According to Steve Bruce, a defender of secularization theory, indices of belief and other factors (church attendance, religious ceremonies to mark rights of passage, etc.) in industrial societies demonstrate a major decline across the board (2021, 413–414). Certain data, however, suggests a more complex scenario.

It is indisputable that the United Kingdom evidences a reduction in church attendance and belief in traditional Christian doctrines (Woodhead 2016, 2017). There is also a rapidly expanding religious “nones” demographic (those who identify with “no religion”), which rose to 37—41% in January of 2013 and to 46% according to a fieldwork report in December of 2015 (Woodhead 2016, 247). The majority of the population described their affiliation as “no religion” rather than “Christian” (Woodhead 2016, 246). These nones reject both religious and secular labels.

The British historian J. C. D. Clark (2012) comments that low church attendance, a low number of Christian weddings (roughly 30% of marriages in England and Wales), and the shrinking affirmation of traditional Christian beliefs (a personal God, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, life after death, the devil, and the authority of the Bible) are not evidence for the erosion of religious belief held by the population generally. Disbelief statistics informed by polls “might be strongly related to people’s disengagement from denominational Christian practice rather than evidence for a decline in religiosity itself, especially since surveys have shown that ‘non-traditional’ religious beliefs remained stable” (Clark 2012, 182).

In Woodhead’s view, the rise of nones and the large value gap between churches and younger generations are connected to liberalization and pluralization (2016, 258). Liberalization refers to each individual benefiting from the right to decide what to do with his or her life, which is the opposite of needing to defer to a higher authority (parents, God, scriptures, managers, etc.). This freedom is a privilege forged by a succession of political struggles (e.g., freedom for all regardless of race, ethnicity, and, most recently, sex and gender). At 90%, the overwhelming majority, including both religious and irreligious people, affirm ethical liberalism (Woodhead 2016, 256). 

Liberalism produced a large value gap between the churches and younger generations. The beliefs held by the traditional churches constitute a form of religion that does not satisfy for many their social, moral, and spiritual preferences. This does not, however, indicate that the majority of Britons are hostile to the churches but rather indifferent and have little or no contact with them at all (Woodhead 2016, 257).

The rise of nones and the reduction in acceptance of traditional Christian beliefs do not demonstrate that the majority is atheist or anti-religious. According to Woodhead’s “Dawkins indicator” (which refers to Richard Dawkins, an intellectual known for his public disdain for religion, indicates those who are passionately atheist and hostile to religious faith), 13% of nones are secular in this strong sense, which is 5% of the population (Woodhead 2015, 250). François Gauthier writes that “We know that the rise of ‘nones’ (the survey category of ‘no religion’) in state surveys does not amount to any kind of significant rise in declared atheists” (2020, 312).

Pluralization, moreover, supports an ethical commitment to freedom of religious belief and the equal treatment of religions and religious populations in contemporary British society. Peter Berger (1929—2017) stated that pluralization generates religious diversity, which undermines taken-for-granted frameworks and traditions. The result is a “number of plausibility structures competing with each other” that deprives their religious contents “as (a) taken-for-granted, objective reality in consciousness” (2011, 190). Woodhead agrees, acknowledging that because of the United Kingdom’s religious diversity, it becomes difficult for any one religion to be an unquestioned part of its culture (2015, 254). 

Pluralization inspires many of the unaffiliated to join or take part in unconventional forms of religion. Clark writes that individual emancipation may “encourage people to explore a variety of ‘new age’ religions rather than more familiar denominations” (2012, 176). Sociologist Rodney Stark maintains that “Levels of subjective religiousness [in Britain] remain high” (1999, 254) and says that scholars should ask why people “persist in believing but see no need to participate with even minimal regularity in their religious institution” (1999, 254). Stark calls this subjective religiosity, which entails, as Grace Davie (1994) states, “believing without belonging.” 

Further, those who identify as “other religion”, which is not Christian and not “no religion”, have grown since the 1960s, and this is largely a result of inward migration and high birth rates (Woodhead 2015, 248), although, for now, affiliating with a religion is still the exception rather than the norm.

In Woodhead’s view, it is best to adopt what one might call a “middle position”,

“The patchy global distribution of ‘no religion’ undermines simplistic accounts of secularisation that imagined all countries propelled to the same secular destination point by the irresistible forces of modernisation. Nevertheless, the current fashion for dismissing such theories is overdone; the best of them can still shed light if not on universal trends at least on particular cases, like the rise of ‘no religion’ in Britain” (2016, 254). 

References

Berger, Peter. 2011. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Open Road Media.

Bruce, Steve. 20201. “Secularization.” In The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion, edited by Robert A. Segal, 414–428. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Clark, J. C. D. 2012. “Secularization and Modernization: The Failure of a ‘Grand Narrative’.” The Historical Journal 55(1):61–194.

Davie, Grace. 1994. Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Gauthier, François. 2020. “What is left of secularization? Debate on Jörg Stolz’s article on Secularization theories in the 21st century: ideas, evidence, and problems.” Social Compass 67(2): 309–314.

Stark, Rodney. 1999. “Secularization, R.I.P.” Sociology of Religion 60(3):249-273.

Woodhead, Linda. 2016.  “The rise of ‘no religion’ in Britain: The emergence of a new cultural majority.” Journal of the British Academy 4:245-261. 

Woodhead, Linda. 2017. “The Rise of “No Religion”: Towards an Explanation.” Sociology of Religion 78(3):247–262.