Multiple Realities and Religion: A Sociological Approach

The essay introduces a number of sociological theories that can be used to explore how individuals combine religious and secular discourses in their consciousness and behavior in pluralistic societies. Two concepts coined by Alfred Schutz seem to be most fruitful for this enterprise: the notion of "multiple realities" (that make up an individual's life-world) and the notion of "relevance structures" (as co-existing and potentially conflicting perspectives within the reality of everyday life). While the capacity to switch between realities and to juggle relevancies is probably an anthropological constant, the number of available relevancies increases radically in the course of modernization.