"Post-Secular" Society - What's It All About, Jurgie?

Habermas:

I cannot discuss in detail the controversy among sociologists concerning the supposed Sonderweg of the secularized societies of Europe in the midst of a religiously mobilized world society. My impression is that the data collected globally still provide surprisingly robust support for the defenders of the secularization thesis. In my view the weakness of the theory of secularization is due rather to rash inferences that betray an imprecise use of the concepts of ‘secularization’ and ‘modernization’. What is true is that in the course of the differentiation of functional social systems churches and religious communities increasingly confined themselves to their core function of pastoral care and had to renounce their competencies in other areas of society. At the same time, the practice of faith also withdrew into more personal or subjective domains. There is a correlation between the functional specification of the religious system and the individualization of religious practice.