“What is happening to religion in the face of challenges of science in modern societies? Elaborate your answer with the help of sociological literature.” (1992)
Science challenges religion on three fronts: it explains what religion once explained, it controls nature through technology, and it spreads a rational, sceptical habit of mind. The founders expected religion to fade under this pressure. The literature since shows religion responding in at least five ways.
1. Decline: the secularisation thesis
- Max Weber foresaw the “disenchantment of the world”: magic and mystery retreat before calculation.
- Bryan Wilson (Religion in Secular Society, 1966) defined secularisation as religion losing social significance. Medicine, law and education move out of religious control.
- Steve Bruce (God is Dead, 2002) stresses technology more than science itself: people who can control illness and harvests turn to religion less often.
- Evidence: in England and Wales, Christians fell from 59.3% to 46.2% between the 2011 and 2021 Censuses.
2. Privatisation and individualisation
- Thomas Luckmann (The Invisible Religion, 1967) argued that religion leaves public institutions and becomes a private, chosen matter.
- Grace Davie found Britons “believing without belonging” (1994). Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (The Spiritual Revolution, 2005) traced a shift from church religion to holistic “spirituality”.
3. Adaptation and reinterpretation
- Liberal theologies read scripture symbolically, accepting evolution and cosmology. The Catholic Church formally acknowledged its error over Galileo in 1992.
- Philip Hefner (1997) mapped several “trajectories” through which religions absorb scientific knowledge into wider frameworks of meaning.
- Peter L. Berger (The Heretical Imperative, 1979) argued that pluralism turns faith into a choice; Charles Taylor (A Secular Age, 2007) calls belief “one option among others”.
4. Resistance: fundamentalist reaction
- Some groups reassert literal truth against science. In the USA, Gallup (2024) found 37% believing God created humans in their present form.
- In India, claims that the Vedas anticipated modern science, criticised by Meera Nanda (Prophets Facing Backward, 2003), turn science into a resource for religious nationalism.
5. Revival and use of science
- Berger (The Desecularization of the World, 1999) admitted that the world is “as furiously religious as ever”, Western Europe excepted. Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (Acts of Faith, 2000) explain vitality through competitive religious markets.
- Religion adopts technology: the Maha Kumbh 2025 used AI-enabled cameras and drones for crowd management, and televangelism and apps spread faith.
- Evidence: the Pew Research Center’s 2025 global study found the religiously unaffiliated at 24.2% of the world in 2020. Its Indian survey (2019–20) found 97% believing in God.
Assessment
The outcome depends on context. Europe fits decline and privatisation; the USA, market vitality and fundamentalism; India, adaptation, with religion coexisting with a successful space programme. José Casanova (Public Religions in the Modern World, 1994) adds that differentiation need not mean decline or privatisation. Émile Durkheim had anticipated this: science can take over religion’s role of explaining the world, but not its role of uniting people in shared rites and moral commitments.
Conclusion
Science has reshaped rather than eliminated religion. It has narrowed religion’s authority over nature, but religion has responded by retreating, adapting, resisting or reinventing itself. What survives is religion as a source of meaning, identity and ethics.