Written by | Li Xiangping
(Professor, Department of Sociology, East China Normal University)
At the end of the nineteenth century, an assertion that "God is dead" once touched the most sensitive and fragile nerve in European society, symbolizing the secular transformation of European civilization and even the entire Christian civilization. Now, more than a century has passed, and Nietzsche's words still ring in your ears.
On the surface, the religious atmosphere in today's world seems to be getting stronger. But the Nordic side of the landscape is unique. Above the ever-expanding sacred sea, two lifeboats that have survived the wind and waves are floating, that is, Denmark and Sweden, which symbolize secular life. The fact that most Danish and Swedish people are not burdened by religion is both humble and inspiring. There, crime rates are among the lowest in the world and corruption indices are among the highest in the world; there are towns and cities that are quaint, graceful, thriving, free health care, equal and just social policies, and no devotion to God, and few people think about theological issues or think that God is vital in everyday life.
Phil Zuckerman, a long-time researcher of secular issues, in his "Self-Sufficient Secular Society", revived the thesis of sacred religion and secular society, arguing that daily life does not need a God as the center, and that a society without God is not only possible, but also completely capable of being gentle and elegant, and the happiness of the people. The authors make an incidental reference to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, arguing that their religious beliefs are also significantly low.
"Self-Sufficient Secular Society", by Phil Zuckerman, translated by Yang Jing, Yilin Publishing House, January 2021.
Discover a complex social fact in Denmark and Sweden
Zuckerman once lived in the United States and did not like the United States very much, although the United States is still the world's number one power, but because of the strong religious atmosphere in the United States, the author felt suffocated. Once poor, Denmark and Sweden became not only the richest but also the safest in the world in the 20th century. Therefore, the comforting and analgesic role that religion can play in these two countries is also small, and Denmark and Sweden have become one of the typical sociological cases of secularization in modern society. On this basis, one of the basic arguments of the book is that countries with weak religious beliefs will also be among the most prosperous and successful.
To illustrate such a question, and to convince himself and his readers, Zuckerman had to fall into the dilemma of whether this was the sanctity of religion, or the result of the secularization of religion? It directly affects people's value judgments about life and life in the present, do we want to live in a secular era, or do we still need a divine care?
Zuckerman interviewed 150 secular ordinary Nordics and discovered a complex social fact that for contemporary Danes and Swedes, Christian identity is not limited to accepting a narrow set of supernatural beliefs. Christian identity is associated with their cultural message and is part of their collective heritage, embodied in their childhood experiences and family traditions. Their belief in God is both grand and subtle, both private and open-ended, inextricably linked to the cultural context. Merely "I believe" or "I don't believe" is vague and only scratches the surface of the problem. In the combing and reflection of these interview materials, Zuckerman's greatest theoretical contribution is that the secularism of Denmark and Sweden is not the classical secularism of religious decline, but the "voluntary choice of secularism" in contemporary civilized society.
This voluntary secularity is similar to the second model of secularization proposed by Taylor in Secular Times, namely as a type of belief and practice, unlike the other two secular models such as religion withdrawing from public space and as a particular belief or commitment. It is precisely because of the formation of these types of secularization that they can go hand in hand with self-contained humanism and thus end the era of "naïve" religious beliefs. This can only illustrate a new relationship between faith and unbelief with our time, but the living experience and the multiple contexts in which this experiential interpretation is shaped. People only need to elevate their lives to the level of sacredness.
Stills from the Danish film Revenge Day (1943), a reflection on 17th-century church religion.
The mechanism of secularization
Juckman is very aware of why the majority of the people in Denmark and Sweden form a voluntary choice of secularization, because the Lutheran church, which is the state religion in both countries, has a real monopoly, resulting in a lack of competition in the religious economy, which is largely funded by state taxes, although few people go and it does not matter. In other words, Lutheranism in Denmark and Sweden is funded by the state, akin to monopolizing religion. There is little need or motivation for priests or bishops to vigorously promote their religion to the public.
In the formation of the national church, the wealth of the church was not only greatly transferred to the Swedish royal family, but also strengthened the political and economic advantages of the king, resulting in the lutheran tradition of justification by faith losing its significance here. Although about 80 percent of the Danes and Swedes are funded members of the state church, the Christianity they believe in was imposed on them from the top down by the chiefs and kings and never entered their hearts. This adds a "phenomenon of lazy secularization" to the "secularization of voluntary choices" model.
Over the centuries, neither Denmark nor Sweden has been threatened, dominated or oppressed by foreign cultures of different faiths. Thus, this phenomenon of religious laziness and monopoly also leads to the possibility of cultural laziness, especially when the cultural and religious monopoly of these two countries has never been threatened by external forces, and the phenomenon of church laziness and public detachment from religion may occur to a large extent. Thus, the theory of religious secularization, which is ostensibly caused by the prosperity of the country, is in fact promoted by the monopoly and laziness mechanism of religion.
Denmark has a national church, which hosts weekend retreats that no one registers, and fewer than a hundred people attend. Churches are merely public monuments, as structural symbols of the nation and the state, of national history, heritage, people and spirit. Although people don't go very often. At this level, religion plays a cultural role, with people participating in various activities such as rituals, festivals, ceremonies, and transitional ceremonies of the cycle of life, but which do not contain beliefs and beliefs.
Religion in Denmark and Sweden is merely a private matter, a private matter. Related to this, there is a more important phenomenon, even if people do not believe in God, they are not willing to label themselves atheistic, and their religious hearts are hidden under the cloak of secularism.
That is to say, Zuckerman also found another kind of secularity, that is, the system and practice of the community operated by the state, as the pre-modern socio-political organization is related to God, and the modern Western countries have broken away from this connection. Therefore, it no longer makes sense to compare the secularity of people's voluntary choice to distance themselves from God and not to go to church, and to distinguish their society as religious or secular.
Redefine the secular and the sacred
Unfortunately, Zuckerman's traditional secular narrative still attributes many of the problems of the world and society to religion, looking for a single causal link between religion and civilized society, so much so that religion is regarded as an antagonist to the values of modern civilization. The author simplifies several elements of social prosperity and national success, and religion is only one of its variables. Just as arguments such as the doom of society without religious belief are difficult to establish.
Zuckerman's conclusion also seems a bit impatient, that religion is not natural or innate, and that religion is not a necessary part of a healthy, peaceful, prosperous and excellent society. Religions, however, can be said to be different; but every people has to answer where the highest good comes from in a society, a nation, and whether the manifestation of this highest good can form the universal rules of a society. Without rules, no religion, no belief, can be of no avail.
A basic fact is that the goodness that originates from religion can be transformed into modern civilizational design in modern civilized society, and religion becomes the choice and belief of individuals. The change in the way sacredness is expressed is not necessarily secularization, but changes the way religious sacredness is practiced and presented. When the national church has become difficult to gain the trust and faith of the people, individual beliefs are directly integrated with social virtues. Durkheim has long argued that the "worship of the individual" in modern society has become the new "sacred", a "religion of human nature", because the modern individual is "both an admirer and a God".
Sociologists see religion as a specific mode of experience with a sacred type. The state church is a model, and individual faith is also a model of experience. The socio-empirical systems of the Nordic countries and their individualized characteristics endow the individual with the most basic social and political rights, highlighting and presenting the religious and moral individualism as actors, and the individualization of this belief can not only create, enrich and empower the individual, but also establish and enhance the sanctification of the social system.
It should be noted that Zuckerman makes no distinction between religion and religion, which is superficial and religious is a deep, uncretized personal experience. If the social and religious characteristics of Denmark and Sweden reflect the retreat of the holy or the decline of religion, it may also be the decline of church religion and national church.
In postmodern societies, religion is often seen as a private matter for individuals. Taylor said, "Under the conditions of modernity, 'religion' is no longer an independent motivating force." From this we can also infer that today's society should redefine the secular and the sacred, that society, welfare, and justice have become sacred, and that how can individual life and freedom voluntarily choose the sacred? This is the question of modernity in the written pair.
A society without God is not necessarily a secular society. What sociologists think of as religious sanctity is actually the result of social endowment, and society is sacred itself.
Finally, it is difficult to understand why the translator translated the title as "self-sufficient secular society." The title of the book is "Society without God" in English. The author himself makes a lot of sense by titleing the book "A Society Without God" rather than "A Society Without Religion." Here, the author has a very unique vision, which makes people think about what it means to be a society that is considered "moral" or "ethical".
Author | Li Xiangping
Edit | Rodong
Proofreading | Xue Jingning