Invisible Religion
INVISIBLE RELIGION. The term invisible religion was introduced by the German sociologist Thomas Luckmann and became widespread following the publication in 1963 of Das Problem der Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft, published in English as The Invisible Religion: The Transformation of Symbols in Industrial Society. The concept of invisible religion emerged from the difficulty of maintaining a traditional religious life in societies to which the industrial revolution brought radical differentiation processes, both in social structures and ways of living, as people were forced, in mounting progression, to change residences, workplaces, habits, and worldviews. Luckmann agrees with sociologists who consider the secularization trend, which they view as a crisis of ecclesiastic-oriented religion, as irreversible. On the other hand, and more importantly, Luckmann extends the significance of religion by arguing that one's worldview, as an objective social and historical reality, fulfills an essentially religious function. This "elementary social form of religion," according to Luckmann, is universal in human society.
In his book, Luckmann considers the notion—diffused in nineteenth-century philosophy and among the secularization theorists of the following century—that modern life is without religion, if not essentially areligious; that is, that the "irrationality" of religion should yield precedence to the "rationality" of modern life.
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