Desecularization
In sociology, desecularization is a resurgence or growth of religion after a period of secularization. The theory of desecularization is a reaction to the theory known as the secularization thesis, which posits a gradual decline in the importance of religion and in religious belief itself, as a universal feature of modern society. The term desecularization was coined by Peter L. Berger, a former proponent of the secularization thesis, in his 1999 book The Desecularization of the World.
Proponents of the theory of desecularization point to examples such as the Islamic revival since the 1970s, in particular the Iranian Revolution, the resurgence of religion in Russia and China, where governments had practiced state atheism, and the growing Christian population in the Global South. Berger also cited the rise of evangelical Christianity in the United States and elsewhere, rising religiosity in Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism, and the prevalence of religious conflict as evidence of the continued relevance of religion in the modern world. He claimed that the world today "is as furiously religious as it ever was".
Berger has recognized that his original description of desecularization was overly broad. Desecularization refers primarily to a resurgence in a single country or region, rather than mere persistence or a global trend. Some researchers speculated that people with religious beliefs could grow as a share of world population, due to higher fertility rates in poorer, more religious countries, and among religious believers, but Pew Research Center estimates that between 2010 and 2020, the religiously unaffiliated share increased from 23.3% to 24.2%. According to Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, "virtually all advanced industrial societies" have become more secular in recent decades, and Pew notes that economic development is positively correlated with irreligiousness. Vyacheslav Karpov states that secularization and desecularization are not mutually exclusive, but rather involve an interplay between the two phenomena.
Secularization theories
Many scholars of the 19th century posited that the world was undergoing a process of secularization. Individuals such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud believed that this trend would continue until religion became essentially insignificant in the public sphere. At the least it was believed that religion would become "privatized." The secularization thesis was underscored by rationalism, an argument born from the Age of Enlightenment.Demand-side and supply-side theories
According to Norris and Inglehart, the traditional view of 19th century secularization can be divided into two perspectives: demand-side theories and supply-side theories. They take the view that "although the original theory of secularization was flawed in certain regards, it was correct in the demand-side perspective".Demand-side theories assert that secularization occurs "bottom up," such that as a whole, the general population will become increasingly rational independent of any influence from the secular government or religious leadership body.
Examples of demand-side theories can be found in the accounts given by Weber and Durkheim. Whilst Weber rarely used the term "secularization," he is generally given credit for alluding to the idea that religion was gradually losing its prominence in society. According to Weber, the world was initially seen as unified, with religion, politics and economics all existing on the same social plane. Thus the term "religion" was not necessary nor was it widely used because religion was included in all aspects of life. According to Weber, when different aspects of society such as politics and economics were severed from religion, the demise of religion in the public sphere became inevitable.
Supply-side theories of secularization argue that the demand for religion exerted by the general population remains constant. This means that any change in the religious landscape occurs as a result of the manipulation of the "supply market" by religious leaders. The construction therefore views the phenomenon as 'top down' development. Steve Bruce argues that the "supply" of religion is greatest when there is a "free" and "competitive" market for "providers" of religion, as in most Western nations, as opposed to states where one religion predominates.
Diversity
Secularization is itself is complex and not unidirectional since there are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism, irreligion, nor are they automatically antithetical to religion. Global studies show that many people who do not identify with a religion, still hold religious beliefs and participate in religious practices, thus complicating the situation.Desecularization theories
Terminology and definition
The term desecularization appears in the title of Peter L. Berger's seminal 1999 book The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. According to Vyacheslav Karpov, the term has received little analysis in the field of sociology, however this section will refer to at least one significant development in the term's definition since its first use.In that book, Berger argued that secularization theory has been "falsified", though in a 2015 article said that it "was not completely mistaken". He acknowledges that his original use of the term, referring merely to "the continuing strong presence of religion in the modern world", was "a bit sloppy". Karpov has since developed the definition of the term, which Berger subsequently affirmed. Karpov defines the term as referring to a phenomenon that is counter-secularization and thus is reactionary to a prior period of secularism. He states that desecularization can be defined as "the growth of religion's societal influence," but only if it develops in response to "previously secularizing trends." Therefore, Karpov's development of the term essentially limited the definition to instances where religion was actively re-established as opposed to simply a state of continuity.
Methodological concerns
Some scholars raise the issue of evidence. Karpov for example, mounts a discussion on the different analytics that can be used in providing evidence for desecularizing trends. He divides these analytics into two different types of evidence, societal-level data or "macro-data" and non-societal data, named in Karpov's article as "mega data." Macro-data deals with evidence obtained from individual societal "units." These units cannot exclusively be referred to as countries or nation-states because sometimes they can represent smaller sections, i.e. racial groups. Other data is less objective according to Karpov, because it often refers to trends in more abstract terms such as in "modern society" or civilization generally. Essentially, mega-data attempts to identify patterns on a more cosmic or global scale, whereas macro data can be very specific to nations, cities and racial groups such as church attendance and census results.Because the term "desecularization" has been used to describe a global trend, the question raised by Karpov is whether macro-data analytics can be considered as valid when they indicate specific trends in "societal units," rather than global trends. There are two primary critiques of macro analytics: that it leads to "methodological nationalism," causing a fixation on nation-states rather than broader civilization. The next argument is that of temporal limitation – the concern that because our current concept of "society" is relatively recent, a focus on societal-level analytics restricts sociological analysis to modernity and no other time period. According to Karpov this poses an issue when considering religions with ancient historical trajectories.
Karpov also cites several implications that result from using "mega" analytics, overall suggesting that it can allow for an understanding of desecularization that is rooted both in its historical trajectory, and its presence in modernity. He concludes that whilst "macro" data can limit the analysis of desecularization, it can be compounded and used in conjunction with "mega" analytics to give sociologists a clear overall picture of a religious trend.
Examples
Changes in religious share of world population
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary estimates that the number of atheists and agnostics increased from just 3.26 million worldwide in 1900, to 708 million in 1970, or 19.2% of world population, subsequently contracting as a population share to 12.7% by 2000. In 2006, sociologist Phil Zuckerman said that the atheist share of global population may be in decline, but that it is hard to predict future trends, due rapid secularisation in rich countries occurring alongside higher birth rates in religious countries. In 2025, Pew Research Center estimated that between 2010 and 2020, the religiously unaffiliated had increased from 23.3% of the world population to 24.2%.In their 2015 study The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050, Pew Research Center predicted that the religiously unaffiliated could decrease from 16.4% of the world population in 2010, to 13.2% by 2050, despite increasing in Europe and North America. The study explicitly made no attempt to account for how religious identification may be affected by changes in a country's economic development, political governance, urbanization and education. Its projections were based on demographic trends, such as birth rate and life expectancy, and the existing levels of religious switching at that time. By 2025, Pew had revised their estimate for the unaffiliated share in 2010 upwards to 23.3%, based on new data and new approaches to religious categorization, particularly in China.
As part of their 2015 forecast, Pew predicted that the religiously unaffiliated in Latin America would increase by just one percentage point, to 8.7% by 2050. In contrast, according to Latinobarómetro, the share of irreligious people in Latin America has increased from 4% in 1996 to 16% by 2020. The study also predicted that between 2010 and 2050, the irreligious share in the Middle East and North Africa would remain under 1%, and in Europe would increase by only 4.5 percentage points, from 18.8% to 23.3%. The study predicted that in the US the unaffiliated would rise from 16.4% in 2010 to 25.6% in 2050. Conrad Hackett, associate director of research at Pew, believes this forecast to be an underestimate, and a more detailed US-specific Pew study from 2022 estimated that the unaffiliated had reached 30% in the US by 2020 and, accounting for observed acceleration of religious switching, would increase to 42% by 2050, in the "most plausible" scenario.
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, a partner of Pew Research Center, estimated in 2025 that the atheist and agnostic share of world population decreased from 12.7% in 2000 to 11.1% in 2025, and forecast that it would decrease to 8.9% in 2050. This was an increase from the 2015 CSGC forecasts, which had been 10.3% for 2025 and 8.5% for 2050. The CSGC uses a similar methodology as Pew, but uses self-reported data from religious communities in addition to censuses and survey data.
In 2025, Pew Research Center estimated that between 2010 and 2020, the religiously unaffiliated share of world population had increased slightly to 24.2%, including 32.8% in the Asia–Pacific, 30.2% in North America, 25.3% in Europe, 11.9% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2.6% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 0.4% in the Middle East and North Africa. The unaffiliated share grew by at least 5 percentage points in 35 countries, compared to three for Islam, and one for Christianity. The authors note that economic development is positively correlated with irreligiousness.
In 2012, conservative academic Eric Kaufmann, who specializes in politics, religion and demography, wrote: