‘Believing without Belonging’ in Twenty European Countries (1981–2008) De-institutionalization of Christianity or Spiritualization of Religion?

Abstract

Extending and building on previous work on the merits of Grace Davie's theory about ‘believing without belonging’, this paper offers a comparative analysis of changes in the relationships between ‘believing’ and ‘belonging’ across countries. In doing so, two renditions of the theory that co-exist in Grace Davie's work are distinguished, i.e., the typically foregrounded version about a de-institutionalization of Christianity and its often unnoticed counterpart about a spiritualization of religion. Societal growth curve modelling is applied to the data of the European Values Study for twenty European countries (1981–2008) to test hypotheses derived from both theories. The findings suggest that the typically foregrounded version of a de-institutionalization of Christianity needs to be rejected, while the typically unnoticed version of a spiritualization of religion is supported by the data.