The Reformation, Modernization, and Secularization in the Western World (original) (raw)

It is generally accepted that in the western world religion has been losing its's structural and cultural power reformation onwards. Moreover, rates of belief in God and Church attendance has been dramatically declining. The topic of religion is so rich and diverse for any theory and explanation to make a generalization. Let alone each and every religion has its own dynamics, even the interpretation of the same religion varies depending on the history and culture of a particular society. Related to this, David Martin(1993) states that the differences in the religious experience of societies can be interpreted by looking at the historical development of industrialization and nature of the dominant religion in that society. Because of this reasons, following Steve Bruce, this paper focuses on the changes happened at a particular time in a particular place. In this paper, my aim is to briefly summarize the arguments concerning the declining power of religion in the western world after 1517. In ancient Grece, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, there were monotheistic, cosmological religions in which the distinction between humans and nonhumans(gods) was not sharp. Judaism has changed this by placing the God outside of the cosmos and standing that the world has its own structure and logic. In this way, Judaism de-mythologized the world. However, even though the fact that the basic premises of Christianity were de-mythologizing, Christian church evolved in time and re-mythologized the world with the emerging notions of angels, semi-divine saints, redemption, the virgin birth, bodily resurgence of Christ etc.. In the early Christian church, a small number of religious officials were responsible for glorifying God on behalf of the state and the people. Religion was not being done in local languages but in Latin. The relation of the church with people was only through some rituals like feasts days, birth, death, marriage. The church was the mediator between people and the god and it was holding the key to the heaven. Concerning this, Bruce(2012) states '' No matter how awful one's life, redemption could be bought by funding the church''(p.6). This process reversed by the reformation ideals which de-mythologized the world again and demolished the authority of the church between man and god. The belief that God can be manipulated through rituals was also eliminated and principles of ethical rationalization were rebuilt. The religious professionals lost their power and the idea that each individual needs to know the religion because he is responsible for his own salvation emerged. This also caused the fact that religion started to be done in local languages and quick rise in literacy. Bruce(1996) summarized this change by saying '' believing the right thing came to be more important than making the right rituals''(p.3). With reformation, we see the rising importance of the notion of individualism and collapse of the unitary Christendom. The idea that there is only one truth was no longer persuasive and individual preferences gained importance. With the reformation ideas, the place of religion has changed and many different competing sects proliferated.