British Sociological Association

ELISABETH ARWECK

Sociologists as prophets? The case of new religious movements

If we accept Popper's assertion that the task of science has a practical side, namely making predictions and technical application, there may be an area in the social scientific study of New Religious Movements which has hitherto not been fully explored. Drawing on Popper's comments on prediction, the paper will examine the question of whether it is possible for those who study New Religious Movements to make predictions about such movements. This question will be examined in the light of what we know about New Religious Movements since their emergence in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the way in which they developed since then, in particular with regard to their interaction with the modern world. This question will also be examined in relation to the development of criteria which could serve as indicators for future developments in New Religious Movements, in terms of success of failure, survival or decline.

JAMES BECKFORD

'Choosing rationality'

Sociologists of religion have been criticised for clinging too closely to their theoretical roots in the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. Another criticism was that they failed to keep pace with theoretical developments occurring in other fields of sociology. This makes it all the more surprising and ironic, then, that the controversy which is currently polarising theoretical opinion among sociologists of religion, at least in North America and parts of Western Europe, does not arise from the work of the founding Trinity and is very much part of fashionable theorising in several social sciences. In other words, Rational Choice Theory (RCT) ought to have appealed to critics of the sociology of religion for eschewing the 'classical' heritage and for echoing the theoretical concerns of other social scientists. But, as this paper will explain, certain applications of RCT to the analysis of religion have encountered extensive resistance and hostility partly because of problematic aspects of these applications and partly because of excessive rigidity in the critical responses. The main aim of this paper is to rescue a place for the notion of rationality in sociological studies of religion which is neither confined to that of RCT nor eclipsed by notions of post-modernity.

MALCOLM BROWN

Islam and the concept of the secular

This paper is a balanced critique of assertions that Islam is an exception to theories of secularisation.

This assertion is made on the basis that the distinction between 'religious' and 'secular' spheres ('God' and 'Caesar') is specific to Christian theology, and not recognised in Islam. On the positive side, this model challenges assumptions which are Eurocentric and evolutionist, which conflate secularisation, modernisation and the Western route to modernity. On the other hand, Ibn Khaldun's analysis of 'ummah' and 'asabiyah' can be interpreted as an Islamic equivalent of the religious-secular dichotomy. This paper provides theoretical and ethnographic support for the existence of two competing traditions within Islam, which could be labelled the theocratic and Khaldunian traditions. Based on the development of these traditions, my prediction is that they will become increasingly polarised, and, as a result, increasingly perceived as inimical alternatives. The theory is taken from Gellner, Mouaqit, Laroui, Al-Azmeh and others, and the ethnography from my own fieldwork in the

Lille area of northern France in 1996-97.

STEVE BRUCE

Mainstream Churches RIP

The combination of cultural diversity and egalitarianism in the evolution of modern industrial democracies has made the 'church' form of religion impossible. The 'sect' form can survive where and to the extent that the social structure permits the creation of sub-societies. That leaves the 'denomination' and the 'cult'. Because they have at their heart an individualistic epistemology, both types are sociologically precarious.

This paper will concentrate on denominations in the UK and will argue that their fragility has been masked by increased life expectancy, and by cohesion that derives from an identity formed during a sectarian or churchly past and by invested capital from that past. Both social cohesion and material resources are wasting assets.

The paper will conclude with very specific predictions about the disappearance of major British denominations.

HELEN CAMERON

The decline of the church in England as a local membership organization: Predicting the nature of civil society in 2050

This paper draws upon my doctoral research on the local church and my current research into local membership organisations. These organisations change slowly but there are indications that as well as declining numerically, the nature of members' involvement is also changing.

From a review of the literature on civil society, three forces are suggested as eroding local face-to-face membership organisations, namely, commodification, co-option and privatisation. Commodification is leading to para-church organisations sustained by careful branding and merchandising providing opportunities for education and leisure. Co-option is leading to campaigning organisations that require only occasional face-to-face involvement. Privatisation is creating small informal socially homogeneous groups searching for a particular spirituality. Along with Putnam, I argue that membership answered the need for social engagement created by the Industrial Revolution and that new times will create new forms of social engagement.

Examples are given as to how these three forces are currently affecting church membership and how their dynamic will slowly transform our understanding of what it is to belong to the Church. Pressed for a specific prediction, I would suggest that by 2050 only one quarter of those describing themselves as actively involved in the Church will be members of a local church.

NICK CAMPION

The future of astrology

Popular astrology - the Sunsign columns of newspapers and magazines - offers the only widely accessible psychological model, providing most people with their only opportunity for self-reflection. All other forms of psychology are available only in hospitals or universities, while anyone who knows their birth date can instantly work out their zodiacal type. This paper argues that in the 21st century astrology will be completely accepted by the overwhelming majority of the UK population as a vernacular religion which provides believers with a sense of purpose and enables them to interpret their behaviour. The current evidence suggests that this will happen regardless of scientific or religious opposition and will be fuelled by commercial pressures; astrology sells women's magazines and tabloid newspapers. Astrology will thus be the first tabloid religion.

The paper examines recent developments in astrology, the response to modernism in the creation of spiritual and psychological astrology, the origins and development of newspaper horoscope columns from 1930 to the present day and the impact of technology through horoscope phone lines in the 1980s and the world wide web in the 1990s.

JOSÉ CASANOVA

Beyond European and American exceptionalisms: Towards a global perspective

In order to move beyond the fruitless secularization debate between the 'European' and the 'American' positions we need to adopt a global perspective. Such a perspective should help to historicize our categories, our theories, and the stories we tell about religious change. From a global historical perspective the series of changes we call secularization evince an internal dynamic unique to a particular form of religious regime, Western Christendom and its Catholic and Protestant derivates, which has very few parallels in other world religions, or even in the oldest and most traditional forms of Christianity, the Eastern Churches. A global perspective should help as well to relativize the Western story and to distinguish global

and universal historical processes.

Most importantly, it should help us deconstruct and disentangle critically and reflexively the story of Christian secularization and general developmental theories of religious rationalization and modernization. The story of secularization is primarily a story of the tensions, conflicts and patterns of differentiation between religious and worldly regimes.

Throughout the modern age, at least since the dissolution of Western Christendom and the emergence of a world system of sovereign territorial states, the transformation of churches and states and the institutionalized patterns of church-state relations have served as the determining framework and setting for differential patterns of secularization. Ongoing processes of globalization force us to rethink our secularization stories and the criteria we should use to measure the declining or ascending significance of religion. At a time when

processes of globalization are leading to new transformations of worldly and religious regimes and the Weberian definition of both states and churches as territorial monopolistic institutions is becoming less and less relevant, it may also be time to look for evidence of the social significance of religion in the emerging world order not so much in national settings but elsewhere: in the reemergence of the transnational dimensions of religious regimes, in new civilizational and intercivilizational dynamics, and in the formation of a global civil society.

PAUL CHAMBERS

'A Very Religious People'? Contemporary processes of religious decline in Wales and their implications for the maintenance of a distinctive Welsh cultural identity

Traditionally, the Welsh have been perceived as 'wedded to the chapel', and Nonconformity has been seen as a key component of Welsh cultural and 'national' identity. Religious practice in Wales is now declining at a faster rate than anywhere else in the UK, and this raises significant questions about the survival of any distinctively Welsh cultural and social identity, which is not predicated on religion.

This paper seeks to account both for the rise of Nonconformism as a significant force in Welsh life and its subsequent decline. It begins with a discussion of the rise of Nonconformity, drawing from Benedict Anderson's 'imagine communities' thesis and the role of print-capitalism in the creation of 'national' identities. It then examines the rise of a distinctive, solidaristic Welsh working class culture and collective community structure, centred on the role of the chapel as a 'moral property … the very emblem of the community's collective existence'. Drawing from data collected during fieldwork in Swansea it examines the place of the chapel in the local community life in the early part of this century, outlining its social, economic and cultural functions. The role of the 1904 Revival, the watershed of mass religious practice in Wales, is briefly examined and the argument advanced that this phenomenon was more to do with debates about national identity and the language question rather than purely religious maters. The subsequent decline of traditional community structures in Wales is then outlined and, again drawing from data generated in Swansea, the effects on religious life of both, the Depression and subsequent post-war affluence and social mobility are examined.

No firm conclusions are drawn as to the likely markers of Welsh identity in the 21^st Century - post-Christianum - but a question is raised qua Durkheim, as to how we might begin to imagine a 'religionless' Welsh national identity.