Group members
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Igor
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Luka K.
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Luka G
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Martin
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Tea
Distribution of roles
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Captain: Luka K.
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Secretary: Igor
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Time keeper: Luka
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Reporter: Tea
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Reserve: Martin
Title:
Death or down of religion?
Subtitle:
Secularization and new religious movements (New Age)
Definition:
The separation of the Church and the state has become an intergral part of our society. Less and less people are religious in a traditional way, they do not go to church or even have a religious belief of their own. But on the other hand, there are more religous organizations and churches than ever. Some of them have little to do with religion. More and more people are part of some New Age group. The Church is lagging behind in responding to these challenges More and more people have become members of groups such as Hare Krishna or Scientology, while on the other hand the Catholic Church has lost a great ammount of belivers in last 30 years.
Netherlands is a good example of these phenomena. There are two main churches, the Catholic and Protestant, a very liberal governement, and an increasing number of New Age groups. This provides a good example of liberalization of religious practices.
We will try to explore how exactly secularization and New Age groups are linked in Westeren European countries and if they are related at all. Also, we will try to make some general conclusions on this subject from the Netherlands case. Furthermore, we will try to predict the furure of New Age groups and how can the religous picture of Europe ba altered by these groups.
Research questions:
Why is the number of the new religons inceasing?
What do new religions offer and which values they emphasize compared to the established religions?
What are the differences and commonalities if we try to compare traditional religious practises and the new religios movements?
Why are new religious movements growing in popularity?
Why is Netherlands specific?
What is the view of traditional religious institutions on new religious movements?
What are the causes of secularization?
What are the consecuences of secularization?
What is the fate of new reiligions?
Can new religions become as powerful as the established ones?
What has caused extensive secularization in modern European countries?
In what ways is secularization manifested?
List of literature:
L. Voye (1999): Secularization in a Context of Advanced Modernity (JSTOR)
D. Houtman in P. Mascini (2002): Why do Churches Become Empty, while New Age grows? Secularization and Religious Change in the Netherlands (JSTOR)
M. Chaves in Ph. Gorski (2001): Religious Pluralism and Religious Participation (JSTOR)
G. Davie (2005): The »Empty« Church Revisited (SoR)
Hervieu-Leger, Daniele (1993):A future for religion?:The end of secularization or the end of religion?. Sage publications, USA
Stark ,Rodney; Bainbridge, William (1996):A theory of religion. Rutgers university press, New Jersy
Beckford, James (2003):Social theory & religion. Cambridge university press, United Kingdom
Tasks:
Tea: Introduction and conclusion
Igor: Secularization and the reasons for its spreading
Luka G.: Forms of new religious movements
Luka K.: The emergence of the New Age
Martin: Can new reiligous movements replace old religions or will secularization negate them.
Glossary
Secularization - upadanje instucionaliziranih oblik verovanja v vsakdanjem življenju (npr.: zmanjšanje vpliva rimokatoliške cerkve)
Individualization - proces, v katerem se v ospredje postavlja posameznik in ne več skupnost. Značilnost modernih družb.
Manifestation - prikazovanje, utelešenje, zavzemanje določenje forme
Exploitation - izrabljanje
Heretic - krivoverec
Widespread - močno razširjen
New religious movements - nova religijska gibanja (NRG). Oznaka se nanaša predvsem na nove oblike religij, ki so značilne za moderno družbo. Le-te ne delujejo na enak način kot uveljavljene religije, pogosto so oblikovane kot sekte in kulti ter ponujajo alternativo običajni religiji.
Secular society - sekularna družba, družba v kateri je religija v večji ali manjši meri ločena od države
Mimicry - mikrija, posnemanje, z namenom prevarati ali zavesti določeno osebo ali institucijo z oponašanjem in kazanjem značilnosti neke druge skupine ali osebe
State church - državna cerkev, določena cerkev, ki je v državi priviligirana in favorizirana napram drugim religijam.
THE MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETING
The meeting was held on the 23th of february 2009 at Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana, at 13.40.
PRESENT: Luka Kušar, Luka Gominšek, Tea Bojič
ABSENT: Martin Hauschen (absent because of educational reasons)
AGENDA:
- Topic sellection
- Defining of the basic problems
- Research process
- Actions to be taken
- Other buisiness
- We decided to research the topic of Islamic religion in the context of gender and society.
- Decision: All the present members decided that we will try to define the position of women in Islam and compare it with other religious practices, especially regarding gender based rights and social status conditioned by different backgrounds. We will pay particular attention to the phenomenon of etnocentrisem which poses a great threat to objectivity of research.
- Decision: We agreed that because of lack of time and means we will conduct quantitative research using the already gathered data and will especially empahsize the theoretical part of research.
- Assingments: We will contact Marjan Smrke and narrov our topic according to his suggestions. We have also set the date of the next meeting which will be held next week.
- The chair will bring cookies to the next meeting.
Minutes taker: Igor
Chair: Luka K.
THE MINUTES OF THE SECOND MEETING
The meeting was held on the 5 of March 2009 at Faculty of social studies in Ljubljana at 11.40
Present:Luka Kušar, Luka Gominšek, Teja Bojič, Martin Hauschen, Igor Šiška
AGENDA:
- Toppic changing and discussing
- Meeting with prof. doc. Smrke
- New title and problem definition
- Distribution of tasks
- After thorough consideration and short consultation with prof. Smrke we have decided that we are forced to chnage the toppic of our research in order to retain more modern and up to date wiev on religious affiliation. Tea suggested that we should do research on aspect of religious fundamentalism. This notion was discuted and refused. We have decided to research aspect of secularization in modern (especially European) societies on the one side and the increasing in moder or new age religious mowements on the other side.
- Prof. Smrke confirmed our toppic and suggested an article (D. Houtman in P. Mascini (2002): Why do Churches Become Empty, while New Age grows? Secularization and Religious Change in the Netherlands (JSTOR)) that would be the foundation for our research. He also Emphasized that we should somewhat generalize and expand our research on other European societyes and not only focus on secularization and new age religious groups in Netherlands.
- We have then defined the new title and more specific definition of the problem. We will divide our research in two opposite parts on one hand we will research the secularization and on the other we will observe the outspring of many new religious practices.
- Luka K. suggested that we read the article and form basic research questions untill 6.3.2009. Questions will be based on the article (wich is also starting point of our research) suggested by prof. Smrke. We decided that each group member will also find few sources of literature that he or she finds interesting and usefull in our research. Because of space barriers further comunnication will be carried out by e-mail.
Minutes taker: Igor
Chair: Luka K.
THE MINUTES OF THE THIRD MEETING
The meeting was held on the 12 of March 2009 at Faculty of social studies in Ljubljana at 14.00
PRESENT STUDENTS :Luka Kušar, Luka gominšek, Teja Bojič, Martin Hauschen, Igor Šiška
AGENDA
- Discussion obut the article (base of our research)
- Distribution of tasks
- Other
- On the last meeting we have decided that all group members must read the article recomender by prof. Smrke. This task was sucessfully accomplished by all group members. Through discossion we lerned that secularization in modern European society is not one way phenomenon. Secularization is often accompanied by formation of new religious mowement (in the article presented as New age).
- We distributed content of our research in two major parts. Secularization and emercence of new age religious mowements. We decided that Tea will write introduction and conclusion of our research. Igor will be incharge of the problem of secularization and the reasons for its emergenca. Luka G. will discuss different types of new age religions. Luka K. will be incharge of the emergence of new age.Martin will cover the question of the future of new religion movements.
- Decision: All members have to prepare short outline of the task assigned to them untill next meeting
Chair: Luka K.
THE MINUTES OF THE FOURTH MEETING
The meeting was held on the 19 of March 2009 at Faculty of social studies in Ljubljana, at 14.00
Present:Luka Kušar, Luka Gominšek, Teja Bojič, Martin Hauschen, Igor Šiška
AGENDA
- Discussion obout form of our research
- Distribution of tasks
- Other
- Decison: Our research will be carried out on mainly theoretical basis. Emperical data obout proces of secularization and new religious movements are extremly hard to gather within our time and budget range. But hevertheless we will try to use some data gathered within project ESS (european social survey). Data will be processed by using programmes nestar and spss. If data from the ESS won´t be relewant for our research we will confine ourselves to strictly theoretical approach.
- Decision: All group members have to add two words wich they found inportant for their part of research to glossary. Members have to start reading material wich is relevant for the (theoretical) research.
- Decision: We have to decide obout final date of our presentation.
Chair:Luka K.
Minutes taker: Igor
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