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The idea of secularization is fundamental to contemporary debates over the sociology of religion. As sociologist Steve Bruce puts the issue succinctly, "The basic proposition is that modernization creates problems for religion"; or to quote the social anthropologist Anthony Wallace, "The evolutionary future of religion is extinction." To sketch the notion crudely, the Protestant Reformation created the social and economic conditions from which modern capitalism emerged. This in turn allowed the emergence of societies characterized by diversity, pluralism, individual choice, relativism, and an emphasis on scientific and technological ways of understanding the world. In this model, religion fares poorly, and religious adherence and practice decline precipitously. Very generally, "increasing prosperity reduces religious fervor." The whole process is epitomized by the evocative photograph on the cover of Bruce's new book, God Is Dead, depicting a once-grand British church now converted into "Mike's Carpet Stores—Discount Warehouse." Transitions of this sort are painfully commonplace across a rapidly de-Christianizing Europe. Of course, not all churches become warehouses: a fair number are now mosques.
A paradigm as important as secularization has not gone unchallenged. Since the 1980s, sociologists like Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge have fundamentally attacked the whole notion, charging for instance that the apparent decline of religion since the Middle Ages is far less than it seems, and that contemporary religion is much more vital than the prophets of secularization have claimed. The apparent trajectory of decline is thus exaggerated, or even illusory. It is in order to counter such criticism that Bruce has written God Is Dead, which among other things offers non-specialists a useful survey of some of the critical issues and debates in the contemporary sociology of religion.
Though the mechanisms of change are open to debate, the fact of a secularizing process is obvious enough, at least in Europe. The cultural and intellectual impact of the change is abundantly detailed in Edward Norman's succinct Secularisation, in which a traditional religious believer laments the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the retreating Sea of Faith. (Bruce, in contrast, is not only happy to stand on Dover Beach, but cheers heartily as the tide goes out.) As in much of his previous writing, Norman is less concerned with the evils of the secular world than with their penetration inside the walls of the City of God. In 1979, his Christianity and the World Order offered an acute and prophetic analysis of the baneful influence of secular and Marxist ideals on liberal Christianity through the vehicle of liberation theology. Now, he shows how
Secular Humanism, as an unconscious orientation of life and thought, and entertained in an inarticulate and unrecognized form … has with frightening frequency infiltrated the church members' perceptions of their own religion. Christianity is not being rejected in modern society—what is causing the decline of public support for the Church is the insistence of church leaders themselves in representing secular enthusiasm for humanity as core Christianity.
That Britain—along with most of Europe—has become thoroughly secularized is not open to serious question. The more important issue is whether the process is following some kind of sociological law of nature, which will ultimately take effect in all postmodern societies derived from European models, or whether "modernization" might have very different effects in different societies.
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