The founders of sociology broadly expected religion to recede as societies modernised. Reality has proved more complex. Modernity has certainly reshaped religion — subjecting it to the authority of science and the pressures of institutional differentiation — yet it has also produced vigorous religious revival and militant fundamentalism. This section examines four interlocking themes that dominate the contemporary debate and recur in the examination.
Religion and science
The relationship between religion and science is often portrayed as one of conflict, exemplified by the Galileo affair and the disputes over Darwinian evolution. On this view, science steadily displaces religious explanations of the natural world, narrowing the sphere in which supernatural belief seems plausible. Max Weber captured this with his idea of the disenchantment of the world — the progressive stripping away of magic and mystery by rational, calculable knowledge.
Yet the relationship is not only one of rivalry. Many sociologists stress that science and religion answer different questions — science addressing how the world works, religion addressing questions of ultimate meaning, purpose and morality that science cannot settle. Stephen Jay Gould called these non-overlapping magisteria. Religion has also adapted, reinterpreting scripture metaphorically, so the conflict thesis is now widely regarded as too simple.
The secularisation thesis
Secularisation refers to the process by which religion loses its social significance. Classical theorists such as Comte, Weber and Bryan Wilson linked it to modernisation, identifying several dimensions:
- Differentiation — education, welfare, law and healthcare pass from religious to secular institutions.
- Declining participation — falling church attendance and membership, especially in Western Europe.
- Privatisation — belief becomes a matter of individual choice rather than communal obligation.
- Rationalisation — the disenchantment of worldviews noted above.
The thesis has drawn powerful criticism. Its critics point out that:
- Statistical decline in the West is not matched globally — much of the world is becoming more religious.
- Belief may persist even where institutional attendance falls, a pattern Grace Davie calls believing without belonging.
- Religion has re-entered public life through movements from liberation theology to political Islam.
Peter Berger, once a leading advocate, later spoke of the de-secularisation of the world. The debate thus remains genuinely open.
Religious revivalism
Far from disappearing, religion has in many places been revived. Revivalism denotes a renewed intensity of religious feeling and practice, often reasserting tradition against the perceived spiritual emptiness of modern life. It may take the form of reform movements seeking to purify a faith, charismatic and evangelical enthusiasm, or the flourishing of New Religious Movements offering meaning to those alienated by rationalised society.
In India, revivalism has a long history, from the nineteenth-century reform movements such as the Arya Samaj and the Ramakrishna Mission to contemporary expressions of religious assertiveness. Sociologically, revival can be read — following the tradition of Émile Durkheim — as a search to restore the solidarity and shared meaning that rapid social change disrupts.
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is a distinctively modern reaction that insists on a return to the fundamentals of a faith, typically an inerrant sacred text, and rejects the compromises of liberal theology and secular modernity. Its characteristic features include a literal reading of scripture, a sharp division between believers and outsiders, and a desire to reshape society according to religious law.
Sociologists such as Steve Bruce and Anthony Giddens argue that fundamentalism is best understood not as a survival of the past but as a response to modernity and globalisation — a defence of certainty and identity against pluralism, individualism and rapid change. It is, in Giddens's phrase, tradition defended in the traditional way in a world where tradition can no longer be taken for granted. Fundamentalist movements appear across religions, and their politicisation is among the most consequential features of the contemporary world.
How to use this in the exam
The strongest answers resist the temptation to treat modernity as simply anti-religious. Show that secularisation and revival are two faces of the same process: as differentiation and rationalisation erode religion's public authority, they simultaneously provoke revivalist and fundamentalist reactions that reassert it. Deploy the key terms — disenchantment, believing without belonging, de-secularisation — with their authors, balance Western decline against global resurgence, and anchor the discussion in Indian material such as reform movements and communal politics. Concluding that the evidence points to religious transformation rather than disappearance will signal analytical maturity.