Abstract
Stahl’s contribution points to a decline in membership in previously hegemonic Canadian churches (Catholic in Quebec, Anglican, United), which has placed them on the margins of society, as symptomatic of the end of Christendom. He highlights three narratives which have been used to address the decline in church membership: the secularization thesis; a narrative of renewal (religions fluctuate between decline and renewal); and Charles Taylor’s work on the changes in the nature of social solidarity in the contemporary world. Stahl argues that an extension of Taylor’s work helps us to understand both the decline of mainstream churches as institutions which have failed to adapt to these changes and the rise of fundamentalism and the New Atheism as protest movements against them.
We can’t just identify “religion” with twelfth century Catholicism, and then count every move away from that as decline
Charles Taylor
A Secular Age
The old ideals and the divinities which incarnate them are dying because they no longer correspond sufficiently to the new aspirations of our day; and the new ideals which are necessary to orient our life are not yet born.
Émile Durkheim
“La conception sociale de la religion”
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Notes
- 1.
Whether the concept can be applied at all anywhere else is debatable, but beyond the scope of this chapter.
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Stahl, W.A. (2015). The Church on the Margins: The Religious Context of the New Atheism. In: G. Beaman, L., Tomlins, S. (eds) Atheist Identities - Spaces and Social Contexts. Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09602-5_2
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