Explaining Religious Revival in the Context of Long-Term Secularization

Secularization theory has been challenged by research showing religious persistence and upswing in contexts across the world. In Europe, particularly in highly secular and historically religiously homogeneous Nordic settings, there has been little research, and representative data for minority groups are rare. We offer a pioneering study using national register data to study religious changes over the past five decades in Finland, where the two native ethnolinguistic groups—Finnish and Swedish speakers—offer a unique study context. We use register data with yearly information on every individual's religious affiliation to compare the two groups, exploring the mechanisms behind any differentials. Swedish speakers are found to be consistently more affiliated with the National Lutheran Church than Finnish speakers. This finding contradicts the expectation of modernization theory because the Swedish‐speaking population is, in some aspects, socioeconomically advantaged in Finnish society. The higher affiliation level of Swedish speakers can be partly explained by lower levels of internal migration, which is possibly driven by stronger community attachment. Our results suggest that community cohesion may help preserve the religious tradition of a minority group, even in the absence of socioeconomic disadvantages or threats from the majority.

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Changing Religious Affiliation in the Chinese Mainland: A Cohort Perspective

Zhou,

Lai,

2024

Review of Religious Research

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The religious revival during the reform and opening-up period in the Chinese mainland has long been a prominent and contentious issue. This study utilized repeated cross-sectional datasets from the Chinese General Social Survey from 2006 to 2021 to assess cohort changes in religious affiliation. It employed a temporal framework that considered both the religious and rural–urban differences. Results from age-period-cohort models indicated that cohorts born in the 1960s experienced a religious revival in the Chinese mainland, with younger cohorts did not when evaluating long-term trends. Christian affiliation exhibited more pronounced cohort variations compared to Buddhist affiliation, while a consistent cohort pattern of religious change was observed between rural and urban areas. These findings unraveled the complex trends of religious change as the Chinese family is an important setting for the transmission of religion, shedding new light on the applicability of secularization theory in socialist countries.

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Explaining Religious Revival in the Context of Long-Term Secularization

Cited by 4 publications

References 65 publications

Sex, value change and the erosion of religious adherence

Sex, value change and the erosion of religious adherence

Socioeconomic Advantage or Community Attachment? A Register‐Based Study on the Difference in National Lutheran Church Affiliation Between Finnish and Swedish Speakers in Finland

Changing Religious Affiliation in the Chinese Mainland: A Cohort Perspective

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