The late twentieth century and the early centuries were regarded inmost of western countries as a time of religious crisis, which was generally believed in most cities in US and among the working class. One of the most important matters of debate was the relationship between secularization and urbanization. In the ninetieth century the growth of cities grew on a scale far beyond than anything ever seen before in the world’s history. In specific London grew to a staggering six million from one million. But in New York also there were close to three million marks, far more than any other city of the previous era. It is also in the nineteenth century that the proliferations of second-rank cities was seen; by 1900 there were approximately thirty western cities with at least five-hundred million inhabitants which would have as well qualified for metropolitan status in eighteenth century (Thomas 2006 43-77). In addition the growth in the number of smaller cities meant that in countries which lacked a major metropolis, there was a considerable increase in the proportion of the population living in urban areas, however it is important to bee started here that the growth was most dramatic in England and Wales. From the beginning there have been two opposing, views as to what this revolution would mean for the religious traditions of the western world. However, there were many voices proclaiming that the cities were strongholds of irreligion. The most famous study is the one of Engel’s working class people in which he claimed that religion had effectively died out, and most of those comments concerned the working class; even some observes saw the city as a whole as a religious desert. In fact one of the Engel’s contemporaries, a London clergyman, claimed that the life of cities is essentially a worldly life, even though the country is with its pure severity. Interestingly a Berlin clergyman was comparing the city to that of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, there were also those who saw the cities as the most dynamic centers of religious activism. For example, the enthusiasm of won conformists for urbanization was greatly influenced by the fact that they saw the cities as a powerful counterweight to the religious traditionalism of the countryside: claiming that their sectarian partisanship may have blinded them to the less welcome aspects of life, the same differences of these interpretations are also found in the modern historians and sociologists writing the religious history of the 19th century (Raimond, 2004, pp. 204-264).
But the least controversial form of the argument is the one which focuses on the demographic upheavals associated with the growth of industries and cities. The high numbers of the population shifted within a short period to establish churches but were confronted with enormous logistical problems, which most of them failed to solve adequately. Even some workers after moving to cities and industrial regions remained highly mobile and they found it very difficult to form close links with any clergyman or congregation and even some settled workers gave up in the town religious practices which they claim had derived their meaning from the rural context in which they had learnt first (Richard, 2006, pp. 127-299).
Berlin, London and New York cities shows striking differences in patterns of religious belief and practice, and at times the part played by religious institutions concerning the life of the city. Thus it will be remembered that adult church attendance in New York’s Manhattan borough on one Sunday in the year 1902 was 37 percent of the non-Jewish adults living in the Manhattan borough while in the country of London the adult rate of attendance at church or synagogue in the same year 1902-03 was 22 percent. There were no detailed figures that were available from Berlin; but on the count of physically attendance at churches of the Evangelical landerkirche on one Sunday in the year 1913 found that approximately 0.6 percent of the populations of Protestants were present in the morning service. If 0.6 percent figure is doubled in order to allow for those attending in the evening and in addition, 1 percent is added for those attending other free churches and if we make possibly a generous estimate that 30 percent of Roman Catholic went to church on the same day the attendance rate for the whole Christian population would be a round 6 percent. When comparing the ratio of church ministers of religion to the total population; In New York the ration stood at 1:1, 318; while in London 1:1, 358; and in Berlin 1:5, 064. It is clear that these differences between the three cities were in the actual sense far more than what can be conveyed through the statistics. However, the figures will help in bringing out the fact that the religious situations in these three main cities differed greatly in many major ways; and that of historians preoccupation with the connection or complete lack of link between urbanization and secularization has led the neglect the huge differences between the religious histories of the various metropolitan centers of Europe and North America (Richard, 2006, pp. 199-305).
Instead of looking for a consistent relationship between urban growth and religious growth or decline, it would be important to look at the specific context in which urban growth took place and the social impacts that urbanization brought forward. In considering that, the first point to note is that even if the differences were soaring, there were qualitative differences between rural and urban religious patterns and secondly there is the importance in cities of religious conflict that is to say rather than being homogenously secular or generally devout, they instead tended to be deeply divided and lastly, it is important to note that the crucial influence of the bourgeoisie on the religious patterns of the cities (Richard, 2006, pp. 102-127).
At the far end both the collective religious practice and collective practice were rural phenomena. Religious censuses showed rural areas at the top and at the same time, at the bottom with cities somewhere in between. In England the ratio of the total number of church attendance and this includes even people who attendance in the churches varied from about 100 percent of the two most church going which were both in rural countries, to a minimum of 16 percent in the cities, rural areas were most of times able to maintain some kind o f religious or irreligious consensus; whale cities by their nature were more pluralistic (Richard, 1988, pp. 56-64).
The image of Berlin, as a city of endless complexity, where any sense of moral community had broken down was even reflected in series study publication. Most of the publications were related to crime and prostitution, and most contributors gave an ample space to the sleazier and other more sensational aspects of their subject. These series of publications also showed enthusiastic savoring of the rich variety of urban life. Even through the first volumes of publications concentrated on various forms of Anglicanism and non conformity, the other volumes published small bodies that fell outside the bounds of religious respectability which included in groups of mystical, fundamentalist, and rationalist tendencies. In all the publications, they had one point in common; each of them was far enough removed from conventional forms of belief and practice that require city surroundings in order for them to find toleration and an adequate constituency of potential supporters (Richard, 1988, pp. 64-88). Sometimes, the emphasis on the bewildering variety of religious life in the city can be extended to the suggestion that urbanites had a tolerant and relativistic outlook. It is also equally important to recognize the small groups which flourished in the city even though they made relatively little impact in general. But even major communities of conservative Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, unbelievers, and the relations among the five groups were also under prejudice. The religious conflicts that divided them were intensified because the religious differences were at most times party bound up with other differences, like the differences of politics and class. In Berlin, in spite of its reputations for religion, there were however important sections of the population that provided an exception to the rule (Kevin, & Sheen, 1997, pp. 121-137).
Between the late seventeenth and late twentieth century, most western societies (England and New York included) moved from being monolithically Christian except the Jews minority, who were in a situation where a significant proportion of the Jews population professes no religious belief and they had little or no connections with any kind of church or synagogue. This change was accounted for, by the gradual emergence of religious toleration from the late seventeenth century onward. The pioneers of the religion were England, the Netherlands, and the British colonies in North America. The most significant of this development was noticed by the Orthodox religion, or irreligion, or in simple terms, religions non-practice, which became the legally permitted alternative (Cohen & Fukuli, 1993; pp. 153-208). It is not surprising that at least some people took advantage of these new opportunities. From then onwards there was a regular flow of publications questioning the various aspects of Christian’s orthodoxy, as a result what would previously have been perforce private speculations became generally available to the educated public, at least in those countries that did not have a vigorous censorships. However, the onset of rapid industrialization and urbanization, beginning in Britain was two-edged in its religious implications. On one hand the massive shifts of populations from rural areas to towns and industrial religious being presented to churches with major ;logistical problems which were at most times unable to solve, while on the other hand in Britain and the United State the new industrial communities were most often strongholds of the protestant sectarianism, and in addition the great mixing of populations like the immigrants from different religious and ethnic backgrounds in most industrial religious led to a close intertwining of ethnic and religious (McLeod, 1996, pp. 145-205).
Identity enhanced the people’s religious awareness, and sometimes led to bitter sectarian conflict. This leads us to a concluding statement; at the instructional level the expanding state has been the most important source of secularization; but at the popular state has provided a major stimulus to religious revival. On the first sight there is relatively a widespread of secularism in Berlin and the relatively low levels of involvement in the church by working class people in both London and Berlin provide excellent examples of the association between modernization and secularization a closer inspection suggests that the fit between theory and fact is less good (McLeod, 1996, pp. 145-205).
Work Cited
- Boyle, Kevin, and Juliet Sheen, Eds (1997). Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report. London: Routledge, Questia. 2007. pp. 121- 137.
- Cohen, P.A. And Fukuli K. (1993). Humanizing the city. Social contexts of urban life at the turn of the millennium. Edinburgh University press; Edinburgh; pp. 153-208.
- McLeod, H. (1996). Piety and poverty: working class religion in Berlin, London, and New York. Holmes and Meier; New York; pp. 145-205.
- Richard O. C. Ed (1988). Freedom at Risk: Secrecy, Censorship, and Repression in the 1980s. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Questia.2007. pp.64-88.
- Richard R. G. (2006): “Christian Community in History.” Theological Studies. Questia. 2007; pp. 102-305.
- Raimond, G (2004). Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception. London: Routledge, Questia. 2007; pp. 204-264.
- Thomas, W. J. (2006). “Faith in Reading: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America.” The Historian. Questia. 2007, pp. 43-77.