Sociology ofReli^on 2004, 65:4 373-389

The Cultural Turn in the Sociology of

Religion in France^
Jean-Paul Willaime*
Research Director, EPHE/CNRS, PARIS

The decline in the influence of Marxism and structuralism in the social sciences has led to greater
attention being paid to both social actors and cultural identities in the sociology of religion.
Prompted by debates between republicans (in the French sense of the word) and democrats concerning the status of cultural and religious identities in the public sphere, the sociology of religion in
France has increasingly questioned the classic paradigms of secularization. It has turned instead to the
approaches of anthropology and the political sciences, revealing both the structures and the dynamics
of reli^ous identities in ultra-modemity. As a result, French Idiciti is increasingly questionedthe
more so given the pressures of the European context. No longer is the sociological study of religious
phenomena simply an arudysis of social determinants; it becomes instead, in France as elsewhere, the
study of symbolic mediations, examining their influence on both social bonds and the formation of
individuals as active subjects.

Is it possible to speak of a cultural turn in the sociology of religion in France

as we do in other countries? This is the question that I address in this article. You
will see that my answer is 'yes.' I am not so sure, however, that this amounts to a
paradigm shift in the sociology of religion, in the sense that Stephen Warner uses
this term (1993). In this respect, my answerlike that of the people from
Normandyis both yes and no.
I would like first to draw your attention to six recent changes in French society. These are:
1. The increase in the number of books, journals and newspapers, radio/TV
programs devoted to religion. A good example can be found in the first
issue of Le Monde des Religions (September 2003).
2. The efforts of public authoritiesespecially in the school systemto
combat both the ignorance of and misunderstandings about religion.
Hence, at the request of the Minister of Education following September
11, the Debray Report concerning the place of religion in the curriculum.
*Direct all correspondence to: Jean-Paul Willaime. E-Mail: willaime@iresco.fr
This article was translated from the French by Sophia Acord and Grace Davie. The text
of the original French quotations can he found in the footnotes.

373

374 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

3. The growth in the study of religion on the part of both students and
scholars. In the Department of Religious Studies at the Sorbonne, for
example, there has been a significant increase in the number of students
preparing doctorates in religious studies.
4. The interventions of the French government in religious matters. These
interventions concern both cults and new religious movements (for
example MIVILUDESthe Mission interministerielle de vi^lance et de lutte
contre les derives sectaires ) , and the growing presence of Muslims (for
example the debates surrounding the Conseil representatif des musulmans
de France).
5. The creation in July 2003, on the initiative of President Jacques Chirac,
of the Commission de reflexion sur I'application du prindpe de laicite dans la

Republique.-^ The report of this Commission, dated December 12 2003,

proposed that religious holidays such as Yom Kippur and TAid-El-Kebir
should be public holidays in all French schools, but also that all religious
dress and symbols that are "ostentatious," such as a large cross, veil, or
kippa, should be prohibited in the school system. As a result, public
debate has become heavily polarized, regarding both the Muslim headscarf itself and the law prohibiting all signs and dress that reveal the reli'
gious affiliation of the student.
6. Equally important in terms of public debate is the place of religion in the
modern world order. Many people believe that the religious factor is a
negative influence, following David Miller's observation that 80% of
organized terror and violence throughout the world is enacted in the
name of religionthe effect of September 11 (Miller 1994).
How can we analyze these facts and the trends they indicate? Do these facts
and trends have consequences for the sociology of religion in France? I will be
developing two main points in this article: the changing patterns of religion in
France and the corresponding shifts in sociological approaches to this subject. In
the first section, I will focus on the changing nature of laicite (see note 3), or what
I call the secularization of Ididte; in the second, I will examine the re-emergence
of heated debates about religion at the turn of the millennium; in the third, the
emphasis lies on changing understandings of the French state; and in the fourth
I will concentrate on shifts in the sociological approach to religion and their relationship to the material already set out.

^ MIVILUDES is an organization set up to monitor both the existence and the activities of cults and sects. The changes in name of this organization are indicative of shifts in policy towards the presence of sects in France.
-' A Commission concerned with nature and application of the principle of laicite in the
French Republic. Laicite is an almost untranslatable word which means the absence of religion
in the public sphere, notably the state and the school system. The French term will be kept
in this article.

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION IN FRANCE 3 7 5

A CHANGE IN THE CONTEXT: THE SECULARIZATION OF

LAICITE
In France as in other Western societies,^ individuals no longer seek emancipation from clerical tutelagethat is already achieved. They have total autonomy in this sphere and in this respect are able to repudiate their former authorities. Similarly, in terms of society, there is no longer any need to escape the power
of religious institutions. Currently religious organizations have little influence
over French societyor to put this a different way, the process of secularization
has already been effected. A new socio-religious configuration is emerging in
which the religious, far from appearing in the form of a tradition resisting modernity, appears instead in the hyper-modern form of a tradition that prevents ultramodernity from dissolving into a self-destructive critique. Increasingly, religion
provides identities and offers to individuals the possibility of social integration
and direction within individualistic and pluralistic societies.
This evidences a shift. We moved from secularizing modernity to secularized
ultra-modernity (Willaime 2004). It is precisely this evolution from a modernist
certainty to an ultra-modern uncertainty that characterizes the present situation.
Ultra-modernity is still modernity, but radicalizeda modernity disenchanted
and problematized. This is to say a modernity undergoing the set-back of systematic reflexivity which it brought upon itself (Beck 1992). With this in mind, I
have used the phrase "secularization of Ididte" to underline the fact that Ididte no
longer functions as an alternative system to religion, but rather as a regulating
principle for the pluralism of both the religious and non-religious convictions
existing in civil society.
Paradoxically, if French Ididte is losing momentum, it is precisely because it
has won. It is, however, very largely because of this "victory" that the religious
question is re-emerging once again, on both an individual and social level. In
France as elsewhere, ultra-modernity inquires about the place and role of religious faith. It is equally clear that France reacts to this new situation in accordance with its particular history and characteristics. Hence the complexity of the
present situation: on the one hand, French exceptionalism is beginning to dissolve in terms of both individual and institutional behavior, but on the other
Gallicanism and a particular tradition of state management with respect to religious and cultural differences continues to resonate in France.
Until World War II, the French approach to religion was marked by la guerre
des deux Frances, the Catholic and the secular. By this I mean the social and political conflict that surrounded the place and the role of religion in societyabove
all the relationship between the Catholic Church and the French state, between
religion and the school system. Secular authorities have, as a result, been suspi-

Willaime (1998) places the French case in a European context.

376 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

cious of religion, which has been relegated to the private sphere (a question of
personal opinion and worship). Since 1945, however, militant laidte has gradually given way to what we might call management Ididte. The former was associated with anticlericalism and hecame a "negative" form of neutrality towards religionits goal being to free itself from the controls of the clergy, in order to promote "reason" and democracy. The latter offers a rather different formulation.
Several developments have contributed to the creation of a more open attitude, a more benevolent neutrality and a more global approach to religion as a
social phenomenon. Such developments include the following:
1. The effective loss of power by religious authorities, both over society and
over their own followers.
2. The self-criticism of modernity itself, which tends much less than before
to conceive of itself as standing in opposition to tradition, and which
gradually learns to take its own limitations into account.
3. The re-emergence of ethical concerns in public life, and the rediscovery
of the symbolic dimensions of social bonds.
4. The development of a wider and more visible religious pluralism, which
in turn encourages both a redefinition of the relationship between the
state and religion in France and a rediscovery of religion as a social phenomenon.
5. The realization by teachers in the state education system that pupils and
students know almost nothing about religion. This has initiated a debate
about the teaching of religion in schools, or at least the importance of
taking religious facts into account in history, geography and language
classes, in order to correct the ignorance of pupils.
6. The observation that the question of religion has not been definitively
solved. Changes in traditional religions and in the general religious landscape in France require changes in Ididtethe adaptation and evolution
of Ididte itself.
7. The Catholic Church is no longer seen as a threat to the Republican
regime. The Republic therefore "finds itself in a position to reintegrate
the Church, along with other religious parties, in the public sphere, to
the point of offering the Churchin contrast with its former separative
tendencya regulatory function within civil society" (Portier 2003:1).
Jean Bauberot (1990) has defined this evolution as a "a pact for a new Iai'cite," through which Ididte defines itself more as a framework regulating the pluralism of worldviews than as a counter-system imposing its control on religion.

"s'est trouve dans la situation de pouvoir la reintegrer, avec les autres forces religieuses,
dans l'espace public, et de lui attribuer meme, en rupture avec les dispositions dissociatives
antdrieures, une fonction de regulation de la societe civile."

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION IN FRANCE 377

The process can be described as the secularization of Mdte. The politico-patriotic form of civic behavior promoted by the victorious Republic has given way to
the politico-ethical civic ideals of a Republic that has become the manager of a
pluralist democracy. The spiritual and moral forces present in the country are
invited to work together to maintain and to transmit a democratic ethos, and to
define ethical codes in various fields (notably in biology and genetics). A "goodtempered separation (between religion and the state)," a "benevolent or positive
neutrality (of the state towards religion)" and "a pact for a new laicite" are all
expressions that confirm the current evolution towards a form of laicite, which is
less aggressive towards religion and which seeks to find a place and a role in society for religious faith. One reason why such an evolution has become possible lies
in the effective decline of religious institutions in society.
It is equally clear, however, that the traditional distrust of religion undoubtedly continues in France. In recent years, this distrust and more militant forms of
Ididte have been reactivated by three thingsconcerns about cults and the practices of new religious movements, the headscarf affair in schools, and growing
evidence of religious extremism in world events. Thus, despite the evolutions I
have just described, the role of the state in the management of religions and cultural differences remains distinctive in France.
LAICITE UNDER SIEGE
Micheline Milot (2002), a scholar of Ididte in Quebec, rightly insists on the
importance of extracting this concept from the context from which it emerged
(France) in order to avoid its ideological overtones. According to Milot, Ididte
describes, "the political direction, as well as legal translation, of the place of religion in civil society and public institutions" (2002:34). Bearing this in mind,
France, as other countries in Europe, has been confronted with new challenges.
Jean Baudoin and Philippe Portier (2001:13-34), in a rich and stimulating work,
distinguish three such challenges all of which have had an effect on the understanding of Ididte. The first reflects the growing multiculturalism of French society, which poses the following question: how are we to manage collective life on
the principle of loyalty exclusively to the city or the state, when a growing part
of that society sees itself in competition with that loyalty? The second challenge
relates to the expansion of moral relativism, which in turn questions the republican scheme of political organization (i.e. the acceptance of a common behavioral code which is able to transcend particularisms and surpass individual or
group identities). The third challenge lies in a growing awareness of alternative
models of church-state relationships in Europe, which are more open to the pub-

" "l'amenagement politique, puis la traduction juridique, de la place de la religion dans la

societe civile et dans les institutions publiques."

378 SOGIOLOGY OF RELIGION

lie expression of religious differences than the French system. To these three
challenges, we must add a fourth: the impossibility of state neutrality towards religious groups, who both now and in the past have made very different contributions to civilization, civics and ethics. Hence the need for a thorough reexamination of Ididte, bearing in mind the growing importance of religious facts and
events and the resources that religious organizations are able to offer to the democratic life of ultramodern societies.
In the face of these challenges, the peculiarities of the French systems can be
better illustrated. These peculiarities are of four orders. Church/state confrontations in France have been markedly more conflictual than in other countries: the
conflict began after the French Revolution and lasted well into the 19th and
20th centuries. As a result both the place of religion in our country not only
became a central issue, but also generated profound and enduring cleavages.
Secondly, the strongly ideologized character of the problem needs to be understoodthe philosophical conceptions and political criticisms of religion (freethinking, rationalism, Marxism and Free Masonry) are more important in France
than in most European countries. Thirdly, there is a strong affirmation of the
state's supremacy and its exclusive control over civil society, leading to the
notion of an emancipatory and enlightened state on the one hand, but a centralizing and homogenizing state on the other. Finally, a strong resistance towards
the public expression of religious affiliations has led to the privatization of religion becoming more accentuated in France than in other European countries. It
is true that some of these factors exist elsewhere in Europe. The specificity of the
French case resides, however, in the fact that these ideas have become the dominant socio-historical configuration.
They represent, moreover, a highly sensitive body of opinion, which is very
quick to react along politico-philosophical lines that often amaze foreign observers.
In France, as Frangois Dubet (1996:85) shrewdly observes, the debates about Ididte
quickly take on a religious tone; people speak more easily about principles than
practicalities. France, however (like all European societies) is discovering or rediscovering its cultural minorities. As a result it is becoming more than ever necessary
to make a distinction between the universal and the particular, between national
unity and the right to difference, between "la republique et la democratie."
Two factors have provoked a form of Ididte in France that is very distrustful
towards religion: the sectarian questions and the presence of a strong Muslim
minority, Islam being now the second largest religion in France (around four million believers).
The increasing presence of sects and cults has reactivated the tendency of
public authorities to harass religious non-conformity and to restrain the right of
individuals to choose their lifestyle and education. But if the state has the power
to protect personal liberty, it must also protect the liberty of religious persons,
which means, as Daniele Hervieu-Leger emphasizes, the right of the religiously
radical: "An individual must be able, if they so wish, to live in poverty, chastity.

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OE RELIGION IN ERANCE 379

and obedience, to give him or herself to a spiritual master or to withdraw from
the world for the greater glory of God, without risking an accusation of mental
sickness or social inadequacy" (2001:185).' The anti-sectarian tendencies in
France have the effect of placing in limbo religious representations that fall outside the ancient, recognized religionsi.e. Catholicism, Protestantism (Lutheran
and Reformed), and Judaism. Such reactions reactivate the tensions within laicite "torn between the goal of guaranteeing the liberty of beliefsprovided that
these beliefs are contained in the private sphereand a desire to 'remove the
individual conscience from the influence of something judged to be in radical
contradiction with reason and autonomy': a desire which reveals a visceral distrust of religious beliefs (though rarely made explicit)" (Hervieu-Leger 2001:22,
citing Pierre Bouretz)." Religious and other particularisms (of which sects are a
good example) are seen as threatening to the integrity of the nation, and therefore of the Republic itself (Wievorka 1999).
Faced with a growing religious pluralism, itself accentuated by the twin pressures of globalization and individualization, the French state has flexed its old
muscles, reacting with heightened distrust to something which limits the prerogatives of the state and the allegiance that the state demands of the individual.
France is unable to accept fully forms of cultural pluralism that are, or appear to
be tied to a foreign culture, or forms of religion that refuse to confine themselves
to the private sphere or to the domain of worship. Underneath the debate about
sects lies an intolerance of anyone who has chosen to live differently in the name
of a religious ideal and educate their children accordingly. In Francefor the reasons that we have already explainedthe tolerance of non-conformity weakens
as soon as the religious dimension is present.
Fven more significant are the reactions to Islam. It is important to remember
that France has both the largest Muslim population in Furope and the largest
Jewish community. As a result, the repercussions of conflicts in the Middle Fast
are stronger in France than in other countries (prompting conflicts between
Muslim and Jewish students in schools, and renewed outbreaks of antiSemitism). Opinions in this respect are reinforced by acts of violence committed
in the name of Islam around the world and by reports of intransigent behavior in
France, for example the refusal by husbands or fathers to allow their wives or
daughters to be taken care of or delivered by male physicians. Hence the re-emer-

' "Un individu doit pouvoir choisir librement de vivre pauvre, chaste et obeissant, de se
donner un mattre spirituel ou de se cloTtrer pour la plus grande gloire de Dieu sans courir le
risque d'etre place sous tutelle pour faiblesse mentale et inadaptation sociale."
"ecartelee entre I'objectif de garantir la liberte des croyancespourvu que celles-ci
soient contenues dans la sphere privieet un desir plus ou moins clairement exprime 'd'arracher les consciences a l'influence de representations jugees radicalement contradictoires
avec la raison et l'autonomie' : un desir qui nourrit une mefiance vlscerale (meme si elle est
rarement explicitee) envers la croyance religieuse comme telle."

380 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

gence of both anticlericalism and Ididsme, encouraged by anti-Islamic sentiments
that exaggerate the intolerance of many Muslims. Wearing the veil becomes, in
this mindset, the symbol of clerical influence, the alienation of the female, and
the justification for a new mobilization of Idicite as a fundamental value of the
French Republic.
The new law (passed in 2004) prohibiting the wearing of all conspicuous,
religious signs in school, including large crosses, kippas and headscarves, exemplifies this tendency (the government being fully aware that it was not possible
to apply the law only to symbols of Islam). Interestingly, the Commission de refkx'
ion sur I'application du principe de Idicite dans la Republique (see above) also recom-

mended the inclusion of the religious holidays of Kippur and l'Aid-El-Kebir in

the school calendar. Only the negative measure prohibiting conspicuous religious
signs in schools was retained, however, demonstrating that in France there is a
marked tendency to manage religion by limiting it, rather than by recognizing it.
In this situation, the headscarf has become a catalyst." Opinions are increasingly polarized, reinforced by the criticisms of feminists who denounce the veil as an
attack on the equality of the sexes in the name of religion. The situation is however extremely complex: whilst it is true that many young girls wear the headscarf
because of family pressures or because of extremist Muslim organizations, many
others wear it as an affirmation of liberty and to demonstrate their personal
autonomy. No longer is this a question of an inherited or imposed religion, it is
instead a religion chosen and freely assumed. Or to put the same point a different way, religion becomes a claimed identity allowing individuals to assert themselves as autonomous subjects in a plural society.
It is also important to remember the political interests that are present in this
debatei.e. the reassertion of Idicite as a "national value." The presence of the
extreme right is crucial in this respect, not least the need to prevent Jean-Marie
le Pen (the leader of the Front National) having a monopoly in the defense of
French identity. Also important are the French reactions to the place of religion
in the founding texts of the European Union. In 2001, for example, the French
government firmly opposed the reference to religious heritage in the Preamble to
the Charter of Fundamental Rights; and more recently (2002-03) there has been
strong resistance in the name of Idicite to both the mention and management of
religion (and other philosophical organizations) in the draft Constitution of the
European Union, in terms of Europe itself and in the member states (Article 151). Such reactions reveal the continuing vigilance of France and French people
towards the place of religion in public life.
The re-emergence of more militant forms of Idicite does not contradict, however, the tendencies outlined at the beginning of this article. In a way it is evidence for rather than against the secularization of religion, in so far as the reli-

" The "affaire du foulard" to give the controversy its French name.

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELICION IN FRANCE 381

gious actors accept Ididte as the overarching framework (recognizing the autonomy of religion and politics, the liherty of religion and non-religion, the equality
of each individual, and the freedom of each person to make their own religious
or philosophical choices). In turn French Ididte is ohliged to accept and to integrate the presence of religion in collective life. A numher of changes are heginning to take place in this respecthoth structural (in the relationship hetween
the state and civil society) and cultural (in the acceptance of religion in France
as in other secular and pluralist societies), which together are replacing the headon collision hetween two conflicting ideologies (one Idique and one religious). It
is this that the sociology of religion is heginning to understand: i.e. that change
is not only perceptihle in society, it is also seen in the way that society understands itself.
CHANGING UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE FRENCH STATE
Dominique Schnapper, for example, has reflected on the collapse of "collective transcendence" in France, an idea as much religious as political, revealing
once again the specificity of the French case (2002:268). For it is France that "has
made the greatest effort to create, hoth on the religious model and against it, a
form of political transcendence" (2002:267). Conversely, in Europe, the most
likely form of political transcendence will he closer to the English model, "that is
to say less amhitious and less metaphysical than that attempted hy the French
Repuhlic" (2002:274).
It is highly significant that the author of La
Communaute des dtoyens (Schnapper 1994), who has analyzed the French models of socio-political integration in particular {La France de I'integration, 1991),
and who became a memher of the Conseil Constitutionnel, concluded her last work
hy turning towards an English conception of citizenship. The English model "is
emhodied in the concrete liberties of particular groups and in the social practices
of an inherited past free from radical rupture" (2002:267). For Schnapper this
formulation is without douht hetter adapted to the demands of a democracy in
which men and women are anchored in the real, the concrete, and the immediate (2002:268), rather than the more transcendental projector repuhlicof
French citizenship, which was horn of and modeled on royal absolutism allied to
the Catholic Church, though set up in opposition to this.

^^ "a pousser le plus loin l'effort pour creer, sur le modele religieux et contre lui, une
forme de transcendance politique."
"c'est-a-dire moins ambitieuse et metaphysique que celle qu'avait tente d'etabiir la
Republique en France."
^ "s'incame dans les libertes concretes des groupes particuliers et dans des pratiques
sociales heritees d'un passe sans ruptures fondamentales."

382 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

The decline in "transcendence" in the political sphere permits new types of
relationships between public and private institutions. In the domains of sport,
culture, and social welfare, for example, there are numerous partnerships with the
private sector, including, in the two last of these, with confessional groups. "Why
demonize potential partnerships with the private sector?"^-^ asks Jean-Jacques
Aillagon, the Minister of Culture and Communication, with respect to public
television channels.^^ There is nothing to prevent a secular state working with
religious groups to advance specified public objectives. This is done elsewhere, for
example in the educational field, where there are contracts which allow (mostly)
Catholic schools to participate in national education while retaining their "own
character." Unless religious groups are ostracized precisely because they are religious, it is hard to see why this type of arrangement could not be developed in
areas other than education.
Even if this would create resistance and difficulties, France is fundamentally
committed to a new regime of public action in which the role of the State is less
important. Inspired by the analyses of Jacques Commaille and Bruno Jobert regarding the contemporary metamorphoses in political regulation, Philippe Portier underlines that, in this new scheme, the central government "is no longer anything but a
co-worker of the law, in a process in which all the institutions of civil society are, by
different means, more and more closely associated" (2003:10-1). If public authorities give financial support to social, cultural and sporting activities (traditionally the
concern of private initiative), and if occupations, unions and associations accept
public subsidy and control, it is hard to see why, following Portier, communities of
belief remain outside this general tendency. The more that the state abandons its
control over civil society, the more it will recognize the contribution of religious
groups to public life. In so doing, it will in turn become more Idique.
If French \aidte is reluctant to effect an aggLomamento with respect to religion, it
is because this requires a rejection of an enduring philosophical prejudice: i.e. that
to be religious is to not be free and that access to citizenship can only occur when
individuals escape from religious tutelage. Historically, French experience has nourished this image of religion; hence the desire to "uproot man from the darkness of
religion rather than simply manage the boundary of church and state" (Bouretz
2000:31).^" Comparing the United States to France, Pierre Bouretz points out that
Americans reject the philosophical and political conception of Ididte which has led

'-' "Pourquoi diaboliser d'eventuels partenariats avec le secteur prive?"

14 Le Monde, 5 February 2003.
"n'est plus qu'un co-operateur de la loi, dans un processus auquel sont associes de plus en
plus etroitement, par diverses formules contractuelles, toutes les institutions de la societe civile."
^" "arracher l'homme aux tenebres de la religion plutot que simplement amenager les territoires de l'Eglise et de l'Etat."

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELICION IN ERANCE 383

to such attitudes. The opposition between the two countries resides in the fact that
on one side of the Atlantic it is religious liberty which comes first, followed in a
sense by separation, while on the other the primary aim is one of emancipation from
belief itself (Bouretz 2000:58). The difference between France and America does not
lie, therefore, in the degree of autonomy of the state, but the existence of two quite
different models regarding the relationship between modem society and religion.
SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO RELIGION IN FRANCE
The assumption that access to citizenship implies freedom from religious
attachments has often been linked, in French sociological thought, to a resistance
to foreign scholarship. A good example can be found in the reluctance of French
social scientists to accept the work of Max Weber (Hervieu-Leger and Willaime
2001:63-66), a point already made by Davie in this volume. In underlining the
religious beginnings of Western modernity, notably the contribution of Judaism
and Christianity to the process of rationalization, Weber resists the classic opposition between modernity and religion and, by implication, the conflict between
Catholic and Republican France. There has been a similar resistance to the work
of de Tocqueville, who emphasized the close link between the spirit of liberty and
the spirit of religion in North America (Antoine 2003). Having said this, historians and sociologists, given their greater sensitivity to empirical data, question
these assumptions more readily than the philosophers themselves, who defend an
imaginary conception of Idicite that has never in fact existed. In the study of "real"
Ididte, legal experts offer equally precious insights, mindful as they are of religious
liberty and the regulations that surround this. Jacqueline Costa-Lascoux (1996),
for example, freely admits that France has gone beyond a kucite of separation and
strict neutrality to a Idicite that recognizes the liberty of religious expression.
Quite apart from this, sociologists themselves are thinking in new ways about
religion. These shifts are part of a more general trend in the discipline, toward
the action-based ideas of Alain Touraine, and away from both structural-functionalist and Marxist approaches, epitomized by Pierre Bourdieu.
Sociologists are increasingly aware that religion has become a source of collective
and individual identity. It is true that modernity has led to the disintegration of cultures, but it has not been able to digest everything; society has never fully succumbed
to instrumental rationality. Some things have not been assimilated: for example emotions and passions, the imaginative dimensions of social bonds, traditions and customs, and group identities. A second question follows from this: have traditions, especially religious traditions, assimilated modernity just as modernity has assimilated
them? If we consider, for example, the internal secularization of Christianity, its associated theologies and the changing patterns of religious practice, the ability of religions both to maintain and to renew themselves becomes immediately apparent.
A strikingly important development has been the demystification of modernity itself. Modernity becomes disillusioned with itself when it exercises its fac-

384 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

ulties of self-reflection and self-criticism. In other words, modernity has become
critical of modernism and of its own Utopian absolutism. In the crisis of Marxism
and the collapse of the communist regimes, such criticisms assume a political
dimension. They are also apparent in the forms of modernity that view themselves less as an alternative to religion, than as a pluralistic framework within
which different forms of religious expression may exist.
In a society dominated by rationalization and secularization, ethnic renewal
and religious revival give meaning to human suffering and enable the individual
to forge direct emotional relationships with others (Schnapper 1993). Emotional
forms of religion and ethnicity are, therefore, fueled by modernity itself and are
able to compensate for the abstraction and meritocracy of modem society
(1993:158). Religious and ethnic domains are related in this respectboth are in
the process of transformation. Here again we are dealing with the phenomenon
of religious reconstruction that seems to be characteristic of ultra-modernity:
emotional and imaginary dimensions are forged anew by means of the symbolic
materials available in national and religious memories.
By observing these changes, we discover that religion overflows from the
domain in which it had been habitually enclosed: that of worship and private,
individual convictions. At the same time, political disenchantment and the calling into question of all forms of knowledge encourage a return to symbolic
expressions and spiritual experiences. As Michel Wieviorka rightly perceives,
"instead of dissolving in the face of modern secularization, religion . . . becomes
a more and more important element in individual and collective experience, and
sometimes of political engagement, and at the heart of modernitynot only at
the margins or in opposition to it" (2001:27).
Alongside this political Ididzation, there is a similar disentangling of politics
from the grand narratives of man and society. Marcel Gauchet, for example, sees
the evolution of religious and political belief in relation to each other: "Religious
belief is ceasing to be political. It is emptying itself of timeless implications about
the nature of human living. This detachment from its origins offers new possibilities for the future. At the same time, political belief is ceasing to be religious. It
is freeing itself from the restrictions which a sacred model continues secretly to
exert on all possible representations of society" (2002:108). "

^ ' "au lieu de se dissoudre sous I'effet de la secularisation moderne, en effet, la religion ...
apparait comme un element de plus en plus important de l'experience individuelle et collective, et parfois de l'engagement politique, au coeur meme de la modemite, et pas seulement
dans ses marges ou en opposition a elle."
^ "La croyance religieuse est en train de cesser d'etre politique. Elle se vide de ses implications immemoriales quant a la forme de la communaute des hommes. Ce detachement
d'avec son tronc originaire lui ouvre un autre avenir. De son cote, la croyance politique est en
train de cesser d'etre religieuse. HUe se delivre de la contrainte que le modele sacral continuait secretement d'exercer sur toute representation possible de la societe."

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION IN FRANCE 385

French sociology has also discovered the difficulties (notably the tendency
towards reductionism) that arise if religions are identified by their irrational qualities. The rational/irrational division does not reflect the distinction between
religion and agnosticism; it is internal to religions as it is internal to atheisms.
Believers are just as rational and irrational as non-believers; beliefs and nonbeliefs combine in every individual in variable and subtle formulae. For example,
in her work on the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, Elisabeth Claverie (2003) has
described the ways in which different types of thinking are combined: a critical
sense and a reference to belief. For Claverie, doubt lies at the heart of the faith
shown by these pilgrims of the Virgin. In refusing a simple divide between reason
and tradition, or religion and rationality, it becomes easier to think of religions
as ordinary socio-cultural phenomena, i.e. symbolic worlds through which men
and women speak and live their experience of life. Hence, in a world abounding
with beliefs, the world faiths constituteby the intrinsic rationality represented
in their symbolic systemsreal antidotes to irrationalism.
For a sociologist such as Touraine, the current return of religion does not signify simply the defensive mobilization of communities disrupted from outside, but
"the rejection of the notion that reduced modernity to rationalization and thus
deprived the individual of all forms of resistance in the face of a central power,
whose means of action are no longer limited" (1992:249).
Touraine, in
Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Egaux et differents (1997), masterfully poses the central problem of contemporary societies: that the articulation of democratic politics and the recognition of differences (cultural diversity in particular), must be
differentiated just as much from communitarianism as from abstract universalism.
Changes in the study of religion go hand in hand with changes in hXidte; both
are confronted with an entirely new socio-religious situation. The questions that
emerge are twofold: that of the social bond, the Durkheimian question par excellence, and that of how to live together in an increasingly pluralist society. Hence
the centrality of identitythe identity of French society in the context of globalization and European integration, and identities within French society itself.
Nowadays, French sociologists adopt an approach to their subject that is both
more constructivist and less reductionist, an approach that is particularly sensitive to the changing affiliations in religious life (WiUaime 1999). The "decompartmentalization" of the sociology of religion is also discernible. Somewhat marginalized in the 1960s and 1970s, religion now attracts the interest of numerous
researchers: sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists of all kinds have
invaded the territory, their work overlapping with that of the specialists in religion. Sociologists seeking to develop a general theory of the future of Western
societies incorporate religious change into their analyses (Touraine, Dubet,

"le rejet de la conception qui reduit la modemite a la rationalisation et prive ainsi l'individu de toute defense face a un pouvoir central dont les moyens d'action n'ont plus de limite."

386 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Wieviorka, etc.)- The situation is, in fact, reminiscent of the period when the
foundations of sociology were being laid.
More precisely, the sociology of religion in France is concerned with the
question of identities in democratic societies. Some sociologists emphasize the
constraining nature of identities, whether they he religious, cultural, gendered, or
age-related. Others underline the fact that identities offer individuals a more
secure sense of self, of social belonging and of participation. National identity is
no longer able to invoke either commitment or participation. With this in mind,
both general sociologists and the specialists in religion in France are looking
again at identities, religious and other, as an important source of motivation and
of structure for individuals in pluralist societies. Thus, the sociology of religion
continues to analyze the social determinants of religious trends and activities, but
takes increasingly careful account of the fact that religion is not reducible to
something other than itself. This, I think, is the principal change in the sociology of religion in France today.
In democratic societies, religions have been stripped of the power that they
exercised on both society and individuals. This shift represents a new reality for
sociologists of religion, which bit by bit they are beginning to understand. David
Martin articulates this very clearly: "[A]s churches gave up their links with the
old structures of power, they emerged as social actors, taking up various causes and
even being listened to" (1995:301). In a disenchanted democracy, the problem no
longer lies in the search for the autonomy of the subject in terms of an emancipation from constraining and alienating collective frames, but can be found in the
construction of the subject in a context of political and religious anomie in which
the individual is searching for connections and meaning. This situation is marked
by a crisis of identities, which reveals the ambivalent process of individualization.
On the one hand there is a healthy emancipation (freedom from the ties of masculine domination, from submission to a genealogical order, and from imposed traditions), but on the other there is a tendency to exclude or weaken the most vulnerable; in other words individualization implies the emergence of "actor/subjects," but much more exposed and uncertain that they used to be (Dubar
2000:223-4). The construction of the subject is the central issue, and since there
is no subject without identity, the construction of identity is part of this. Identity,
following Manuel Castells "is for individuals, the source of meaning and experience" (1999:6-7). It is a source of meaning more powerful than roles because
identities imply a move towards personal fulfilment and individualization.
In her remarkable analysis of the construction of identity amongst young
Muslims in France and Germany, Nikola Tietze (2002) emphasizes that Islam is
not a total or closed domain for the young people she met, who themselves elaborated the content of their faith. Ttetze demonstrates that the nature of their reli-

20 "est, pour les individus, la source du sens et de l'experience"

THE CULTURAL TURN IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION IN FRANCE 387

gion allows these individuals to establish themselves in time and space and to
experience their individuality; religion becomes therefore a resource that enables
young people to manage their own particular way of being German or French.
She concludes that the Muslim faith is doubly beneficial to the believer: "on one
hand, for the construction of meaning in the particularly difficult management
between the self and the other, and on the other hand, for the successful participation in the social. In this respect, young Muslims in France and Germany are
in no way exceptional, but provide evidence of the rational and practical nature
of religion in modemity"(2002:209).'^ Today the reference to identity has less
and less to do with ascription or reproduction, and more and more to do with
choice. Religious identities, just like other identities, become increasingly individual, plural and vulnerable, in that they are undermined by the affirmation of
the subject. This does not mean, however, that we should oppose communitarianism on the one hand with the universalism on the other, but that we should
recognize the fact that religious groups are also societies of individuals who participate, in their own way, in the democratic debate.
The opposition between the one and indivisible Republic on the one hand
and the clash of communities on the other is sterile (Wieviorka 2001:13). Only
when this is abandoned will it be possible to appreciate what religion can bring
to democratic lifeas a source of meaning, capable of structuring the symbolic
aspects of life for individuals who are increasingly adrift and disoriented.
Concluding a study on the role assigned to religion by Europeans, Yves Lambert
remarks that a general evolution is taking place towards a model that might be
called plural secularization: "a model in which religion no longer dominates
social life, but can play its part as a spiritual, ethical, cultural, or even political
(in the broadest sense) resource, in encouraging respect for individual autonomy
and democratic pluralism" (2000:32).'^ Peter Beyer, in Religion and Globalization
(1994), supports this view in suggesting that, in a functionally differentiated society, believers constitute a community of faith which contributes both to the core
values that make society possible, as well as to public debate on the priorities to
be established.
Amaud Leclerc (2001) underlines this point, pointing out the need for a critical reappraisal of tradition in order to rediscover the discussions and debates
essential for democratic life. This reappraisal finds its place between the twin

"d'une part, pour la construction du sens dans la gestion particulierement difficile

entre identite alterite, et d'autre part, pour l'insertion de son action dans l'ensemble societal.
En cela, les jeunes musulmans en France et en AUemagne ne se distinguent pas, mais mettent
en evidence le caractere rationnel et maniable du religieux dans la tnodernite."
^^ "un modele dans lequel la religion ne doit pas exercer d'emprise sur la vie sociale mais
peut jouer pleinement son role en tant que ressource spirituelle, ethique, culturelle ou meme
politique au sens tres large, dans le respect des autonomies individuelles et du pluralisme
democratique.

388 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

dangers of "a nervous republicanism accompanied by a nostalgia for an intransigent assimilation conducted by the state, and the temptation of an uncontrolled
multiculturalism advocating no more than negotiated coexistence" (Leclerc
2001:244-5).^ In order that this might happen, religious traditions must reinterpret the contents of public reason in their own language, which also implies a
capacity to translate their own ideas into the language of public reason.
Considered simply as a private affair, religion is ostracized and prevented from
playing its role in the public sphere. Between the sectarian communities of religious identities and a public space, which can only be universal in the absence of
identities, lies a place for a Idique and public re-affirmation of religion. It is this
that numerous countries in Europe have understood in developing a place for
religious organizations in social life. If governments all over Europe demonstrate
a benevolent attitude towards religious organizations, it is because they have
understood that in an age characterized by a laidzation of politics as well as religion, demythologized reason and reasonable religions (Portier 1999:319) can
work together effectively to promote harmony in societies which are themselves
more and more uncertain.
In short there is a new phase in the development of sociological approaches
to religion, in which the distinctiveness from philosophical approaches is a crucial factora way of thinking that resists seeing religion as derivative of something else. Religion is also taken far more seriously at a global level. But does this
imply a paradigm shift? Personally I think not, given the present theoretical
"anomie" in the sociology of religion. Sociologists of all kinds are in search of new
paradigms for interpreting religion, a search that implies new, different and rather
more dispersed theoretical frameworks than has been the case so far.
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