Is Britain heading towards a secular society?

An interesting article has emerged on The Guardian website about how religion has significantly decreased in modern Britain. The article is a fabulous way of demonstrating how secularisation has started to come into full force within our society, which obviously is hotly contested by a wide range of sociological perspectives as to whether this is the case or not.

In addition, the article is a perfect introduction to postmodernism as it poses several questions:

• Are other beliefs becoming more dominant? E.g. New Age?
• Is this evidence that the traditional metanarratives have demised?
• Why are people less religious compared to the past? 
• What has become a natural way of thinking in our world? (link with science as a belief system).

Once students engage with those starter questions they can start to identify that individuals have become more consumeristic in their approach. They are now treating religion as something which they can browse and try out from the ‘supermarket of life’.

Students will be able to select information which is modern and useful for their understanding of the subject matter that is being covered. Modern statistics which will make them stand out and add some power to their paragraphs. 

References: More than half UK population has no religion, survey finds