“Define Secularisation. What are its major dimensions in the modern world?” (2015)
Bryan R. Wilson (Religion in Secular Society, 1966) defined secularisation as the process whereby religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance. Peter L. Berger (The Sacred Canopy, 1967) stressed its structural side: sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols. In India, M. N. Srinivas described it as what was once religious ceasing to be so, together with the differentiation of economic, political, legal and moral spheres. Because Larry Shiner (1967) found at least six meanings in use, the concept is best broken into dimensions.
Major dimensions
Karel Dobbelaere (Secularization: An Analysis at Three Levels, 2002) and José Casanova (Public Religions in the Modern World, 1994) provide the clearest framework.
| Dimension | What changes | Evidence in the modern world |
|---|---|---|
| Societal: differentiation (laicisation) | Law, education, medicine, welfare and science become autonomous of religion | Civil marriage and state schooling; India’s Special Marriage Act, 1954 and Article 28 (no religious instruction in wholly state-funded institutions) |
| Political: separation of state and religion | The state stops deriving legitimacy from religion | French laïcité; “secular” added to India’s Preamble by the 42nd Amendment (1976) |
| Organisational: internal secularisation | Religious bodies adapt doctrine, rationalise and compete like firms | Will Herberg on American denominations mirroring “the American way of life”; the Church of England ordaining women priests (1994) |
| Individual: decline of belief and practice | Attendance, belief and salience fall | England and Wales: “no religion” rose from 25.2% (2011) to 37.2% (2021) |
| Privatisation | Religion moves from public institutions to personal choice | Thomas Luckmann‘s The Invisible Religion (1967); Grace Davie‘s “believing without belonging” |
| Cognitive: disenchantment | Rational, scientific explanation replaces the magical; belief becomes one option among many | Max Weber‘s disenchantment; Charles Taylor‘s A Secular Age (2007) |
The dimensions move independently
- Casanova holds that differentiation is the core modern trend, but decline and privatisation are not inevitable. Religion was deprivatised through Poland’s Solidarity, the Iranian revolution and liberation theology.
- Organisational adaptation can raise participation: Berger explained full American churches by religious bodies “selling” a product suited to secular consumers.
- Belief and belonging can come apart: Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study 2023–24 finds 62% of Americans Christian, with decline levelling off since 2019. Berger himself concluded in The Desecularization of the World (1999) that most of the world remains “furiously religious”.
Indian illustration
India shows high societal and political secularisation alongside low individual secularisation. Pew’s 2021 survey of about 30,000 adults found 97% believing in God and about 80% of Hindus and Muslims calling religion very important. At the same time, education, law and livelihoods have largely passed from priests and caste councils to the constitutional state and the market.
Conclusion
Secularisation is best understood as a multidimensional, uneven process: institutional differentiation is nearly universal in modern societies, while individual decline depends on existential security and history. Asking “secularisation of what, and at which level?” turns an unresolvable debate into testable claims.