The structure of “privatisations” of religion in (post)secular discourse

This paper presents an attempt to typologize different types of privatizations of religion that are manifested in (post)secular theories. In the 60s of the twentieth century the term “privatization” began to be actively used in the sociology of religion. Speaking about the privatization of religion, we can mean either a specific type of modern religiosity (privatized religiosity) or a socio-structural process of individualization external to religion, or a political process of weakening the influence of religion in the public sphere. This diversity of understandings itself needs to be conceptualized. It is assumed that when speaking about privatization or implying privatization of religion, different authors emphasize different meanings of this concept. To explicate these meanings, a basic scheme of such accents is proposed and justified: privatization as an “external” or “internal” phenomenon, privatization with an emphasis on the idea of “exclusion” or on the idea of “personalism”. Using this scheme, we can distinguish four types of privatization of religion: (1) privatization-marginalization (external, exclusion), (2) privatization-individualization (external personalism), (3) privatization-deinstitutionalization (internal, exclusion), (4) privatization-remarking (internal, personalism). Each of the proposed types is filled with different theories of religion that use the idea of privatization in the intended sense. Thus privatization-marginalization gets its expression in such phenomena as laicism, assertive secularism, forced secularization. Privatization-individualization can be found in classical secularization theory and religious market theory. Privatization-deinstitutionalization is characteristic of invisible religion, the idea of spirituality, and the idea of utopia as a transformation of religious memory. Finally, privatization-remarking can be found as part of the theories of implicit religion and quasi-religion, as well as the concept we describe as “weak religiosity”.