ABSTRACT
Since the founding of sociology as a discipline, attempts have been made to understand the relationship between religion and the secular world. We have seen that many sociological classics took it for granted that processes of industrialization and modernization would eventually lead to secularization, or to religious differentiation, decline, and privatization (see Chapter 5). There was relatively widespread consensus within the sociology of religion over the privatization thesis until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when there was a sudden eruption of religion into the public sphere, not only in Europe but in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. Only then did many realize that differentiation did not necessarily mean that religion would remain in its assigned place in the private sphere and not enter the public arena.
