An answer to this post Archive of the post here
I am surprised that this is not common knowledge. I think you must live in urban areas of very advanced countries.
«Sunday, the peasants go to church,» wrote Madame Romieu at the end of the Second Empire, «some moved by religious feeling, most by habit or by fear of what people say.» […] In a world where entertainment was scarce, church provided a certain festive diversion.
You don’t have to go back to the Second Empire. This is happening right now. I live in El Salvador (Central America). A month ago (December 2019), I was talking with the priest of C*******a, a small town in the mountains near the capital. He told me that peasants go from their villages to the town every Sunday. They complained to him that the Mass was too short. After walking for hours, they expected to be entertained for longer.
I lived about 10 years ago near a Protestant mega-church that receives about 50,000 people every Sunday in San Salvador (a modern capital with millions of people). I saw many people going to two or three Protestant services in a row because it was their way to spend the Sunday, since they were poor and they didn’t have many entertainment options.
«Weber hits the nail on the head here by recognising that a «personal» faith «anchored in personality» is a different thing than an apparent faith of custom, habit and convenience.»
Only about 5% of people have a personal faith (or maybe 10%). Only 5% are true believers. This applies to now, to the Middle Ages, to Christianity, to Islam, to Buddhism, to the progressive religion, to every time in history, to every religion, to every country. «For many are called, but few are chosen.» (Matthew 22:14) «Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.» (Luke 13:24)
There has never been a golden age of personal religion. Religious ages are composed of 5% of true believers and 90% of people with an apparent faith of custom, habit and convenience. I am surprised that this is not common knowledge.
I was born in the very religious Francoist Spain, where Catholicism was official and enforced. Most people were Catholics, of the «custom, habit and convenience» kind. In my extended family (about 40 people), there were only 3 personal religion people (all of them were women). But the other people went to Mass, baptized kids, had religious weddings, celebrated Catholic feasts, etc… This is what you mean when you say:
But even there, as almost everywhere, the most detached or hostile maintained their loyalty to rites of passage and local festivals.
This is what I disagreed with your description of secularization in Spain in this post Protestant integralism, a process that I have experienced or followed daily for the last 40 years. You referred to an «expert» called «José Casanova» and I wondered: «How can this Spanish Catholic guy see things so different?». Then I googled it and found this: the solution to all the problems in the Church is to make women cardinal so women can rule the Church. «Ah!» -I thought- «He is this kind of «»»»Catholic»»»» guy».
The process of secularization of Spain is simple to explain. As always, only 5% of people were truly religious while Franco lived (see above). When Franco died, an anti-Catholic elite came to rule Spain. They had been educated in the North of Europe, in the secularized Protestant countries of the North (mostly in London). Due to this education and to the black legend (explaining the black legend would be too long), they regarded Spain as a failed state, Spanish history as a dark history of abuse and obscurantism. They regarded Christianity as the cause of all that and a huge mistake that should be corrected as soon as possible.
This elite thought their main goal was to destroy Catholicism in Spain (this was called «to modernize Spain»). During the eighties, in the Socialist government, vice-president Alfonso Guerra declared «when we leave [the government], Spain will be unrecognizable to her own mother». So this elite of politicians, journalists, singer-songwriters, TV anchors, film directors, screenwriters… took to the task of transforming the very (culturally) Catholic Spain.
They modified laws to go against Catholicism. But, more importantly, they put anti-Catholic messages and secular messages in all the songs, TV shows, movies, etc. This was a top-down process. During the entire Spanish history, people were (culturally) Catholic because they imitated their neighbors. Now people are anti-Catholic and believers in the progressive religion because they imitate what they see in TV.
The process continues today. Five years ago, nobody knew what polyamory was in Spain. They saw it first in a TV show called «First dates», where people go to mate. They presented as a normal thing. Five years ago, I didn’t knew any tranny. Now, my sister, who works as a high school teacher, tells me they have multiple trannies and non-binary kids in high school. They only imitate what they see in TV.
The patterns they imitate in TV *are imported from Protestant countries*. Spain never produced an original secular idea in her entire history. All the secular ideas were imported from the Protestant countries. This is why I disagree with your thesis that Protestant adapted better to modernity. This has only happened in America. In Europe, the first countries to de-Christianize were Protestant countries and the entire de-Christianization of Catholic countries was imported from Protestant countries (since they were wealthier, they were seen as a «more advanced» in Southern Europe).
I think the explanation of American Protestantism being more adapted to modernity goes in the line of this Rodney Stark’s book. Societies that have a religious monopoly (a national Church) are less religious. This applies to Europe (whether Catholic or Protestant), ancient Egypt and ancient Middle East. Societies that have a religious free market (where different sects compete to each other) are more religious. This applies to modern America and ancient Rome.
To finish, I have learned a lot from you and I really enjoy every post. But I disagree with your approach to the entire secularization process. Your approach is framed in terms of «losing religion». There is no such thing. A person (and a society) always has a religion, a worldview about what is right and what is wrong. What has happened is a change of religion, from the Christian religion to the progressive religion
In the past, blasphemy was wrong, a huge sin. In the present, blasphemy is also a huge sin. You can incur in blasphemy if you say that men are better in Math than women, if you say that homosexuality is [REDACTED]. In the past, we had the Spanish Inquisition who burned books. In the present we have the Google inquisition that removes Youtube channels. In the past, there were religious fanatics like Savonarola, who wanted to impose a theocracy on everybody. Today we call them SJWs (social justice warriors), that want to impose a progressive theocracy on everybody.
The explanation of the secularization process is simple if you compare to other societies. When societies are poor, most of the people that deviate from the moral law end up dying of starvation. This is why most (surviving) people are very morally strict in their worldview and the religion is very morally strict. See the Rome of the early Republic or the Europe before the Industrial Revolution.
When societies get rich, there is no need to be so strict and people want to indulge in all kinds of degeneracies and are not punished by this, because wealth insulates them from the consequences of their own decisions (whether personal wealth or the wealth of the Welfare State). Then strict religions are left aside (but they can be given lip service) and new religions that allow these degeneracies get popular. In late ancient Rome, this new degenerate religions were the mystery religions or philosophies like Epicureanism. In our times, the degenerate religion is the progressive religion.
