Can Rising Rates of Church Participation Be a Consequence of Secularization?

An influential theory in the sociology of religion holds that the separation of church and state forces religious organizations to compete with one another for adherents. This competitive climate heightens levels of church participation. This paper examines two cases where rates of individual religious activity increased following the differentiaon of political and ecclesiastical stuctures as the competition theory predicts. However, the facts surrounding these increases are riot wholly consistent with the theory's propositions. Rather, I show that a heretofore neglected variant of secularization theory suggests a mechanism that better links the process of social differentiation to changes in individual religious participation.