Invisible Religion

Thomas Luckmann’s essay The Invisible Religion (1991) is today considered a classic of (religious) sociology. It took almost 24 years until the English version The Invisible Religion (1967), which itself was based on the text The Problem of Religion in Modern Society (1961), was newly translated (cf. Knoblauch, p.7). Thomas Luckmann (1927-2016) studied, among other things, philosophy, German, Romance languages and literature, and psychology, and was a professor of sociology at the University of Konstanz for 24 years (Cf. Afterword).

The Functionalist Concept of Religion: The Privatization of Religion

The guiding themes of the essay are the definition, development, and new social forms of religion (Cf. Knoblauch, p. 11), as well as the question of whether religiosity is actually disappearing in modern society, as suggested by the declining participation in church organizations to this day. Luckmann argues that religious functions are transformed in other (private) social forms.

The core of the concept is the thesis of the ‚privatization of religion‘. By ‚invisible‘ religion is meant private, individual religiosity and the associated detachment from a purely public, institutionalized understanding of religion (faith versus religious affiliation). Crucial to Luckmann’s approach to ‚invisible religion‘ is the functionalist approach. In contrast to the substantive definition, which asks about the specific, substantive essence of religions and is primarily concerned with the ideas and relationship of humans to an otherworldly, sacred, supernatural power, the functionalist concept understands religion as an actor in the social structure, which co-determines the relationship between the individual and society (Cf. Knoblauch, p. 12). Put simply, it is no longer primarily a question of what defines religion in terms of content, but rather what individual and social benefits it fulfills. This results in Luckmann’s radical thesis that the „religious itself is the core of the social“ (Knoblauch, p. 13), when with him the internalization of a „world view“ is elevated to the „universal[n] social form of religion“ (Knoblauch, p. 16). Luckmann himself writes:

„The individuation of the consciousness and conscience of a historical individual occurs less through an original re-creation of worldviews than through the internalization of an already pre-constructed worldview. […] If we had previously defined worldview as a universal social form of religion, we can correspondingly define personal identity as a universal form of individual religiosity.“ (Luckmann, p. 109)

According to this open definition, then, everything can be conceived as ‚religious‘ or ’sacred‘ that fulfills a meaning-creating, worldview-constituting function. The belief in a supernatural power, traditionally understood as genuinely religious, is replaced here by the orientation- and identity-creating function.

The Modern ‚Sacred Cosmos

According to Luckmann’s theory, the traditional ’sacred cosmos‘ is supplemented by the modern one (cf. Luckmann, p. 153). The predominant aspiration of modernity is individual autonomy, which is differentiated in the ’sacred‘ themes of „self-expression, self-realization, the mobility ethos, sexuality and familialism“ (Luckmann, p. 157). What, in turn, would explicitly not be thematized would be one’s own mortality and aging: „The ‚autonomous‘ individual is young and he never dies.“ (Luckmann, p. 158)

Examples of Luckmann’s open concept of religion would be, for example, the esoteric New Age currents of the 20th century, but also sports like bodybuilding (Cf. Mörth, p.2), yoga or soccer. According to Luckmann, other so-called ’substitute religions‘ on this side, such as the vegan way of life, could also be described as religious.

Criticism: The Problem of the Open Concept of Religion

In particular, Luckmann’s critique of the pure sociology of the church has positively influenced the sociological study of religion with individualized forms of belief (Cf. Mörth, p. 4). Nevertheless, his theorem lacks more concrete explanations. The identity-creating and world-image-constituting character of the religious is not to be doubted, but it remains unclear why everything that fulfills these functions is ‚religious‘. For this reason, one criticism voiced is that the specifically religious is lost in Luckmann’s approach (cf. Knoblauch, p. 12). Conversely, deliberately areligious value systems (atheism) are not adequately considered. Knoblauch also states in his preface that Luckmann’s essay rather presents a provisional draft of the invisible religion (cf. Knoblauch, p. 11). However, the functional approach to religion as a counterpart to the substantial approach must be emphasized. Thus, Günter Dux emphasizes, „Only a theory that argues both functionally and substantially promises to explain the origin of religion.“ (Dux, p. 20)

Literature

Luckmann, Thomas: The Invisible Religion [1963/1967]. With a preface by Hubert Knoblauch. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1991.

Knoblauch, Hubert: Die Verflüchtigung der Religion ins Religiöse. Thomas Luckmann’s Invisible Religion. In: Thomas Luckmann: The Invisible Religion. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1991, pp. 7-41.

Dux, Günter: Origin, Function and Content of Religion. In: Günter Dux (ed.): Internationales Jahrbuch für Religionssoziologie. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien 1973 (= On the theory of religion. Religion and language. vol. 8), pp. 7-67.

Mörth, Ingo: On the new edition of an important book: Thomas Luckmann’s „Die Unsichtbare Religion“. In: Swiss Journal of Sociology. 19 Jg. Heft 3. Montreux 1993, pp. 627-634. http://soziologie.soz.uni-linz.ac.at/sozthe/staff/moerthpub/LuckmannRezension.pdf [15.02.21].

Sozialwissenschaftliches Archiv Konstanz: Nachruf Thomas Luckmann. https://www.kim.uni-konstanz.de/soz-archiv/aktuelles/nachrufe/nachruf-thomas-luckmann/ [15.02.21].