Reconsidering secularization: a compared global perspective

Abstract

The author stresses that for a better comprehension of secularism we should distinguish three different connotations of the term which give rise three different meanings of secularism: the “decline of religious practices and beliefs in modern societies”; the “privatization of religion”; and the “distinction among the secular spheres or the emancipation of religious norms and institutions from them (state, science, economy). This approach will help to obtain a better understanding of secularism as a social phenomenon in, for instance, the comparative historical analysis between the public religious manifestations in the United Stated and in Europe.