A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, 'So that the rumor of God may not completely disappear.
~ Peter L. Berger
I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization.
The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.
In a market economy, however, the individual has some possibility of escaping from the power of the state.
Even if one is interested only in one's own society, which is one's prerogative, one can understand that society much better by comparing it with others.
