysis 44 (4): 321–37.
• Swatos Jr., William H., and Kevin J. Christiano. 1999. “Secularization Theory: The Course of a Concept.” Sociology of Religion 60 (3): 209–28.
• Tschannen, Olivier. 1991. “The Secularization Paradigm: A Systematization.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30 (4): 395–415.
• Warner, R. Stephen. 1993. “Work in Progress Toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 98 (5): 1044–93.
• Wilson, Brian R. 1976. “Aspects of Secularization in the West.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 3 259–76.

Other Posts in this Series

• Internationalising Secularisation
• Classic Secularization Theory and its Critics
• “Supply-side,” or “Rational-Choice” Religious Market Theory