Secularization

The death of secularization theses keeps being announced but people keep using the word. Historically the transfer of church property to secular use, for sociologists secularization signals a decline in the influence of religious institutions or ideas; yet 'secularization' has also been an attractive idea for theologians and philosophers, signalling the transformation of religious ideas into secular form, and for political theorists asserting the existence of 'political religions' in the 20th century.　

There is no single 'secularization thesis', nor are 'secularization processes' to be found only in the modern world or only in the West. Hitherto historical, sociological, political and philosophical/theological accounts of secularization have existed alongside one another or as parts of different bodies of literature; this book places them under one cover. An introduction to the variety of the term's uses, it also suggests that attending to it may help make sense of the contemporary politics of religion.