Table Of ContentTHE MYTH OF SECULARIZATION:
A GENEALOGICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE RELIGIOUS AND THE SECULAR
A Professional Project
presented to(cid:1)
the Faculty of
Claremont School of Theology
In Partial Fulfillment(cid:1)
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Jeffrey Murico
May 2018
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This!dissertation!completed!by!
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JEFFREY&MURICO&
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has!been!presented!to!and!accepted!by!the!
faculty!of!Claremont!School!of!Theology!in!!
partial!fulfillment!of!the!requirements!of!the!
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DOCTOR&OF&PHILOSOPHY&
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Faculty&Committee&
!!!!!!!!!!!!Dr.!Richard!Amesbury,!Chairperson!
! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!Dr.!Grace!Yia@Hei!Kao!!
! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!Dr.!Phil!Zuckerman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Dean&of&the&Faculty&
Sheryl!A.!Kujawa@Holbrook!
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May!2017!
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ABSTRACT
THE MYTH OF SECULARIZATION:
A GENEALOGICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE RELIGIOUS AND THE SECULAR
by
Jeffrey Murico
This dissertation opens with a discussion on the ways in which definitions of religion are
culturally, historically, hierarchically, and most importantly, ideologically constructed. Though
many definitions present “religion” as a universal, neutral, and naturally occurring phenomenon,
it becomes evident that these definitions developed as responses to particular Protestant
theological questions. While this is true for a wide range of definitions, I focus on those offered
in prominent secularization theories. These particular ideological constructions are concealed
when the category of religion is presented as natural and universal. Therefore, one of the aims of
this project is to expose the genealogical construction of the category of “the religious” in order
to trace the ways in which it becomes distinguished from the newly emerging sphere of “the
secular.” I then demonstrate the ways in which the construction of the category of religion
functions to authorize particular constructs of power that are deeply engrained in sociological
analyses of religion.
It is my contention that prominent theories of secularization continue to treat the
categories of the religious and the secular as a binary set of neutral, universal categories, thus
ignoring their hierarchical and ideological constructions. I then argue that the categories of the
religious and the secular that are employed in discourses on secularization are largely non-
representative and incapable of locating and effectively measuring “religion” over time and
across cultures. Secularization theories rely upon particularly Protestant assumptions about what
“the religious” and “the secular” entail while, at the same time, claiming to effectively measure
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the existence of a much broader, general category: “religion.” This is problematic for (at least)
two reasons: (1) it fails to account for the particularity and variability of how individuals and
non-Western communities express their religiosity, and (2) it obfuscates dimensions of power
involved in privileging the particular use of the categories while presenting them as universal,
neutral, and benign categories.
In the end, I introduce a potential set of reasons as to why, in light of such criticisms,
secularization theorists continue to employ largely non-representative criteria to determine rates
of religiosity. In short, I suggest that the propelling and sustaining force behind secularization
theories is their ability to function as proxy debates for political arguments about the social value
of religion. I argue that such social-scientific research tells us more about the surveyor(s) than
the surveyed. With these considerations in mind, I provide a recommendation in the
advancement of the social scientific study of religion. Social surveyors and secularization
theorists need to more seriously engage and account for the constructed nature of the category of
religion. This will provide a better representation of the diversity and complexity of “the
religious” while also allowing both theorists and ordinary people to begin challenging the
ideological constructions that form its foundation.
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Acknowledgements
There are more people to acknowledge than I can mention here. The completion of this
dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance, feedback, and support of this
committee. The first person to thank is undoubtedly Richard Amesbury, who has been a teacher,
a mentor, a hiking partner, and a friend. Rich’s intellectual insight led me to radically rethink
many of my previously held assumptions about religion, politics, and ethics. He encouraged me
to apply to Claremont School of Theology and continued to serve as my advisor after leaving for
Zurich and, eventually, Clemson. I am grateful to Grace Yia-Hei Kao for being an inspirational
teacher and critically minded mentor. If it were not for her advice to “respect the stage you’re
in,” I would have likely been consumed by the long and arduous process that is a Ph.D. Phil
Zuckerman has been simultaneously both my biggest critic and my loudest supporter. Whether it
be secularization debates or pickup soccer games, it’s a better time when Phil is there. In addition
to this committee, I owe a debt of gratitude to Patrick Horn, Michael Ch. Rodgers, Randy Ramal,
Drew Baker, Chris Carter, Zach Putnam, Ryan Falcioni, and Kyle Thompson for the thousands
of conversations we have had about philosophy, religion, theology, film, literature, ethics, race,
and politics. These friendships and conversations have kept me grounded, motivated, and they
have contributed more to my understanding of religion and human nature than any book or
article I have ever read. Thank you to Linda Holler for introducing me to the field of religious
studies and for encouraging me to apply to graduate school. The Tibetan Thangka she gave me
on the day of her retirement hangs on my office wall. Other than my parents, Rebecca Moore is
perhaps my earliest and most influential mentor. I think often of the long hours we spent in her
office at San Diego State University editing research papers and sifting through old Scientology
magazines. She was there for me after the sudden death of a close friend, when I needed help
with graduate applications, and when I started teaching at San Diego State. I consider myself a
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good teacher, but I constantly find myself striving to be more like Dr. Moore – as a teacher, to be
sure, but also as a person and as an advocate for social justice. Let it suffice to say that I attribute
much of who I am today to my time learning from her.
Thank you to my parents, Chuck and Darla Murico, who have given everything that they
have, including their faith and confidence, to their three children: myself, Ali, and Brad. I
remember casually telling them that I decided to switch my major from business and marketing
to religious studies. To this day, I have trouble understanding how they could be so supportive;
perhaps it was naiveté on all of our parts, but somehow it worked out better than I could have
imagined. I am thankful for my sister, Ali, who introduced me to O’Connor, Steinbeck, Atwood,
and Faulkner. I am grateful that we share this passion for teaching and good fiction. I hope that
Brad, who will never end up reading this, knows how much I value our time together. I needed
those breaks from the dissertation, hiking with him and Dan Aardappel in the Eastern Sierras.
Thank you to Shaun Hagen and Ryan Gremillion for being my two closest friends; our long
conversations over good bourbon have kept me sane while writing this thing. John Altick is
perhaps my oldest friend and he is surely the only one who has read this entire dissertation. If
any publications come from this dissertation, it will likely be due to John’s insistence that I get
back to doing research. Thank you to all of the students I have had at Chaffey College, San
Diego State University, and MiraCosta College. So many of them have inspired me in more
ways than I can count.
Lastly, and most importantly, I want to thank my wife and partner of ten years, Debbie
Lieberman. She has been so much a part of every aspect of this dissertation that she might as
well be the co-author. She challenged my thinking when it needed to be challenged and she
encouraged me when I needed encouragement. While pursuing this degree, she financially
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supported the two of us. This weighed heavily on me for years and I cannot thank her enough for
believing in me so thoroughly. To everyone else who also believed in me, thank you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Chapter
1.! Framing the Argument ....................................................................................................... 1
2.! A Post-Enlightenment Perspective on Religion................................................................ 27
Social Contract Theorists: A Public-Private Distinction...................................... 28
Planting the Seeds of Secularization..................................................................... 40
The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Scientific Study of Religion.................. 45
Staying the Course: The Continuation of a Dominant Discourse on Religion..... 59
3.! The Genealogical Construction of the Religious and the Secular.................................... 64
Constructing the Category of Religion: A Western Project.................................. 64
A Parallel Argument: William T. Cavanaugh on Religion and Violence............. 83
Constructing the Category of “the Secular” ....................................................... 103
The Power of Defining........................................................................................ 108
4.! The Secularization Debate ............................................................................................. 117
Secularization: Peter Berger............................................................................... 120
Secularization: Steve Bruce................................................................................ 130
Critical Responses: Grace Davie, Thomas Luckmann, and José Casanova....... 141
What Secularization?: Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, and William Bainbridge.... 149
5.! Secularization? Who Cares?........................................................................................... 169
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 198
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CHAPTER 1:
FRAMING THE ARGUMENT
It is not uncommon for a text in religious studies to open with an exercise on the inherent
problems in defining “religion.”1 It is, after all, crucial to define the subject before engaging in
its analysis. It is perhaps even more important to clarify a concept as mystifying as religion.
Many scholars, however, engage in this exercise as more of a cursory proviso than as a serious
engagement with the category of religion. For example, scholars speak to the inherent difficulties
in defining religion before subscribing to a single definition out of “necessity.” What typically
follows is an investigation that largely ignores these difficulties in favor of a normative definition
where religion is a presented as a neutral, universal, and naturally occurring phenomenon.
I argue that such definitional disputes are indicative of a much larger crisis in the
academic study of religion, which can no longer afford to be ignored. Throughout this
dissertation, I will look at a number of prominent definitions of religion in order to demonstrate
their cultural and historical deficiency and to illustrate that they nonetheless remain useful to
achieve particular ends. It is the combination of these two factors that has propelled a
fundamentally flawed use of the term religion within a variety of disciplines. In chapter two, I
focus on a number of definitions and theories of religion that emerge in the early post-
Enlightenment period, for it is during this time that we witness the birth of
Religionswissenschaft,2 or the (social) scientific study of religion, which eventually evolves into
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1 One main focus on this dissertation is to demonstrate the ways in which the categories
of “the religious” and “the secular” are contestable Western constructions; therefore, in many
instances, “religious” and “secular” ought to be read with an assumed set of scare quotes
attached. However, I have decided to leave them out, for the most part, so that the reader is not
overly distracted.
2 This term is coined by German philologist, Max Müller, whose contributions will be
considered in the following chapter.
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the field of religious studies. This newfound discipline is traditionally traced back to the
philological investigations of F. Max Müller, whose “scientific” effort to categorize all of the
people in the world proved to have profound effects on the trajectory of the study of religion.3 In
short, Müller’s philological typologies sought to describe essentially natural religious
distinctions throughout the world. This effectively replaced older, explicitly theological methods
of categorization, which placed Protestantism on top, or at the center, of the world-religious
anatomy. Because his philological method was presented as a “science,” his conclusions proved
more resistant to criticism. Such divisions appeared to be the result of objective observations
rather than particular constructions. I then look to the ways in which other post-Enlightenment
theorists contributed significantly to a particular construction of the category of religion that
remains present today.
The focus of this project engages with definitions of religion utilized by secularization
theorists.4 Therefore, after engaging with the larger problem of defining religion I will
demonstrate the ways in which secularization theorists rely upon ideologically specific
definitions that present religion as a natural, universal, and neutral phenomenon. The
conversation will then turn to the ways in which the category of religion is primarily the product
of post-Enlightenment Protestant European scholarship. The historical, cultural, and theological
particularities of this construction, however, are concealed in the presentation of a singular,
universal, neutral, and natural category: religion. It is under the guise of such neutrality that these
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3!F. Max Müller, Anthropological Religion: The Gifford Lectures Delivered before the
University of Glasgow in 1891 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1892), 61-88, 292-295. !
4 I will be looking at theorists who argue that secularization is occurring as well as those
who have responded to such arguments. This list will include, but is not limited to, Peter Berger,
Steve Bruce, Rodney Stark, William Bainbridge, Roger Finke, Grace Davie, Thomas Luckmann,
and José Casanova.
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