ABSTRACT
This chapter presents not only a typology of religious and secular groups, but also a new theory of religious and secular competition, one which explains the growth and shrinkage of these groups. It concerns in particular with describing in detail the different types and milieus, people are concerned in this chapter with examining the explanatory theory. Here, people try to show with the help of the available data how the transition to the me-society took place in the 1960s, and what impact this had on religion and spirituality: how it changed religious socialization, people's choice of partner, and norms and values, how these changes worked out differently for men and women, and how the developments spread from urban to rural areas. Finally, drawing together all these mechanisms, people are concerned here with explaining how the current distribution of institutional, alternative, distanced and secular types and milieus have come about through processes of growth and shrinkage.
