Religious Beliefs and Practices In A New Era Essay

respect the view that ghostly persuasions and coifs argon changing to theorise a raw era of diversity and choice. menstruum religious beliefs and practices atomic number 18 re entirelyy different in Britain from 100 years ago. No thirster do the masses attend the established perform, attention is protrude to 6% of the commonwealth and the 2001 Census identified one hundred s flushty distinct organized religions in Britain. 72% claim to be Christian but less than half of the population believe in God and only 18% claim to be a practicing member of an organised religion.Clearly todays patterns atomic number 18 very different from those of the past. How hence to explain them? There are two fields of thought here. Secularists take the transparent opinion lack of attention and reduction of belief means a lack of interest and a d throwfall in interest and influence of religion. However, opponents of secularization claim it is non as simple as that. Society itself has c hanged dramatically in recent years but that does not mean a scorn in partnership, just a change. Religion, therefore, displace not be expected to stagnate in a changing party but must alike change with the times. Religion and then must met the of necessity of a late forward-looking or postmodernist society which broaden levels of diversity and choice which obligate not existed forward and nookie not do this by behaving as it did in a modern or pre-industrial society.Grace Davie is a proponent of this sharpen of view. For her, religion has exactly plump more(prenominal) privatised, that is it is outright a private matter of personal preference. This is more appropriate for a society which emphasises individualism and just now echoes what is happening in other institutions in society the family, for example, is no longer a simple conventional nuclear family, other groupings are now fullly accepted. stack are then free to ascertain whether they wish to attend c hurch, latria on their take in or even use modern technologies to dish out them worship, whereas in the past the norm was to attend church and passel felt obliged to do so. Davie describes this in the altogether pattern as believing without belonging and believes it is a innovative form of religion. As evidence of this, she points to wider attendance or reliance on religion in times of crisis. People are content to practice vicarious religion where a small topic of professional clergy practise religion on behalf of a much larger number of people until times of national or personal tragedy.However, if Davies is correct then this would mean high levels of belief and low attendance which Voas and Crockett point out is not the case. Bruce argues that if people are not willing to get involved then their belief must not be genuine or strong so Davies refutation is unrealistic.Hervieu-Leger points to an increase in individualism and a decline of tradition in society, ideas associa ted with late modernity, as reasons for a decline in institutional religion. Parents are reluctant to tell their children what to believe so traditional ideas can not be passed d feature, what Hervieu-Leger calls cultural amnesia. Churches can not be authoritarian and impose beliefs. This leaves people without a fixed religious identity or acquaintance of traditional beliefs and thus they are forced to drive or create juvenile religious beliefs and practices for themselves, whereas their ancestors just now repeated patterns of their forebearers.Fortunately having to select ones own religion is not too demanding for people living in a postmodern society as one of its defining characteristics is consumerism, where we construct our identities finished what we consume. H-L describes us now as spiritual shoppers without a traditional fixed identity, we must select our own and we do this to best suit ourselves, choosing the beliefs which give nearly meaning to our lives and suit ou r interests and aspirations an individualised religion.Thus sooner of merely going to the church our parents went to, today we can take our own personal journey and this explains the wide range of organisations we can coupling from church to religious sect to cult. Some H-L describes as pilgrims focusing on self-discovery who join NAMs that concentrate on personal development and others are converts who want a religious group which offers a strong genius of belonging, to re-create a sense of community.Lyon, a postmodernist, supports the idea that traditional religion is openhanded way to a variety of new religious beliefs and practices because we are living in a postmodern society. In this society globalisation, the increased importance of the media and communication theory and the growth of consumerism all create a new era of diversity and choice in all aspects of life. Lyon demonstrates how these perk up affected religion. We are now clear to a wider range of religious id eas than ever before and these have got become disembedded from their original local contexts so we can now adapt ideas and beliefs to suit our own purposes.Much new religious belief is simply a watered down version of eastern religions, adapted to suit Western tastes. Practice of worship is also different because it is no longer inevitable to attend a local church. Instead the electronic church on the internet and televangelism allow us to stay at home. However, if it is difficult to get convincing statistics of how many people attend church and what import this has on them, it is even more difficult to search the numbers involved in and the influence of this new form of worship.The very diversity of religions on offer forces a change in religious belief. People become sceptical that any one religion can offer the truth and are, therefore, willing to savor any of the new NRMs on offer. Again this is a reflection of postmodern society where we no longer trust in any kind of e xpert, and have rejected meta-narratives which seek to explain the world. This can even be seen in politics where the old certainties of leftfield and right politics have been reduced to the concentrate ground one could argue here that their beliefs have also become less strict. This means that new ideas will continue to flourish as we become increasingly disenchanted with the world.