Workshop“Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity”
KFG “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”
Leipzig University, 8/9 October 2020
Seminar building (Universitätsstraße), Room S 202 and zoom
Convenors: Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (Leipzig University), Christoph Kleine (Leipzig University),
and Daniel Witte (University of Bonn)

Content1
Schedule ............................................................................................................................................... 1
2

1

Approach ............................................................................................................................................. 2
2.1

Differentiation Theory and Sociology of Religion ..................................................................... 2

2.2

Multiple Secularities ....................................................................................................................... 3

2.3

Selected Publications of the Participants..................................................................................... 7

Schedule
8 October 2020

12:30–14:00

Welcome, Registration, Joint Lunch

14:00–15:30

Opening Session
Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (Leipzig University) / Christoph Kleine (Leipzig University)

15:45–17:15

Thomas Kern (University of Bamberg)
Why We Need a Theory of Social Differentiation
Hartmann Tyrell (Bielefeld University) / Raf Vanderstraeten (Universiteit Gent)
Some reflections on the uses of differentiation theory for the sociology of religion and secularity
Moderation: Hubert Seiwert (Leipzig University)

17:45–19:15

Sudipta Kaviraj (Columbia University)
Disenchantment and secularization
Adrian Hermann (Bonn University)
Global History of Religion and Differentiation Theory
Moderation: Nur Yasemin Ural (Leipzig University)

19:30–20:00

Closing Discussion Day 1

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Workshop Programme“Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity”
Leipzig University, 8/9 October 2020

9. October 2020
12:30–14:00

Joint Lunch

14:00–15:30

Gesa Lindemann (University of Oldenburg)
Religion and social differentiation
Detlef Pollack (University of Münster)
The presumed origins of functional differentiation in Western Europe
Moderation: Wolfgang Höpken (Leipzig University)

15:45–17:15

Sita Steckel (University of Münster)
Differentiation theory and historical secularities: A perspective from the European past
Phil Gorski (Yale University)
Secularization of the World OR Fragmentation of the Sacred?
Moderation: Florian Zemmin (Leipzig University)

17:45–19:45

Closing Discussion Day 2

2

Approach

2.1

Differentiation Theory and Sociology of Religion

Differentiation theory has always been closely related to the sociology of religion, both with regard to
the historical development of societies and with respect to the genealogy of the theory itself. On the one
hand, important contributions such as the ones of Weber and Bourdieu, for instance, were developed
from the womb of their respective sociologies of religion. In Luhmann’s account, on the other hand,religion is likewise depicted as the first social system that differentiated from its environment
historically. Further, this also connects to the other side of the secular-religious distinction, since –according to his theory – it was also the religious system that at first perceived its non-religious
environment as ‘secular’, whereas it was only later that the religious-secular distinction became crucialfrom a perspective outside of religion. In a broader sense, differentiation theory also played an important(and more and more contested) role in the context of modernisation and secularisation theories.
Modern societies – from that perspective – are inherently also functionally differentiated, andcharacterised to a greater or lesser extent by secularisation and the dominance of secular institutions. In
short, while the theory of differentiation forms an integral component of modernisation theory,‘secularisation’, in turn, arguably constitutes its most important special case.
Whereas, for a long time, the assumption of functional differentiation seemed a valid element indiagnoses of modernisation and secularisation, it became more and more contested over the course of
the last years. It was first of all Talal Asad, but with him and independent from him many other scholars,
who questioned either the applicability of differentiation theory to non-Western contexts, or criticised
the concomitant interpretation of differentiation as a more or less autonomous process in the course ofmodernisation. However, criticisms related to differentiation diagnoses also came from the side of2

Workshop Programme“Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity”
Leipzig University, 8/9 October 2020

sociological theory. These criticisms aimed – among others – at differentiation theory’s lack of
explanatory power, its inability to properly account for the role of social inequalities and conflicts, andits neglect of agency and carrier-groups (not least those that are considered crucial for processes ofdifferentiation themselves).

2.2

Multiple Secularities

In our research group on Multiple Secularities, we have tried to contribute to the debate on
secularisation, starting from the perspective of societal differentiation. Secularisation theory has been
criticised for its undue generalisation of European modernisation experiences and their link tosecularisation processes; a lack of historical depth, and the use of the secular-religious binary as ananalytical tool for research. While we acknowledge these serious shortcomings, we argue that there is afundamental aspect of the theory that can serve as a tertium comparationis in historical-sociologicalresearch on religion and its relation to its environment. That aspect is the differentiation between
religious and non-religious spheres of activity and domains of power, or more precisely—which is crucial
when we are dealing with premodern non-Western societies—a mode of conceptual distinction according
to which social differentiation is cast into a binary taxonomy that serves specific classificatory purposes.
Whereas in our previous research we have – from a cultural sociological perspective – suggested amapping of different types of secularity that exist in different world regions within and outside of Europe
and are related to characteristic reference problems and communicated in relation to certain guiding
ideas,1 in our present work we have given this a historical turn. We try to outline a research agenda thataims at the historicisation of conceptual distinctions and institutional differentiations between thereligious and the secular.2 We employ the heuristic concept of ‘secularity’ to refer to interrelated
epistemic and social structures in which given social configurations are conceptually cast into a binary
taxonomy and endeavour to genealogically trace back the secular-religious binary beyond its linguistic
representation in modern contexts.
Thereby we also try to bridge the gap between two polar positions that have emerged within theacademic study of religion and related disciplines. These positions can – in an ideal-typical way – bedescribed as follows: one approach emphasises the historicity and specificity of ‘religion’ and related
categories, like ‘the secular’, that emerged in Europe and spread globally in the course of colonialism,
and sees their scholarly use as a continuation of colonial or imperialist aspirations for power. The otherapproach, however, emphasises both the legitimacy and necessity of using meta-language concepts forthe comparison of Western and non-Western, and even modern and premodern cultures. We see thebridging between these poles as necessary for stimulating new research, which is not limited to ‘the West’and its concepts and yet takes the insights of post-colonial perspectives into account. The task we set
1

2

Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Marian Burchardt, “Multiple Secularities: Toward a Cultural Sociology of SecularModernities,” Comparative Sociology 11, no. 6 (2012).
Christoph Kleine and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, “Comparative Secularities: Tracing Social and Epistemic Structures
Beyond the Modern West,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (2020, forthcoming); Monika Wohlrab-Sahrand Christoph Kleine, “Historicizing Secularity: A Proposal for Comparative Research from a Global Perspective.”
2020, under review.

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Leipzig University, 8/9 October 2020

ourselves is: how can historical research about non-European and premodern cultures continue to yield
information that is interesting for religious studies and sociology as a whole without presupposing theuniversality of religion as a given reality or even as a useful concept for cultural comparison? Startingfrom a perspective informed by differentiation theory, we intend to show that genealogy andcomparison, historicisation and generalisation can mutually fertilise each other. We assume that thediversity of secular-religious relations in the world today is caused by the varying epistemic and social
conditions and preconditions under which different societies have historically appropriated Westernmodels of secularism. Without anachronistically applying or projecting predefined comparative
concepts such as ‘religion’ or ‘the secular’, we nevertheless argue that certain forms of conceptual
distinction and social differentiation have either been used as resources or could be adapted along thelines of Western differentiation logics because of structural analogies and/or functional equivalence. We
thus explicitly disagree with scholarly positions that question the suitability of the secular-religious
binary for non-Western contexts.
Accordingly, we have started to investigate these endogenous forms of conceptual distinction andsocial differentiation and their impact on the ways in which Western knowledge regimes—including thereligious-secular divide—and institutional arrangements—including the legal and organisational
separation of ‘state’ and ‘church’—were appropriated in colonial or quasi-colonial situations. Thisrationale follows the main argument in Shmuel Eisenstadt’s “multiple modernities” approach,3 whichtakes both cultural specificities and the influence of Western modernity into account to explain the
different paths that modernity has taken in the world. Accordingly, we operationalise the concept of‘secularity’, and thereby try to pave the way for a historical explanation of the multiplicity of secularities
in global modernity.
Next to various contributions of our research fellows on different regions in Asia and the Islamicate
world, we have approached this exemplarily with reference to two different religious and societal settings
in the medieval period—Japanese Buddhism and Islam in the Middle East.4 We have argued that formsof distinction and differentiation existed from early on, which, under certain conditions, could later be
related to the secular-religious binary by social actors.
We have identified distinctions on the conceptual level, the development of oppositional pairs, aswell as differentiations on the institutional level, pushed forward by institutional (religious) actors
interested in granting their own autonomy:a) On the conceptual level, we find the identification of certain activities and groups under thelabel ‘religion’ (kyō, dō, hō, shūshi, monto or din). We can see this in situations of life-world
comparisons and competition between different ideological groups, indicated, for example, bycases of conversion between these groups, by comparisons between competing socio-culturalformations and normative systems, or by the juxtaposition of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ kyō or din. This
indicates that a notion of a unity of certain phenomena existed in pre-modern Japanese3
4

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus, 129/1 (2000).
Kleine and Wohlrab-Sahr, “Comparative Secularities;” Wohlrab-Sahr and Kleine, “Historicizing Secularity.”4

Workshop Programme“Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity”
Leipzig University, 8/9 October 2020

Buddhism as well as in pre-modern Islam. We would interpret this as the conceptual distinctionof a social field that would later become religion.
b) Again, on the conceptual level, we find the development of oppositional pairs (ōbō – buppō; din– dunya) in which two spheres of power were juxtaposed and put in relation to each other. In
the cases discussed, these were the nomosphere of the emperor and the nomosphere of the
Buddha (in Japan) or the realm of political and of religious authority, of temporal and religious
knowledge as well as of religious and non-religious jurisdiction (in medieval Islam). This
semantic distinction of a supra-mundane from a mundane nomosphere, we argue, supported
the development of a distinct sphere of activity, first of all next to the political (and parts of thejuridical) sphere, but also in comparison with other types of knowledge. We interpret this as thedevelopment of a conceptual binary that supported institutional autonomy.
c) What we see in the Buddhist case, is the attempt of monastic organisations to secure their
institutional autonomy from the state. We interpret this as a process of institutional
differentiation of a social sphere later to be defined as ‘religion’. In the case of medieval Islam, itis the differentiation of the ‘ulama’ as an independent locus of authority, which defined the reachof shar’ia and the borders to the outside world. It certainly does not develop the institutional
strength and autonomy of the Catholic Church, but it nevertheless has effects on theestablishment of politics and religion as distinct, however closely related, spheres. Religious
institutions (monasteries, ulama) are obviously important actors that promote differentiation
due to certain interests.
Considering the problem of data in historical research, it is not always easy to tell which step camefirst: whether the semantic distinction preceded the institutional differentiation or vice versa. Referring
to Max Weber, one might conclude, that it is the interplay between ideas and interests,5 between
conceptual distinctions and institutional autonomy that leads to the juxtaposition of religious andpolitical spheres. Our argument is that this can be interpreted as a resource for secularity, on which later
secular-religious distinctions could build.
That this is not a unilinear story can also be seen in the comparison of the histories of Middle
Eastern Islam and Japanese Buddhism. Different modes of confrontation with Western modernity andthe varieties of colonial/quasi-colonial domination come into play as important influencing factors.
However, even if the reality of differentiations in the present is different in different regions, it seems
important to recognise that there have been commonalities in terms of religion-related distinctions anddifferentiations that must be taken into account in order to avoid simply projecting the present onto thepast. The story we tell differs depending on whether we assume that Islam prevented the religioussecular demarcation from developing, or we acknowledge commonalities in the past, and then ask why
history nevertheless developed differently.
It is also obvious, that – with regard to later developments – important steps are still waiting to betaken. It is especially the question of which paths develop in the course of history, and what the critical
5

Max Weber, “Einleitung in die Wirtschaftsethik derWeltreligionen,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur
Religionssoziologie I., ed. Marianne Weber (Tübingen: Mohr 1988), 252.
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Workshop Programme“Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity”
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events are that influence their direction. What is the role of cultural and political encounters, not only,
but especially in the colonial period? What is the role of political and cultural power in the course of
these events? Who are the actors (individuals, groups, and networks) that promote certain
developments? To which societal problems are certain actions and measures related and how are theseactions communicated?

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Workshop Programme“Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity”
Leipzig University, 8/9 October 2020

2.3

Selected Publications of the Participants

Casanova, José. “Secularization Revisited: A Reply to Talal Asad.” In Powers of the SecularModern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors. Edited by David Scott and Charles Hirschkind, 12–30.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.
Casanova, José. Global Religious and Secular Dynamics: The Modern System of Classification. Leiden:
Brill, 2019.
Gorski, Philip S. “Historicizing the Secularization Debate: Church, State, and Society in Late Medieval
AndEarly Modern Europe, Ca. 1300 to 1700.” American Sociological Review 65, no. 1 (2000): 138–
67.
Gorski, Philip S. “Bourdieusian Theory and Historical Analysis: Maps, Mechanisms, and Methods.” In
Bourdieu and Historical Analysis. Edited by Philip S. Gorski, 327–66. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2012.
Hecke, Simon, and Hartmann Tyrell. “Religion, Politik und Recht: Die ‘päpstliche Revolution’ undihre ‘dualistischen’ Rechtsfolgen.” In Politik, Religion und Recht. Edited by Martin Schulte, 9–65.
Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2017.
Hermann, Adrian. Unterscheidungen der Religion: Analysen zum globalen Religionsdiskurs und dem
Problem der Differenzierung von 'Religion' in buddhistischen Kontexten des 19. und frühen 20.
Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015.
Hermann, Adrian. “Distinctions of Religion: The Search for Equivalents of 'Religion‘ and theChallenge of Theorizing a ‘Global Discourse of Religion’.” In Making Religion: Theory and Practicein the Discursive Study of Religion. Edited by Frans Wijsen and Kocku von Stuckrad, 97–124.
Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Hermann, Adrian. “European History of Religion, Global History of Religion: On the Expansion of a
Gladigowian Concept for the Study of Religion.” In Die kulturwissenschaftliche Wende in der
Religionswissenschaft: Der Beitrag Burkhard Gladigows. Edited by Christoph Auffarth, Alexandra
Grieser, and Anne Koch. Tübingen: Tübingen University Press, forthcoming.
Kaviraj, Sudipta. “An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity.” European Journal for Sociology
46, no. 3 (2003): 497–526.
Kaviraj, Sudipta. “On Thick and Thin Religion: Some Critical Reflections on Secularisation Theory.”
In Religion and the Political Imagination. Edited by Ira Katznelson and Gareth Stedman Jones, 336–
55. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Kaviraj, Sudipta. “Languages of Secularity.” In Tolerance, Secularization and Democratic Politics inSouth Asia. Edited by Humeira Iqtidar and Tanika Sarkar, 22–49. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2018.
Kern, Thomas. “Modernisierung und Demokratisierung: Das Erklärungspotenzial neuerer
differenzierungstheoretischer Ansätze.” Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 59,
no. 1 (2007): 30–58. doi:10.1007/s11577-007-0002-5.
Kern, Thomas. “Differenzierung als kreativer Prozess: Die Herausbildung von Rollen in
Differenzierungsnetzwerken.” In Soziale Differenzierung: Handlungstheoretische Zugänge in der
Diskussion. Edited by Thomas Schwinn, Clemens Kroneberg and Jens Greve, 399–419.
Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2011.
Kern, Thomas, and Uwe Schimank. “Megakirchen als religiöse Organisationen: Ein dritter
Gemeindetyp jenseits von Sekte und Kirche?” Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
65, S1 (2013): 285–309. doi:10.1007/s11577-013-0227-4.

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Kern, Thomas. “Inequality, Inclusion, and Protest: Jeffrey Alexander’s Theory of the Civil Sphere.” In
Social Theory and Social Movements. Edited by Jochen Roose and Hella Dietz, 93–111.
Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2016.
Kern, Thomas, and Insa Pruisken. “Der Wandel religiöser Inklusion in den USA: Von der‘traditionellen’ zur ‘vernetzten’ Religiosität.” In Die Refiguration der Religion: Perspektiven der
Religionssoziologie und Religionswissenschaft. Edited by Hubert Knoblauch, 147–68. Randgebietedes Sozialen. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, 2020.
Kleine, Christoph. “Religion and the Secular in Premodern Japan from the Viewpoint of Systems
Theory.” Journal of Religion in Japan 2, no. 1 (2013): 1–34. doi:10.1163/22118349-12341246.
Kleine, Christoph, and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. “Comparative Secularities: Tracing Social andEpistemic Structures Beyond the Modern West.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 32,
no. 4 (2020): forthcoming.
Lindemann, Gesa. “Differenzierung der modernen Gesellschaft: Eine grenzregimetheoretische
Perspektive.” In Soziale Differenzierung: Handlungstheoretische Zugänge in der Diskussion. Editedby Thomas Schwinn, Clemens Kroneberg and Jens Greve, 135–56. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2011.
Lindemann, Gesa. “Einleitung.” In Strukturnotwendige Kritik. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft,2018, 13–44.
Pollack, Detlef. Religion und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: Studien zum religiösen Wandel in Europa
und den USA. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Vol. 3.
Pollack, Detlef. “Religion und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: Sozialhistorische Analysen zur
Emergenz der europäischen Moderne.” Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik, 2020, 1–36.
doi:10.1007/s41682-020-00052-y. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs41682-020-00052y.
Schwinn, Thomas. “Wertsphären, Lebensordnungen und Lebensführungen.” In Verantwortliches
Handeln in gesellschaflichen Ordnungen: Beiträge zu Wolfgang Schluchters Religion undLebensführung. Edited by Agathe Bienfait and Gerhard Wagner, 270–319.
Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1998.
Schwinn, Thomas. “Perspektiven der neueren Differenzierungstheorie.” In Soziale Differenzierung:
Handlungstheoretische Zugänge in der Diskussion. Edited by Thomas Schwinn, Clemens Kroneberg
and Jens Greve, 421–32. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2011.
Schwinn, Thomas. “Zur Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Religion und Moderne:
Säkularisierung, Differenzierung und multiple Modernitäten.” In “Religion und Gesellschaft.”Edited by Christof Wolf and Matthias Koenig. Special issue, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie undSozialpsychologie 53 (2013): 73–97.
Schwinn, Thomas. “Achsenzeit, Investiturstreit, Reformation: Eine Religionsgeschichte der Moderne.”
In Die Verwandlung des Heiligen: Die Geburt der Moderne aus dem Geist der Religion. Edited byDetlef Pollack and Matthias Pohlig, 139–72. Berlin: Berlin University Press, 2020.
Steckel, Sita. “Differenzierung jenseits der Moderne. Eine Debatte zu mittelalterlicher Religion undmoderner Differenzierungstheorie.” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 47, no. 1 (2013): 307–52.
doi:10.1515/fmst-2013-0114.
Steckel, Sita. “Historicizing the Religious Field.” Church History and Religious Culture 99, 3-4 (2019):
331–70.
Tyrell, Hartmann. Soziale und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: Aufsätze zur soziologischen Theorie.
Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008.
Vanderstraeten, Raf. “Säkularisierung als Inklusionsproblem.” Soziale Systeme 13, 1-2 (2007): 329–39.
doi:10.1515/sosys-2007-1-229.
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Vanderstraeten, Raf. “Talcott Parsons and the Enigma of Secularization.” European Journal of Social
Theory 16, no. 1 (2013): 69–84. doi:10.1177/1368431012449236.
Vanderstraeten, Raf. “Religious Activism in a Secular World: The Rise and Fall of the Teaching
Congregations of the Catholic Church.” Paedagogica Historica 50, no. 4 (2014): 494–513.
doi:10.1080/00309230.2014.904913.
Witte, Daniel. “Umstrittene Grenzen: Das Feld der Macht als Ort von Deutungskämpfen um Recht
und Religion.” In Rechtsanalyse als Kulturforschung II. Edited by Werner Gephart and Christoph
Suntrup, 357–91. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2015.
Witte, Daniel. “Schließungsverhältnisse und Differenzierungskulturen: Überlegungen zur relationalen
Formatierung von sozialem Ausschluss.” In Geschlossene Gesellschaften: Verhandlungen des 38.
Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Bamberg 2016. Edited by Stephan Lessenich,
1–15. 2017.
Witte, Daniel. “Prospects for a Relational Sociology of Islam: Some Remarks on Differentiation
Theory, Multiple Modernities, and the Pitfalls of Occidentalism.” In Sociology of Islam. Edited byHeidemarie Winkel and Christel Gärtner. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020/21 (forthcoming).
Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Marian Burchardt. “Multiple Secularities: Toward a Cultural Sociology ofSecular Modernities.” Comparative Sociology 11, no. 6 (2012): 875–909. doi:10.1163/1569133012341249.
Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Christoph Kleine. “Historicizing Secularity: A Proposal for Comparative
Research from a Global Perspective.” 2020, under review.

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