Relative Secularization and Religious Practice

The term “secularization” should be used only in connection with Becker's sacred-secular continuum. “Secularization” and the “decline” of religious practice in western Europe in modern times must not be equated. Secularization breeds religious reform and renewal, and also renders irrelevant a number of once important motivations to religious practice, thus causing many to abandon their practice. In France and England, from the 12th to the 19th century, the town has played a central part in this process. Correctly motivated religious practice, invariably stimulated by secularization, has, over seven hundred years, involved only a proportion of all worshippers.