Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide

This monograph by political scientist Ronald Inglehart and his collaborator Pippa Norris represents a major empirical investigation into secularization theory and the relationship between religious belief and socioeconomic modernization. Drawing on extensive cross-national survey data from the World Values Survey spanning over twenty years and covering societies representing eighty percent of the world's population, Inglehart examines whether modernization necessarily leads to religious decline as classical secularization theorists predicted.

The work challenges simplistic versions of secularization theory while offering a nuanced reformulation. Rather than arguing that modernization inevitably erodes religious belief, Inglehart proposes that existential security—freedom from survival threats—constitutes the crucial variable explaining variations in religious commitment across societies. The analysis demonstrates that populations experiencing greater economic development, social welfare provisions, and physical security tend to place less emphasis on religion, while those facing poverty, disease, and instability maintain stronger religious adherence. This existential security thesis explains both the decline of traditional religious authority in advanced industrial societies and the persistence of religiosity in developing nations.

Methodologically, the study employs sophisticated statistical analyses of survey responses regarding religious beliefs, practices, and values across diverse cultural contexts. Inglehart traces generational changes within societies, revealing how younger cohorts in secure societies increasingly adopt secular orientations while their counterparts in insecure environments remain religious. The work also examines how religious traditions themselves adapt to changing circumstances, with some maintaining vitality through transformation rather than simple decline.

The monograph's significance for debates about God lies in its empirical grounding of discussions typically conducted at theoretical levels. Rather than philosophical arguments for or against theism, Inglehart provides sociological explanations for why people embrace or abandon religious worldviews. His findings suggest that belief in God correlates strongly with material conditions and perceived vulnerability, raising questions about the relationship between faith and human needs. The work implies that secularization reflects changing life circumstances rather than intellectual enlightenment or spiritual decline. This perspective reframes debates about God's existence by highlighting how social conditions shape the plausibility and appeal of religious belief systems. For scholars examining religion's future, Inglehart's analysis suggests that global variations in development will produce continued diversity in religious expression rather than universal secularization.