Isabella Kasselstrand, Phil Zuckerman, and Ryan T. Cragun
The 2023 NSRN Annual Lecture, co-hosted by the Nonreligion in a Complex Future project, featured a presentation by Isabella Kasselstrand, Phil Zuckerman, and Ryan T. Cragun on their recent book, Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society (NYU Press, 2023). In the book’s first substantive chapter, the authors tackle secularization theory and the common criticism that the world is not experiencing religious decline, but simply changes in the way people do religion. They refer to this criticism as the ‘change not decline’ argument. In this post, the authors provide an excerpt from their book that outlines five counterpoints to the ‘change not decline’ argument. They also detail six criteria for ‘change not decline’ advocates who aim to demonstrate that secularization, or declining religiosity, is not taking place.
“First… secularization takes place at three levels—macro, meso, and micro—and secularization is best conceptualized as declining religious authority at all of these levels. When people ‘do religion’ outside of the framework of organized religion, that is a manifestation of secularization. Religious authority is not dictating how they are doing religion; individuals are dictating how they are doing religion. This is a decline in the authority of religion. Thus, invisible religion, private religion, spirituality outside of religion, spirituality but not religion, and lived religion are all manifestations of secularization, not arguments against it.
“Second, some [authors] have argued for very, very broad definitions of religion. McGuire (2008), for instance, gives the example of people gardening as a form of doing religion. If everything people do can be or is religion, then religion is everything. And if religion is everything, ipso facto, religion is also nothing, as the word ceases to meaningfully demarcate something in the world that is different from something else. By this line of reasoning, it would be possible to argue that the most strident atheist who actively works toward the destruction of organized religion, does not identify as religious or spiritual, and either rejects all notions of the supernatural or suspends belief toward them, is religious because they find the game Animal Crossing meditative and relaxing. Such a definition of religion does ‘violence to language,’ to quote Durkheim (1997). Let us be very clear here: Religion cannot encompass all things. Such an understanding of religion is meaningless.
“Third, while we find value in this kind of thick description of how people do religion, it is also important to continue to use traditional and consistent measures of religiosity over time. Without consistent measures of religiosity, it’s impossible to illustrate change. A simple example will help. Advocates of the ‘change not decline’ argument might suggest that measuring how often people attend religious services in Iceland fails to capture widespread belief in elves and the various actions people take to protect elves or to illustrate that they believe in elves (Warren 2017). Of course that is true. But that does not make measures of religious service attendance worthless or meaningless. Traditional measures of religious service attendance provide scholars with an indication of how often (or, more accurately in the case of Iceland, how seldom) people attend organized religious services and how that has changed over time. If we stop using such measures, there would be no way to illustrate that people’s behaviors have changed, increased, or declined.
“Fourth, the ‘change not decline’ argument has not, to date, been formulated as a theory. There is nothing theoretical about the claim that people customize religion to suit themselves and this is how they “do religion.” That is an empirical observation. But it is not a theory about religious change or about the relationship between modernization and religion or about rationalization, differentiation, or any other social processes. It’s literally just describing what people are doing. Descriptive research is perfectly fine. It is widespread in the natural sciences as people describe the behaviors of aardvarks or atoms or asteroids and should be more widespread in the social sciences. But lived religion, invisible religion, believing without belonging, and spirituality are not theories about religion but rather are descriptions of what people believe and do. To be considered theories, these ideas would have to explain the phenomena that they describe, and such explanation is lacking in this body of scholarship today.
“Fifth and finally, the ‘change not decline’ argument is a beautiful illustration of the ‘moving the goalposts’ fallacy. It would be apt to describe this as the ‘change not decline hydra.’ Whenever a scholar asserts that secularization is happening, the ‘change not decline’ crowd point to a new specific example of someone doing something lived religion/invisible religion/spiritual-esque and assert that religiosity has just changed, not declined. When scholars like David Voas (2020), Steve Bruce (2018), or Isabella Kasselstrand (2021) muster evidence to challenge these claims, another head of the hydra pops up making the same claim over again but perhaps with a different example. It appears as though the ‘change not decline’ advocates continue moving the goalposts indefinitely when new evidence of religious decline is presented.”
After this passage, we suggest that it would be perfectly fine to argue that there is “change AND decline” rather than “change NOT decline.” We also suggest that the “change NOT decline” advocates should be held to very strict standards when making arguments that religiosity is not on the decline, including the following six criteria:
- They must demonstrate that whatever it is that they are observing can be considered religion or religious by well-accepted definitions.
- Those claiming “change not decline” must establish that the function of these lived religion/spiritual activities is largely the same as the functions of traditional religion.
- Those claiming “change not decline” must demonstrate that these lived religion/spiritual practices are as meaningful to those engaged in them as were traditionally religious practices.
- Advocates of the “change not decline argument” must demonstrate that these lived religion/spirituality practices carry the same authoritative weight as did traditional, organized religion in decades past.
- Advocates of the “change not decline” argument must demonstrate that these lived religion/spiritual practices consume just as much physical or cognitive time as did traditionally religious practices.
- With the mountains of evidence that has accumulated in favor of secularization both from other scholars and what we include in the following chapters, the burden of proof has arguably shifted to the advocates of the “change not decline” argument. Those claiming that there is only change and not decline need to demonstrate that secularization is not occurring.
As scholars who embrace empirical evidence, we would be delighted to have someone present evidence that meets the above criteria. We would gladly change our minds and revise the next edition of our book in light of such evidence. Until that point, we will continue to suggest that the evidence for secularization is Beyond Doubt!
References:
Bruce, Steve. 2018. Secular Beats Spiritual: The Westernization of the Easternization of the West. New York: Oxford University Press.
Durkheim, Emile. 1997. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Free Press. Pg. 66.
Kasselstrand, Isabella. 2021. “Secularization or Alternative Faith? Trends and Conceptions of Spirituality in Northern Europe.” Journal of Religion in Europe.
McGuire, Meredith B. 2008. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Voas, David. 2020. “Is the Secularization Research Programme Progressing? Debate on Jörg Stolz’s Article on Secularization Theories in the 21st Century: Ideas, Evidence, and Problems,” Social Compass 67(2): 323–29.
Warren, Rich. 2017. “More than Half of Iceland Believes in Elves.” National Geographic, December 1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/believes-elves-exist-mythology.
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