ABSTRACT

In this chapter we try to explain why traditional forms of religion have strongly declined in some parts of the world, while in other parts religion continues to play a central role both in the public sphere and in private life. We argue that the patterns of religiosity in Christian societies today are determined by three sets of factors: (a) the religious worldviews and theological doctrines of European Protestantism have fostered the process of the disenchantment of the world more strongly than was the case in Catholicism and in Orthodoxy; (b) patterns of religiosity are influenced by the historical relationship between the church(es), the state and the people in a given country: the degree of religiosity and church attachment will be lower in societies in which religious life was shaped by a hierarchical–bureaucratic state church over long periods of history, and where non-orthodox forms of popular religion were suppressed by the official church, and will be higher in societies in which the church helped the people to preserve their cultural identity against foreign powers, and in societies in which freedom of religion was established in earlier periods of history; (c) the more that existential risks are diminished as a consequence of higher levels of socio-economic development, social equality and the existence of welfare-state provisions, the less important religion will be.