ABSTRACT
It is important to acknowledge that Berger's seemingly intransigent commitment to pluralism and its secularizing power is not so stubbornly manifest that it denies all evidence to the contrary. Strongly held beliefs and perspectives that have been with one for a lifetime seem very unlikely to be traded in just because alternatives become available. However, Berger makes his positon a good deal more solid when he adds that modernization doesn't merely introduce alternatives, it also diminishes the integrity and grasp of the once tightly-knit communities that provided the social foundation that supported and maintained the sanctity of traditional beliefs. In The Sacred Canopy Berger refers to these reality-maintaining groups and communities using the by now familiar but still ingenious term "plausibility structures", a neologism that in suitable context has a self-evident meaning. Berger gives priority to pluralism, presenting it as a causal precursor of secularism.
