The Process of Secularization: A Post-Parsonian View

Abstract

Parsons' ideal-typical model of society depicts a religiously based moral order which is characterized by congruence within and between the cultural, structural, and personality levels of the social system. In attempting to apply this model to modern societies, however, Parsons encounters certain empirical and logical difficulties which are instructive for an understanding of the process of secularization. These difficulties, like secularization itself, are due to the process of differentiation within and between the levels of the social system. The empirical and logical difficulties led Parsons either to qualify his model of society as a religiously based moral order characterized by congruence, or to conclude that in interpreting the data paradoxes are unavoidable. It is argued that, if one takes the facts of differentiation not as departures from a basic model but as normative for modern society, one can construct a rough outline of the nature of a secular society. An attempt is made to sketch such an outline by drawing on the analysis which Parsons himself provides of differentiation in modern social systems. In conclusion, certain questions are raised for the sociology of religion.