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Religious Studies & Theology vocabulary · History of Religions

Secularization

Meaning in religious studies & theology, with examples

/ˌsekjələraɪˈzeɪʃən/nounCommon term

In religious studies & theology, secularization means: The process by which religion loses influence over society, institutions and individual lives, for example as law, education and politics become independent of religious authority.

In Turkish: sekülerleşme, dünyevileşme

How it is used

Central in sociology of religion. The secularization thesis, influential in the 1960s, predicted that modernization would weaken religion; later research questioned it, and some speak of desecularization. British English also spells it secularisation.

Example sentences

  1. The secularization thesis predicted that religion would decline as societies modernized.

  2. Peter Berger, once a leading theorist of secularization, later argued that most of the world remained deeply religious.

Common collocations

  • the secularization thesis
  • process of secularization
  • theories of secularization
  • secularization and modernity
  • sociology of religionThe branch of sociology that studies religion as a social phenomenon: how it shapes, and is shaped by, groups, institutions, power and social change.
  • religious freedomThe right of individuals and communities to hold, practise, change or leave a religion or belief, or to have none, without coercion.
  • atheismThe absence of belief in God or gods, or the explicit view that no God or gods exist.
  • religionA system of beliefs, practices, values and communities that relates people to what they regard as sacred, divine or ultimately real.

More terms: History of Religions

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