An empirical revisiting of the secularization debate at the micro level: Europe’s heterodox religiosity over the last two decades (original) (raw)

Ionuţ Apahideanu The underlying article examines the current state of the secularization debate in order to develop an updated working model of the paradigm at the micro level as manifesting in two interrelated directions: atheism, respectively heterodox hybridization of religiosity. The latter direction is further explored in its manifestation in Europe over the past two decades in an integrated approach based on the waves of the European Values Study (EVS) and the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), focusing on church mediation of the individual-divine relation, conceptualizations of God as personal versus impersonal, self-defined religiosity and spirituality, and various heterodox, uncanonical, beliefs. The findings support the secularization paradigm as manifested predominantly towards atheism in Western Europe, respectively towards heterodox, hybrid, forms of religiosity in the East.