Religion as Memory: The Urge to Remember as a Vehicle of Religious Revival

Too often, the debate about the relationship between religion, secularism and modernity restricts itself to the role of G-D in human affairs. Religion and secularization are both defined in terms of the strength of human belief in G-D, and the role of such beliefs in our society. Lost in this debate is the fundamental truth that religion is as much a relationship with one’s past as it is with one’s deity. The role of religion as a vehicle for the transmission of memory is one that can aid in understanding religion, and its rise and fall in the modern world. Understanding what developments cause people to either forget or hold tightly to these portions of their past is vital in order to understand the direction of religious development. Britain’s success, and the Soviet Union’s failure, in inhibiting the ability of religious communities to transmit memories and traditions from one generation to the next can help to explain the secularism of the former and the religious revival that is taking place in some parts of the latter. If there is one thing that the various warring sides in the secularization debate seem to agree on, it is the definition of religion itself. Steve Bruce and Rodney Stark may disagree on almost every issue, but they define religion is surprisingly similar ways. Bruce, a noted scholar of secularization and the author of G-D is Dead: Secularization in the West, describes religion a