Identify and briefly explain three reasons Essay

Due to rational thinking and the culture of todays’ society become less traditional, it could be that there is less time in people’s lives to believe in a Religion. As going to Church and worshiping takes time out of someone’s daily routine where they may feel they are needed more. The growth of state and democracy (disengagement) means that the state and the church are not as influenced by one another as they used to be, this means that there is not a great amount of pressure on people to attend church by the state. Religion on its own is not enough of a force for people to attend church meaning it is less influential. It could also be that due to the forward thinking of today’s society and like Grace Davie says, that people today are far more inclined to take a personalised view on religion, and that churches such as the Church of England are not in decline but are more privatised in the household home. 02) Using material from item A and elsewhere assess the view that, while the Church of England is declining, other religions and spiritual movements are flourishing. I aim to show that even though statistics say that attendance is declining in religious worship, that actually it may not be that religion is declining but the way worship is happening now has changed and there is in fact many more forms of religion. In item A it states that from a report by the Bible society that by 2025 only 87,800 people will be attending church, compared to the one million plus that attend church now. Weber and Comte also said that eventually religion would wither away due to the world changing and accepting science and science beliefs such as New Age and Scientology over religious explanations of the world, and the less emotions and traditions which are according to Weber the main characteristics of religion. As well as rationalism like Comte also conveys in a different way. Steve Bruce also says that religion is in decline as he took Comte’s ideas and made his own modernity thesis which said that Modernity was the main route for religion declining and that it was indeed declining. However  it was only declining because of certain key processes which are rationalisation the idea that rational thinking in the shape of science has replaced religious influence, disengagement the idea that the church and wider society are separate and not involved with each other, fragmentation of social life the idea that religious institutions have been pushed out of many institutions such as education and politics, loss of community the idea that community is being replaced by society and religious pluralism the idea that industrialisation has fragmented society into a marketplace of religions. Steve Bruce says that because of his thesis it is that religion is in decline, especially those of the traditional kind such as the Church of England this is because for religious decline to be happening due to the key processes happening all at ponce acting on each other. Bruce also says religion isn’t undermining education welfare and social control and as a result society is not learning about religion as they were pre modernity and so religion is declining as it is not being taught as it was before. It can also be argued that the religions such as the Church of England are not declining and spiritual movements are not flourishing just coming to light. This may be because the stats used to prove the decline in the Church of England by the bible society and others haven’t been collected by systematic collection. It may be that those who collect the data are only counting the heads that enter the church they don’t take into account those who aren’t able to make it to church. Such as those who worship by themselves in their time but also those who can’t make it to church, such as the elderly and instead worship privately and watch songs of praise. Stark and Bainbridge also supports this in their work but also disagree with Bruce when he says that during medieval period there were more religious people as they say that yes more people attended church in those tomes but they weren’t religious, they only attended as they had to because the squire made them, as they wanted to keep their pay and jobs. They were actually very disrespectful in the church service by belching and farting in the pews, now you don’t get those who don’t want to be in church in church and so religions such as the Church of England haven’t declined it is only those who are truly religious that now go to church. Grace Davie is another sociologist who believes that religions such as the Church of England are not in decline as she believes that society now doesn’t always leave enough  time for people to attend a place of worship but they do so privately. Private worship means that people may believe that as they don’t go to church or the place of worship they aren’t religious and assume religion is in decline however this is not true they are just choosing to worship in private. Due to the belief of crisis of meaning and uncertainty brought on by the postmodern or high modernity era that it is said we live in, it is true that spiritual movements are flourishing and coming to light. This is mainly because when people are searching for meaning and certainty they look towards the future for this and new spiritual movements can normally give this certainty but can also give a person an insight into themselves and help them discover themselves as an individual and what their meaning in the world is. In conclusion I believe that religious movements are not in decline as the supporting evidence is more and uses more historical and correct data than those who say religion is declining. It is also true that Bruce did not make his thesis based on data but based on what he thought, meaning that those for not in decline were more supported and there theories backed up by solid evidence and data.