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Centro Argentino de Estudios Internacionales / Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar
5: MUSLIM SECULARISM IN EUROPE OR
ECUMENICAL EUROPEAN THEOLOGY OF GLOBAL
PEACE AND JUSTICE?
A traditional answer by western sociology and philosophy to the problem of
religion consists in expecting that with progressive “modernization” religious
values will diminish in importance. But Inglehart and Norris (2004) show that
although members of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving
toward more secular orientations during the past 50 years, people with
traditional religious views constitute a growing proportion of the world's
population. Secularization is occurring in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada
and Western Europe. Even in the U.S., there has been some movement in this
direction. Within most advanced industrial societies, attendance at religious
services has fallen during the past several decades. Religious authorities largely
have lost their authority to dictate to the public on birth control, divorce,
abortion, sexual orientation and the necessity of marriage before childbirth. But
this process of secularization is linked with a sharp decline in human fertility
rates: As a result, the proportion of the world's population with traditional
religious values is growing, not shrinking. Organized religion is losing its grip on
the public, but spiritual concerns are taking on growing importance. The
Inglehart and Norris findings also show that Moslems are much more likely than
Protestants to subscribe to the values associated with the “Protestant work ethic”
(Inglehart and Norris, 2004).
Secularism and “protestant” work ethics will characterize in an increasing fashion
the cultural landscape of Muslims in Europe. As stated, the reasons for our
optimism are manifold. Apart from the fact that open support for radical djihadist
Islamism and zero trust in democracy only amounts presumably to 2-3 % of the
total European Muslim population, secularism seems to affect not only the
European majority culture landscapes, but also a considerable proportion of the
European Muslim communities. The well-known statements of political science
and sociological modernization theories and world value research again are being
confirmed here:
Arno Tausch, Christian Bischof, Tomz Kastrun, Karl Mueller 45