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الأديان العامة في العالم الحديث
خلال الثمانينات، بدأت الظواهر والتقاليد الدينية تمرّ، عبر العالم، وبقوة في أغلب الأحيان، من الحيّز الخاص إلى الحياة العامة. وقد أدى هذا إلى "تعميم" الدين في الحياة المعاصرة. في هذا الكتاب دراسة متعمّقة لهذه الظاهرة قام بها الأستاذ بجامعة شيكاغو خوسيه كازانوفا الذي يُعتبر واحداً من أبرز المتخصصين في العلوم الاجتماعية في العالم.
يبحث الكتاب في العلاقة بين العلمانية والتنوير و"الدين الحديث" وفي العلاقة بين ما يسمى الأديان الخاصة والأديان العامة، ثم يتناول، بتوسع وعمق خمس حالات دراسية عن الكنيسة في أسبانيا وبولندا والبرازيل والولايات المتحدة وعن البروتستانتية الإنجيلية، مركزاً على علاقة الدين والكنيسة بالدولة والنخب والمجتمع المدني وعامة الناس، حسب الحالة. هذا قبل صياغة الاستخلاصات حول "تعميم الدين الحديث".
روبرت ن. بلاح، وهو من المتخصصين في الموضوع، اعتبر هذا الكتاب "من أفضل الدراسات التي قرأتها منذ وقت طويل في ميدان علم اجتماع الدين، أو في علم الاجتماع التاريخي المقارن عموماً. ويتمتع كازانوفا بعمق نظري تحليلي فريد في تناول القضايا البارزة في حقل اختصاصه. فيقتحم السجال القائم حول العلمنة بدقة ووضوح لم أعهدهما من ذي قبل؛ مهملاً ما يتعذر تبريره، ومحتفظاً بما هو مفيد. وقد أصنِّف كازانوفا، على أساس هذا الكتاب المذهل، ضمن قلة قليلة من ألمع علماء اجتماع التاريخ المقارن في جيله".
يبحث الكتاب في العلاقة بين العلمانية والتنوير و"الدين الحديث" وفي العلاقة بين ما يسمى الأديان الخاصة والأديان العامة، ثم يتناول، بتوسع وعمق خمس حالات دراسية عن الكنيسة في أسبانيا وبولندا والبرازيل والولايات المتحدة وعن البروتستانتية الإنجيلية، مركزاً على علاقة الدين والكنيسة بالدولة والنخب والمجتمع المدني وعامة الناس، حسب الحالة. هذا قبل صياغة الاستخلاصات حول "تعميم الدين الحديث".
روبرت ن. بلاح، وهو من المتخصصين في الموضوع، اعتبر هذا الكتاب "من أفضل الدراسات التي قرأتها منذ وقت طويل في ميدان علم اجتماع الدين، أو في علم الاجتماع التاريخي المقارن عموماً. ويتمتع كازانوفا بعمق نظري تحليلي فريد في تناول القضايا البارزة في حقل اختصاصه. فيقتحم السجال القائم حول العلمنة بدقة ووضوح لم أعهدهما من ذي قبل؛ مهملاً ما يتعذر تبريره، ومحتفظاً بما هو مفيد. وقد أصنِّف كازانوفا، على أساس هذا الكتاب المذهل، ضمن قلة قليلة من ألمع علماء اجتماع التاريخ المقارن في جيله".
440 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 1994
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September 1, 2016I was very interested to see Casanova first of all theorizing secularization as the differentiation of autonomous spheres. Secularization is so often thought of as the movement from religious belief to unbelief. Casanova de-emphasizes this latter view – not rejecting it, of course, but relativizing its traditionally Western Eurocentric perspective by bringing forth other “secularization narratives.” All of these secularization narratives (in Spain, Poland, Brazil, America) are narratives of the deprivatization of the church – the church’s resistance to becoming completely withdrawn into the private sphere. It was interesting to read about how deprivatization is treated as a continuum comprising the private and public, instead of as the uncompromised movement from the private to an undifferentiated public. By referring to “secularized society” as precisely an umbrella of differentiated public spheres and as a tripartite division into the state, the political, and the civil realms, Casanova describes the ways churches have maneuvered their way into public roles, to great effect, by selecting amongst (or accommodating themselves to) different public possibilities.
One tends to think of the tripartite division (the state, political, civil) as more of a vertical configuration, in which the political arena is smaller than the state, and the civil arena is smaller than the political. This configuration reinforces assumptions that the church has become a reduced version of its historical caesaropapist or hegemonic standing in the state, and that current deprivatizing attempts by the church are the death throes of an increasingly irrelevant institution. Something that turns these assumptions on their heads is Casanova’s emphasis on the Catholic Church over the Protestant one(s). I am less familiar with Catholic Christianity and so was struck by the examples these churches have made of themselves in the public sphere these past few decades. As a transnational institution with most of its recent public clout in the civil realm, the Catholic church is in the unique position of being able to claim universality in the civil (the so-called “smallest”) realm. Universality claims under a totalitarian caesaropapist state are antithetical to the universal human right to conscience, while universal claims under a political party are largely interpreted as counter-movements to the modern system of differentiated spheres. Particularly in the case of the Protestant-driven American Christian Right, the act of making public claims of private truths, under the banner of “Truth,” seems incompatible with a political realm based around discourse and debate. Universal claims made in the civil realm are the most successful public mobilizations when they appeal to solidarity, higher morality, and affirmations of the free human individual, under the banners of human rights and global action. This could be interpreted as the sacralization (the religious endorsement) of networks which affirm secular freedoms.
Casanova highlights the potential pitfalls of universal claims in the American Catholic anti-abortion agenda (the invocation of the universal right to life). A rigid anti-abortion stance that ignores the contingencies of the actual lives of the women involved tempts the church to shift public realms on that issue. I found it very interesting to see a case where the church attempts to enact its interests politically if it cannot garner civil solidarity around the issue. Political mobilization on the Protestant side is also indicative of this point but on a more encompassing scale, since “universalism” and “solidarity” seem so difficult to square with Protestant denominationalism. Namely, it seems difficult to unite the different Protestant denominations under a single entity that can speak for a united religious interest. Casanova imagines even Falwell’s “Moral Majority” as the clamoring of a group within Protestantism that does not represent the interests of other Protestant denominations. I would have liked Casanova to elucidate further the possibilities of the Protestant churches to appeal to the civil realm under the banner of solidarity, instead of stopping with the observation that “the logic of fundamentalism has greater affinities with an “agonic” than with a “discoursive” model of the public sphere” (165). Or, if it is not possible to outline possibilities of solidarity under Protestantism, it would be useful to focus on current “agonic” claims on the public sphere and propose how Protestantism can ally with these claims while avoiding hegemonic claims for itself.
As demonstrated in the case studies of Spain, Poland, and especially Brazil, the church’s identification with the agonic claims of oppressed groups or the oppressed citizenry-at-large has lent credibility to the church’s public presence in the civil realm. On the other hand, American Protestantism’s agonic claims are considered fits, as they are identified with historically dominant groups who have already co-opted a great part of the American political realm. Agonic fundamentalist Protestantism is seen as unduly entitled when its representative in the discoursive political realm (the Republican Party) dismisses or suppresses agonic claims in general (especially those of oppressed groups). Thus, from the perspective of secular differentiated spheres, a church aspiring to political mobilization correlates with a church that has lost some of its broadly-appealing civil presence.
Casanova has couched religion firmly within the secular differentiated spheres. A public religion can hope to accommodate itself within these spheres, preferably and most plausibly on the civil level. What I am interested in now is the ways “civil religion,” which can incorporate multiple denominations and even religious traditions, can draw strength from more privatized sources. Casanova sees privatization as a byproduct of enervation by secularization, up to a point of withdrawal from public relevance. He also rejects (rightly, I think) the “return to the sacred” theory that portrays religious renewal as a structural component within a cycle, in constant tension with and repulsion from points of secular ennui. This theory may be tempting for post-secularists. However, I am interested in how the religion of salvation, which has accompanied privatization, can in fact contribute to public dynamism and serve as a primary normative force (over and above structural or instrumental explanations) for interventions of religion in the modern public sphere.
One tends to think of the tripartite division (the state, political, civil) as more of a vertical configuration, in which the political arena is smaller than the state, and the civil arena is smaller than the political. This configuration reinforces assumptions that the church has become a reduced version of its historical caesaropapist or hegemonic standing in the state, and that current deprivatizing attempts by the church are the death throes of an increasingly irrelevant institution. Something that turns these assumptions on their heads is Casanova’s emphasis on the Catholic Church over the Protestant one(s). I am less familiar with Catholic Christianity and so was struck by the examples these churches have made of themselves in the public sphere these past few decades. As a transnational institution with most of its recent public clout in the civil realm, the Catholic church is in the unique position of being able to claim universality in the civil (the so-called “smallest”) realm. Universality claims under a totalitarian caesaropapist state are antithetical to the universal human right to conscience, while universal claims under a political party are largely interpreted as counter-movements to the modern system of differentiated spheres. Particularly in the case of the Protestant-driven American Christian Right, the act of making public claims of private truths, under the banner of “Truth,” seems incompatible with a political realm based around discourse and debate. Universal claims made in the civil realm are the most successful public mobilizations when they appeal to solidarity, higher morality, and affirmations of the free human individual, under the banners of human rights and global action. This could be interpreted as the sacralization (the religious endorsement) of networks which affirm secular freedoms.
Casanova highlights the potential pitfalls of universal claims in the American Catholic anti-abortion agenda (the invocation of the universal right to life). A rigid anti-abortion stance that ignores the contingencies of the actual lives of the women involved tempts the church to shift public realms on that issue. I found it very interesting to see a case where the church attempts to enact its interests politically if it cannot garner civil solidarity around the issue. Political mobilization on the Protestant side is also indicative of this point but on a more encompassing scale, since “universalism” and “solidarity” seem so difficult to square with Protestant denominationalism. Namely, it seems difficult to unite the different Protestant denominations under a single entity that can speak for a united religious interest. Casanova imagines even Falwell’s “Moral Majority” as the clamoring of a group within Protestantism that does not represent the interests of other Protestant denominations. I would have liked Casanova to elucidate further the possibilities of the Protestant churches to appeal to the civil realm under the banner of solidarity, instead of stopping with the observation that “the logic of fundamentalism has greater affinities with an “agonic” than with a “discoursive” model of the public sphere” (165). Or, if it is not possible to outline possibilities of solidarity under Protestantism, it would be useful to focus on current “agonic” claims on the public sphere and propose how Protestantism can ally with these claims while avoiding hegemonic claims for itself.
As demonstrated in the case studies of Spain, Poland, and especially Brazil, the church’s identification with the agonic claims of oppressed groups or the oppressed citizenry-at-large has lent credibility to the church’s public presence in the civil realm. On the other hand, American Protestantism’s agonic claims are considered fits, as they are identified with historically dominant groups who have already co-opted a great part of the American political realm. Agonic fundamentalist Protestantism is seen as unduly entitled when its representative in the discoursive political realm (the Republican Party) dismisses or suppresses agonic claims in general (especially those of oppressed groups). Thus, from the perspective of secular differentiated spheres, a church aspiring to political mobilization correlates with a church that has lost some of its broadly-appealing civil presence.
Casanova has couched religion firmly within the secular differentiated spheres. A public religion can hope to accommodate itself within these spheres, preferably and most plausibly on the civil level. What I am interested in now is the ways “civil religion,” which can incorporate multiple denominations and even religious traditions, can draw strength from more privatized sources. Casanova sees privatization as a byproduct of enervation by secularization, up to a point of withdrawal from public relevance. He also rejects (rightly, I think) the “return to the sacred” theory that portrays religious renewal as a structural component within a cycle, in constant tension with and repulsion from points of secular ennui. This theory may be tempting for post-secularists. However, I am interested in how the religion of salvation, which has accompanied privatization, can in fact contribute to public dynamism and serve as a primary normative force (over and above structural or instrumental explanations) for interventions of religion in the modern public sphere.
July 20, 2024
very glad the field of secularism studies has moved past this kind of analysis. this reminded me a lot of charles taylor in how it seems to just lament what has happened to religion through modernity and then he ends (spoiler) with the claim that maybe the depriviatization of religion will save modernity. it’s an old book, so i don’t want to be too hard on it. but the case studies are incredibly ecclesiocentric and have massively undertheorized concepts of both power and religion at work.
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February 1, 20243.5/5
CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION:
How has the continued deprivatization of religion in the latter half of the 20th century both challenged certain sociological theories of secularization and shaped a modern world in which religion is concerned with more than individual piety?
THESIS or THESES:
The core thesis of this book is Casanova’s burden to demonstrate, especially to other sociologists and those who work in the empirical traditions of social science, that religion does not wither away as society becomes more rational and scientific. And, perhaps counter intuitively for many, Casanova argues that many varieties of public religion carry on the agenda of the Enlightenment.
Additionally, Casanova claims and proves that secularism is wrongly understood as a unidimensional declining-of-religion thesis and should be understood in three different manners: “[1] secularization as differentiation of the secular spheres from religious institutions and norms, [2] secularization as decline of religious beliefs and practices, and [3] secularization as marginalization of religion to a privatized sphere” (211). Casanova argues that the first is empirically verifiable while the latter two are false.
METHODS:
The first two chapter and conclusion of the book theoretically attempt to delineate and describe what the conditions of possibility are for the emergence of public modern religions. In other words, the first two chapters are a search for better theories of religion that, while not being exhaustive or totalizing, can attend to the public and private spheres of religion. The latter core of the book, which compromises chapters 3-7, consists of empirical studies on varieties of public religion in the modern world. Casanova refers to this section of the book as “comparative-historical” (8).
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT(S):
To contextualize his larger argument and study, Casanova begins with a brief note about the increasingly public role of religion in the 1980s and how this role troubled previous theories of secularization and the Enlightenment. That is, Casanova notes how “religious traditions throughout the world are refusing to accept the marginal and privatized role which theories of modernity as well as theories of secularization bad reserved for them” (5).
As the first chapter unfolds, Casanova develops his sociological theory of secularization as differentiation. In doing so, Casanova traces how the Protestant reformation, and, its wake, early modern science, mediated and justified a burgeoning capitalist world that would develop the state and market as spheres largely distinct from the jurisdiction of the Church (20-25). This is not to say that Casanova sees the Protestant Reformation as a causal factor of secularization, but that markets and the modern state were the causes of secularization as differentiation (25). Subsequently, Casanova demonstrates the folly of the decline-of-religion thesis; he does so by paying special attention to American Protestantism (27-29). After arguing for the three dimensions of the Enlightenment critique of religion (30-32), Casanova offers a typical rendition of Marx’s critique of religion (31-34) and how his critique of religion is echoed and redacted by Freud and Nietzsche (34-35). Casanova concludes the chapter by arguing how the privatization thesis is as fool-hardy and anti-empirical as the decline-of-religion thesis.
Beginning the second chapter, Casanova propounds that the privatization of religion need not be construed as individual piety or practice, but also as the institutional differentiation of secular spheres from religious controls (40). Relatedly, Casanova demonstrates how public and private are not socially distinct, but are mutually porous, far from a binary, and not conceptualizable within an individual/group distinction (42-46). In demonstrating the various ways ‘religion’ relates to the world, Casanova allows himself to argue that high culture Deism during the era of bourgeois revolutions was a fusion of individual mysticism and Enlightenment rationalism and that American denominationalism was the democratized institutionalized fusion of individual mysticism (48-54). In charting the liberal tradition’s vision of religion, Casanova then argues that said tradition has too narrowly sequestered and divided religion via “juridical-constitutional lines of separation” (56). Importantly, Casanova closes the chapter with a brief excursus on how feminist critics have troubled distinctions between home and work, private and public, the personal and the political (63-65).
Moving into part two of the book, which involves five case studies, Casanova examines the transformation of public religion in modernity. Each of the case studies consists of a historical section and a contemporary section, the former marks the patters of secularization and the latter analyses the role these religions have played over the past two decades (69-70). Casanova develops how each of these case studies—Spanish, Polish, Brazilian, and American Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism—uniquely relates to a given context and historicity of the ‘the Church’ (71-74). Moreover, Casanova’s empirical findings suggest that public religion in the modern world plays an ambiguous role. For instance, the crux of the issue in understanding Spanish Catholicism, for Casanova, is being able to account for why and how Spanish Catholicism transformed from an authoritarian state church (which is discussed in pgs. 76-87) to a disestablished church of civil society. Unlike the other case studies, the church in this instance can nostalgic for a religious and reactionary hegemony, as it was in the case of sanctioning and funding Franco, but can also be conducive to the justification of democratic life, as was the case in many Catholic activists resisting Franco’s regime (86-89). At other times, the church questions the autonomy and legitimacy of secular institutions, such as the case with American bishops decrying the arms race (189-202). Moreover, in his case study on Brazil, Casanova charts how liberation theology and a ‘church of the people’ had a progressive impact that decried the authoritarian abuse of state regimes around the globe (126-133). In doing so, Casanova argues that the privatization of religion is not a given trend, but one of many historical options. All of this is to say, Casanova’s case studies point to the multivalent public role religion plays in modern life—and in each instance, these roles prove that religion is all but withering way and private.
SCHOLARS THE AUTHOR IS IN CONVERSATION WITH:
Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch, Emile Durkheim, Jurgen Habermas, and various Catholic ecclesial figures.
CRITICISM:
Casanova is wrong to say that despite the heterogenous public functions of Catholicism across the world, that there remains a shared basic structure of ritual, doctrine, and ecclesial structure. The Latin American Catholic church of the 1970s and 1980s, which stands as one of Casanova’s case studies, has remarkably different rituals and doctrines than the Catholic church in central Europe. From a professed belief in God’s preferential option for the poor to an identification of laboring people with Christ, the Latin American Catholic church doctrinally distinguishes itself from its northern counterparts. I do not take these beliefs as inconsequential and wish that Casanova, even for the sake of empirical clarity, paid more attention to these beliefs. In the introduction to Part II, Casanova cites several Vatican II and post-Vatican II documents that allegedly demonstrate uniformity of belief; however, such ecclesial documents should not overshadow deep, significant, and meaningful local distinctions in belief. In fact, he off-handily notes that the theological disagreements over said documents are irrelevant to sociological study (73). My assumption is that this is owning to his structuralist sociological methods, but I’m unsure.
Unrelatedly, towards the book’s ending, Casanova put forth a variety of Habermasian discourse ethics. For example: “According to this model, modern social integration emerges in and through the discursive and agonic participation of individuals, groups, social movements, and institutions in a public yet undifferentiated sphere of civil society where the collective construction and reconstruction, contestation, and affirmation of common normative structures-‘the common good’-takes place” (230). If he means by common normative structures what Habermas means by common normative structures, then there is good reason to criticize a latent universalism in the text. This is not to say Habermas’ discourse ethics is entirely bankrupt, but it needs serious redaction if one is to not (rather anti-empirically, I might add) reduce religious norms and languages to being unfit for civil society.
PRAISE:
I appreciate this empirically driven study Casanova has provided. Additionally, I commend him for being explicit about why he disagrees with perhaps the dominant trend in mid-century social theory. Indeed, he demonstrates how it is productive for authors to state a problem and what they make of that problem. Though his style was at times mind-numbing, his empiricism did lend itself to a refreshing clarity (yet, I have to say that this clarity was at times diminished by his occasional unnecessary sociological jargon (forgive me for not filing this claim under criticisms)).
OPEN QUESTIONS AND PATHS FORWARD:
Here is a question concern academic style and representation: I understand that Casanova is driven by and in an empirical tradition of social theory; however, this book is quite boring. Is there a way for academics who are in such empirical traditions to stylistically engage the reader? I know this is a major question in ‘critical realism,’ but there must be a way to write empirically that makes use of allegory and, dare I say, myth and story.
In terms of content, I’d be curious to have a discussion on the state of American Protestantism. This book was published forty-years ago and American Protestantism has, quite literally, inserted itself into civil society. Considering Casanova’s work, how can we understand the development of this tradition?
AUTHOR’S UNDERSTANDING OF “Secular, Secularism, Secularization, or Secularity”:
Casanova is quick to demarcate between the concept of “the secular” (along with its derivative “secularity”) and the sociological theory of secularization (12). Noting how in the premodern Latin world, secular was a legal/canonical process in which a priest would leave a cloister and becoming secular (in the ‘world’). Secularization as a historical process related to the sociological theory of secularization designates how people, landholdings, wealth, functions, and meanings leave their traditional location religious sphere and enter the secular sphere. Of course, Casanova’s point is that the sociological theory of secularization wrongly assumes a universal account about the inevitable historical decline of religion and failed to differentiate between various thesis of secularization. Namely the differentiation thesis, the decline-of-religion thesis, and the privatization thesis (20). While Casanova credits the differentiation thesis as empirically founded, he is critical of the other two theses.
CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION:
How has the continued deprivatization of religion in the latter half of the 20th century both challenged certain sociological theories of secularization and shaped a modern world in which religion is concerned with more than individual piety?
THESIS or THESES:
The core thesis of this book is Casanova’s burden to demonstrate, especially to other sociologists and those who work in the empirical traditions of social science, that religion does not wither away as society becomes more rational and scientific. And, perhaps counter intuitively for many, Casanova argues that many varieties of public religion carry on the agenda of the Enlightenment.
Additionally, Casanova claims and proves that secularism is wrongly understood as a unidimensional declining-of-religion thesis and should be understood in three different manners: “[1] secularization as differentiation of the secular spheres from religious institutions and norms, [2] secularization as decline of religious beliefs and practices, and [3] secularization as marginalization of religion to a privatized sphere” (211). Casanova argues that the first is empirically verifiable while the latter two are false.
METHODS:
The first two chapter and conclusion of the book theoretically attempt to delineate and describe what the conditions of possibility are for the emergence of public modern religions. In other words, the first two chapters are a search for better theories of religion that, while not being exhaustive or totalizing, can attend to the public and private spheres of religion. The latter core of the book, which compromises chapters 3-7, consists of empirical studies on varieties of public religion in the modern world. Casanova refers to this section of the book as “comparative-historical” (8).
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT(S):
To contextualize his larger argument and study, Casanova begins with a brief note about the increasingly public role of religion in the 1980s and how this role troubled previous theories of secularization and the Enlightenment. That is, Casanova notes how “religious traditions throughout the world are refusing to accept the marginal and privatized role which theories of modernity as well as theories of secularization bad reserved for them” (5).
As the first chapter unfolds, Casanova develops his sociological theory of secularization as differentiation. In doing so, Casanova traces how the Protestant reformation, and, its wake, early modern science, mediated and justified a burgeoning capitalist world that would develop the state and market as spheres largely distinct from the jurisdiction of the Church (20-25). This is not to say that Casanova sees the Protestant Reformation as a causal factor of secularization, but that markets and the modern state were the causes of secularization as differentiation (25). Subsequently, Casanova demonstrates the folly of the decline-of-religion thesis; he does so by paying special attention to American Protestantism (27-29). After arguing for the three dimensions of the Enlightenment critique of religion (30-32), Casanova offers a typical rendition of Marx’s critique of religion (31-34) and how his critique of religion is echoed and redacted by Freud and Nietzsche (34-35). Casanova concludes the chapter by arguing how the privatization thesis is as fool-hardy and anti-empirical as the decline-of-religion thesis.
Beginning the second chapter, Casanova propounds that the privatization of religion need not be construed as individual piety or practice, but also as the institutional differentiation of secular spheres from religious controls (40). Relatedly, Casanova demonstrates how public and private are not socially distinct, but are mutually porous, far from a binary, and not conceptualizable within an individual/group distinction (42-46). In demonstrating the various ways ‘religion’ relates to the world, Casanova allows himself to argue that high culture Deism during the era of bourgeois revolutions was a fusion of individual mysticism and Enlightenment rationalism and that American denominationalism was the democratized institutionalized fusion of individual mysticism (48-54). In charting the liberal tradition’s vision of religion, Casanova then argues that said tradition has too narrowly sequestered and divided religion via “juridical-constitutional lines of separation” (56). Importantly, Casanova closes the chapter with a brief excursus on how feminist critics have troubled distinctions between home and work, private and public, the personal and the political (63-65).
Moving into part two of the book, which involves five case studies, Casanova examines the transformation of public religion in modernity. Each of the case studies consists of a historical section and a contemporary section, the former marks the patters of secularization and the latter analyses the role these religions have played over the past two decades (69-70). Casanova develops how each of these case studies—Spanish, Polish, Brazilian, and American Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism—uniquely relates to a given context and historicity of the ‘the Church’ (71-74). Moreover, Casanova’s empirical findings suggest that public religion in the modern world plays an ambiguous role. For instance, the crux of the issue in understanding Spanish Catholicism, for Casanova, is being able to account for why and how Spanish Catholicism transformed from an authoritarian state church (which is discussed in pgs. 76-87) to a disestablished church of civil society. Unlike the other case studies, the church in this instance can nostalgic for a religious and reactionary hegemony, as it was in the case of sanctioning and funding Franco, but can also be conducive to the justification of democratic life, as was the case in many Catholic activists resisting Franco’s regime (86-89). At other times, the church questions the autonomy and legitimacy of secular institutions, such as the case with American bishops decrying the arms race (189-202). Moreover, in his case study on Brazil, Casanova charts how liberation theology and a ‘church of the people’ had a progressive impact that decried the authoritarian abuse of state regimes around the globe (126-133). In doing so, Casanova argues that the privatization of religion is not a given trend, but one of many historical options. All of this is to say, Casanova’s case studies point to the multivalent public role religion plays in modern life—and in each instance, these roles prove that religion is all but withering way and private.
SCHOLARS THE AUTHOR IS IN CONVERSATION WITH:
Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch, Emile Durkheim, Jurgen Habermas, and various Catholic ecclesial figures.
CRITICISM:
Casanova is wrong to say that despite the heterogenous public functions of Catholicism across the world, that there remains a shared basic structure of ritual, doctrine, and ecclesial structure. The Latin American Catholic church of the 1970s and 1980s, which stands as one of Casanova’s case studies, has remarkably different rituals and doctrines than the Catholic church in central Europe. From a professed belief in God’s preferential option for the poor to an identification of laboring people with Christ, the Latin American Catholic church doctrinally distinguishes itself from its northern counterparts. I do not take these beliefs as inconsequential and wish that Casanova, even for the sake of empirical clarity, paid more attention to these beliefs. In the introduction to Part II, Casanova cites several Vatican II and post-Vatican II documents that allegedly demonstrate uniformity of belief; however, such ecclesial documents should not overshadow deep, significant, and meaningful local distinctions in belief. In fact, he off-handily notes that the theological disagreements over said documents are irrelevant to sociological study (73). My assumption is that this is owning to his structuralist sociological methods, but I’m unsure.
Unrelatedly, towards the book’s ending, Casanova put forth a variety of Habermasian discourse ethics. For example: “According to this model, modern social integration emerges in and through the discursive and agonic participation of individuals, groups, social movements, and institutions in a public yet undifferentiated sphere of civil society where the collective construction and reconstruction, contestation, and affirmation of common normative structures-‘the common good’-takes place” (230). If he means by common normative structures what Habermas means by common normative structures, then there is good reason to criticize a latent universalism in the text. This is not to say Habermas’ discourse ethics is entirely bankrupt, but it needs serious redaction if one is to not (rather anti-empirically, I might add) reduce religious norms and languages to being unfit for civil society.
PRAISE:
I appreciate this empirically driven study Casanova has provided. Additionally, I commend him for being explicit about why he disagrees with perhaps the dominant trend in mid-century social theory. Indeed, he demonstrates how it is productive for authors to state a problem and what they make of that problem. Though his style was at times mind-numbing, his empiricism did lend itself to a refreshing clarity (yet, I have to say that this clarity was at times diminished by his occasional unnecessary sociological jargon (forgive me for not filing this claim under criticisms)).
OPEN QUESTIONS AND PATHS FORWARD:
Here is a question concern academic style and representation: I understand that Casanova is driven by and in an empirical tradition of social theory; however, this book is quite boring. Is there a way for academics who are in such empirical traditions to stylistically engage the reader? I know this is a major question in ‘critical realism,’ but there must be a way to write empirically that makes use of allegory and, dare I say, myth and story.
In terms of content, I’d be curious to have a discussion on the state of American Protestantism. This book was published forty-years ago and American Protestantism has, quite literally, inserted itself into civil society. Considering Casanova’s work, how can we understand the development of this tradition?
AUTHOR’S UNDERSTANDING OF “Secular, Secularism, Secularization, or Secularity”:
Casanova is quick to demarcate between the concept of “the secular” (along with its derivative “secularity”) and the sociological theory of secularization (12). Noting how in the premodern Latin world, secular was a legal/canonical process in which a priest would leave a cloister and becoming secular (in the ‘world’). Secularization as a historical process related to the sociological theory of secularization designates how people, landholdings, wealth, functions, and meanings leave their traditional location religious sphere and enter the secular sphere. Of course, Casanova’s point is that the sociological theory of secularization wrongly assumes a universal account about the inevitable historical decline of religion and failed to differentiate between various thesis of secularization. Namely the differentiation thesis, the decline-of-religion thesis, and the privatization thesis (20). While Casanova credits the differentiation thesis as empirically founded, he is critical of the other two theses.
September 21, 2010
Casanova presents a historical and cultural view of the role of contemporary religion in America. It's a text on religious studies subject matter, but it is accessible to those with interests in contemporary politics or modern history, so it's not totally inaccessible. There is some jargon, but that is mostly limited to the presentation of theories of secularization and the role that they have played in shaping the way that we look at the distinction between public and private life.
He is pretty heavy on Catholicism (four of his five examples), so it's hard to say how generalized his theory is, but it does apply pretty well to developed Christian countries, both on the European continent (where he talks about secular and Catholic Poland and Catholicism in Spain).
It's a great read, as far as conceptual material in religious studies go, and I recommend it as a resource for those interested in learning about the role of contemporary religion, particularly in the United States (two of the five examples that Casanova presents are on religion in America). Overall, though, very accessible and a relatively easy read.
He is pretty heavy on Catholicism (four of his five examples), so it's hard to say how generalized his theory is, but it does apply pretty well to developed Christian countries, both on the European continent (where he talks about secular and Catholic Poland and Catholicism in Spain).
It's a great read, as far as conceptual material in religious studies go, and I recommend it as a resource for those interested in learning about the role of contemporary religion, particularly in the United States (two of the five examples that Casanova presents are on religion in America). Overall, though, very accessible and a relatively easy read.
May 4, 2007
HUGE book in contemporary sociology/religious studies--deals mostly with the reorientation/redefinition of "secularism" and tries to build bridges between the two spheres of public/private domain binary.
read him.
then read asad.
dudez is hxc.
read him.
then read asad.
dudez is hxc.
March 5, 2019
„Social scientists, both as practical actors and as theorists who are also engaged in making "distinctions" and drawing boundaries, will need to develop analytical and normative criteria to differentiate the various forms of public religion and their possible sociohistorical consequences. But above all, social scientists need to recognize that, despite all the structural forces, the legitimate pressures, and the many valid reasons pushing religion in the modern secular world into the private sphere, religion continues to have and will Iikely continue to have a public dimension. Theories of modernity, theories of modern politics, and theories of collective action which systematically ignore this public dimension of modern religion are necessarily incomplete theories.”
October 12, 2020
read this for a class. interesting and well structured arguments, but overall not my schtick. if it’s yours, it’s worth the read. the actual text is overworked for my liking. idc how advanced your analysis is—there isn’t a reason to make single sentences as long as full paragraphs (with multiple internal asides) the WHOLE TIME. like my man, we will not think less of you if you aren’t speaking to us in nonstop galaxy brain.
December 16, 2019
This is one of the better historical and cultural looks at the evolution of Christianity, predominantly Catholicism, in the North Atlantic (Europe and the Americas) in the post-Enlightenment era. He discounts the effects of secularization but analyzes the changes to the practice of religion in the modern world.
August 14, 2017
Published in the early 1990s, this book was ahead of its time, arguing for the "deprivatization" of religion as a challenge to secularization narratives. Casanova's comparisons of the presence of Catholicism and Fundamentalism in various countries remains useful both in content and method.
July 28, 2020
Read in an ideologies class. More people need to learn what's in here. Changed my way of looking at the topic of religion in the world. Chapters on different countries including USA.
February 3, 2025
***read for class***
the argument was structured like a russian nesting doll- very complex and difficult to follow
the argument was structured like a russian nesting doll- very complex and difficult to follow
March 15, 2016
This is one of the best book offering a critical look a secularization theory--the idea that all modern societies will inevitably see religion decline in popularity, prestige, and power (and ultimately disappear). Casanova takes a nuanced approach, arguing that secularization at best is understood as differentiation of religion from politics (and other spheres) but does not necessarily include a decline in religious behaviour or the privatization of religion. In fact, by using examples in Brazil, Poland, the USA and Spain, he shows how religion continues to play a large public role in the political culture of Western countries.
Worth a read and a re-read for all students of culture and religion.
Worth a read and a re-read for all students of culture and religion.
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