ABSTRACT
Between secularization and urbanization, between changes in religious life and changes in urban life, there is in modern societies a complex relationship, which is not easy to explain, even to an audience of specialists. Things would be easier for the historian if he could accept one of the pragmatic models in terms of which this relationship is usually described in the historical literature: historians generally accept certain forms of religious and church life —for instance, regular attendance at church and communion, baptism, religious marriage and burial, or participation in church organizations and campaigns-as recognized expressions of Christian piety, and through their rise or decline they measure the social meaning of ‘religion’ in modern society. Normally they find that in the course of the nineteenth century, church and religious life underwent a sharp decline, first in the cities, and later also in remote country areas, and they attribute this basically to the ‘modernization of the economy, social structure and educational system, associated with industrialization, and having its origins in the cities.1 Only a few historians realize that the relationship between religious and urban life was shaped not only by structural change in secular society but, equally, by a change in the understanding of ‘religion. Not only were there changes in religious behaviour in modern society, but also changes in the way that this behaviour was perceived. There have also been changes across time in what is defined as religious behaviour, and, indeed, at any one time there has often been no consensus as to what should be defined as religious.2
