Religious complexity: theorizing multiple religious trends

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the debate on secularization and the return of religion by using the social science complexity frame of reference. A trend in many Western countries is the decline in individual religiosity, increase in ‘nones’, growth of non-Christian religions, changes in religion itself, and the visibility of religion in the public sphere. Many sociologists of religion have analyzed the situation by discrediting the theory of secularization and adopting the newer theories of the spiritual turn, desecularization, and post-secularity, while others have maintained that secularization theory is still valid. The complexity frame of reference offers a toolkit that can be useful in resolving this theoretical dilemma. This article contributes to the theorizing of multiple religious trends at various analytical levels. It criticizes the current approaches before it introduces the concept of religious complexity. Finally, it explores the implications of religious complexity for analyses of multiple and varied religious trends.

KEYWORDS:

• Complexity theory
• deprivatization
• desecularization
• post-secularity
• spirituality
• religious complexity
• secularization theory

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Lene Kühle, Mia Lövheim, and Knut Lundby for commenting on previous versions of this article and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) through a Nordic Collaborative Research Project (NORDCORP) grant and by the KIFO Institute for Church, Religion and Worldview Research.

Notes on contributors

Inger Furseth

Inger Furseth is professor in sociology in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo and Adjunct Professor at the KIFO Institute for Church, Religion and Worldview Research, Oslo, Norway. She directed the research project “The Role of Religion in the Public Sphere: A Comparative Study of the Five Nordic Countries 1998–2008” (NOREL 2009–2014). Her publications include Introduction to the Sociology of Religion: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives (2006, with Pål Repstad), From Quest for Truth to Being Oneself (2006), Religious Complexity in the Public Sphere: Comparing Nordic Countries (2018), and Modern Sociologists on Society and Religion (forthcoming, with Pål Repstad). Her research centers on religion, gender, migration, Muslim women, social movements, and the public sphere. CORRESPONDENCE: University of Oslo, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, PO Box 1096, Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway.