Desafiando o cristianismo contemporâneo: as teorias da privatização e individualização religiosa e espiritual

Theories of secularization have predominated in academic discussions on the place of religion in modern societies since the late 1940’s. Advocating an inexorable tension between modernization phenomena and religious development, secularization predicts a decline of religion’s social significance. However, with the development of new religious movements and of individualized forms of religiosity or spirituality, the assumptions of secularization begin to be criticed, especially in the late decades of the 20th century and in the early 21st century. This critic would give rise to one of its main and most challenging theorical alternatives – the individualization of religious beliefs – which proposes the idea that, even with the advance of modernization, individual religiosity mantains a stable significance and may even have positive developments. This study is precisely focused in the analysis of this alternative and of its basic principles. It proposes, thus, a descriptive and an analytical study of the main sub-theories of individualization. In particular, the thesis of privatization and invisible religion, believing without belonging and vicarious religion, reflexive spirituality and the brake in the collective chain of memory. By examining and comparing them it is possible to understand the organization of modern religious psyche and of its implications in terms of religious attitudes, behaviors and values on a personal level.