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

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.

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.

Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.

If you are good for nothing else, you can still serve as a bad example.

It has been true in Western societies and it seems to be true elsewhere that you do not find democratic systems apart from capitalism, or apart from a market economy, if you prefer that term

Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy.