The many altars of modernity : toward a paradigm for religion in a pluralist age

161 Pages·2014·0.63 MB·English

by  Berger

Peter L. Berger
The Many Altars of Modernity

Peter L. Berger
The Many Altars
of Modernity
Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age
DE GRUYTER
ISBN978-1-61451-750-4
e-ISBN978-1-61451-647-7
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress.
BibliographicInformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek
TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie;
detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de.
©2014WalterdeGruyter,Inc.,Boston/Berlin
Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck
♾Printedonacid-freepaper
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
To Brigitte Berger, who has been listening to my obsessions about religion for
many years – patiently, supportively, but by no means uncritically.

Contents
Preface IX
Chapter 1: The Pluralist Phenomenon 1
Chapter 2: Pluralism and Individual Faith 17
Chapter 3: Pluralism and Religious Institutions 34
Chapter 4: The Secular Discourse 51
Chapter 5: Religion and Multiple Modernities 68
Chapter 6: The Political Management of Pluralism 79
Response by Nancy T. Ammerman: Modern Altars in Everyday Life 94
Response by Detlef Pollack: Toward a New Paradigm for the Sociology of
Religion? 111
Response by Fenggang Yang: Agency-Driven Secularization and Chinese Expe-
riments in Multiple Modernities 123
Index 141

Preface
Secularizationtheory,basedontheideathatmodernitynecessarilybringsabout
a decline of religion, has for a time served as a paradigm for the study of reli-
gion. It can no longer be maintained in the face of the empirical evidence. A
newparadigmisneeded.Ithinkthatitmustbebasedonthemanyimplications
ofthephenomenonofpluralism.Iproposethatanewparadigmshouldbeable
todealwith twopluralisms– the co-existence ofdifferentreligions andthe co-
existence of religious and secular discourses.This co-existence occurs both in
the minds of individuals and in social space. I intendthisbook to be a stepto-
ward such a paradigm for the understandingof modernity and religion.
Having reached a truly intimidating age (it mainly intimidates me), I have
beenpleasedtofindthatoverthelasttwoyearsorsoIhavehadsomegenuinely
newideasaboutatopicthathasoccupiedmethroughoutmycareerasasociol-
ogist – namely, the relation of religion and modernity. Perhaps these ideas are
false,butthefactthattheyarenewissatisfyinginitself–itseemsthatthedrool-
ing phase of my intellectual biography has not,or not yet, arrived!
IntheearlyphaseofmyworkinthesociologyofreligionIassumedtheval-
idityofwhatwasthencalledsecularizationtheory.Itsbasicideawasquitesim-
ple:Modernitynecessarilybringsaboutadeclineofreligion.Iwasnotalonein
this:Thetheory,inoneformulationoranother,wasassumedbynearlyeveryone
studying religion in the modern world – bychildren of the Enlightenment who
welcomedtheallegedfactofreligiousdecline(evensometheologiansmanaged
thisattitude),andbythose(includingmyself)whodeploreditbutthoughtthatit
wasnecessarytofacethegrimfacts.(Isupposeitenhancestheself-esteemofa
scholar, if theycan bask in the idea of facingup to facts, howevergrim.) There
wereindeedfactsthatsupportedthenotionofsecularization,but,inretrospect,
wemisinterpretedthesefacts.Ourmainmistakewasthatwemisunderstoodplu-
ralismasjustonefactorsupportingsecularization;infact,pluralism,theco-ex-
istence of different worldviews and value systems in the same society, is the
major change brought about by modernity for the place of religion both in the
minds of individuals and in the institutional order.This may or may not be as-
sociatedwithsecularization,butitisindependentofit.Itdoesindeedconstitute
achallengetoreligiousfaith,butitisadifferentchallengefromthatofsecular-
ity.AsmyteacherCarlMayerusedtosay,“Hereonemustdistinguishverysharp-
ly!”
Ittookmesometwenty-fiveyearstoconcludethatsecularizationtheoryhas
turned out to be empirically untenable. I proclaimed my change of mind very
noisily in the introduction to a book I edited in 1999, The Desecularization of
X Preface
theWorld.Ifinditimportanttoemphasizethatthischangeofmindonmypart
wasnotduetosomephilosophicalortheologicalconversion.Myreligiousposi-
tion,which I have described as incurably Lutheran, has not changed since my
youth. What happened to me was much less dramatic: It became more and
moreapparentthattheempiricaldatacontradictedthetheory.Withsomeexcep-
tions, notably Europe and an international intelligentsia,our world is anything
butsecular;itisasreligiousasever,andinplacesmoreso.(Theexceptionshave
tobeexplained,andIhavemadesomeeffortstodoso.Formoreonthispoint,
see my book with Grace Davie and Effie Fokas, Religious America, Secular Eu-
rope?2008.)Iwasalsonotaloneinmychangeofmind.Almosteveryonestudy-
ing contemporary religion has replicated it.There is a relatively small group of
scholars who continue to defend secularization theory. Of course I disagree
withthem,butIalsohavesomeadmirationforthem.Ihavesympathyforpeople
who stubbornly refuse to follow the herd!
Inearly2012,ratherunexpectedly,asimpleideaoccurredtome.Ashappens
in such cases, I wondered why the idea had not occurred to me before. It was
rather obvious, but its implications kept getting bigger, the more I thought
about it. The well-known sociologist Jose Casanova (Georgetown University)
has performed a very useful task by taking apart the several meanings of the
concept of secularization, some problematic, some not. One meaning that nei-
ther Casanova nor anyone else had a problem with was that of differentiation:
In the course of modernization, for various reasons, societal functions that
used to be vested in religious institutions have now become differentiated be-
tween the latter and other (mostly new or redefined) institutions – church and
state, religion and the economy, religion and education, and so forth. Fair
enough, but, as a duly accredited specialist in the sociology of knowledge, I
shouldhaverecalledabasicinsightofthisapproach:Ifitistofunctioninsoci-
ety,every institution must have a correlate in consciousness.Therefore, if a dif-
ferentiationhasoccurredbetweenreligiousandotherinstitutionsinsociety,this
differentiation must also be manifested in the consciousness of individuals. In
thisconnectionIstumbledacrossaveryinterestingphrasecoinedbytheseven-
teenth-centuryDutchjuristHugoGrotius.Heproposedthatthenewdisciplineof
internationallawshouldbedeveloped“etsiDeusnondaretur”–“asifGodwere
notgiven”or“asifGoddidnotexist.”Inotherwords,heproposedthatanentire
institutionshouldbedivorcedfromanyreligiouspresuppositionsandshouldbe
dominated by a strictly secular discourse.Once that idea is grasped, a mass of
empiricaldatasuddenlymakesnewsense.Mostreligiouspeople,evenveryfer-
vent ones, operate within a secular discourse in important areas of their lives.
Put differently, for most believers there is not a stark either/or dichotomy be-
tweenfaithandsecularitybutratherafluidconstructionofboth/and.Indevel-