Introduction

A central argument in Niklas Luhmann’s theory of society is that modern society comprises a variety of function systems. In an early version of his theory, written in the mid-1970s, Luhmann presented a list of ten important function systems: politics, law, the military, the economy, science, the family (and intimate relationships), art, education, medicine and religion. This list was not intended to be exhaustive. Some suggestions for including additional function systems, such as the mass media, social work, sports and tourism, were discussed in later publications. Throughout the different versions of his theory of society, however, Luhmann has continued to underline the idea that modern society is characterised by the primacy or dominance of the form of functional differentiation.

While religion may have contributed to the genesis of modern society, Luhmann argued, it has above all been forced to come to terms with the consequences of its differentiation form. ‘Today religion survives as a functional subsystem of a functionally differentiated society. It has gained recognised autonomy at the cost of recognizing the autonomy of the other subsystems, i.e., secularization’. Although, interestingly, Luhmann expressed some hesitations about the usefulness of the concept of secularisation in his late work, he kept using it – if only because it ‘calls attention to how religion reacts to the assumption of a secularised society’. While his hesitations have to do with changes in his view on the ways religion adapts to the form of functional differentiation, the challenges associated with secularisation provide a good avenue for analysing and discussing Luhmann’s view on the position of religion in modern society.

As is well known, Luhmann was an astonishingly productive author, able to cover a broad variety of topics. He devoted much time and effort to studies on (the evolution of) single function systems. As he remarked in the introduction to the essay collection The Differentiation of Society, the analysis of modern society as a functionally differentiated system ‘requires a detailed study of each of its single functional subsystems’. He covered religion in a number of papers as well as two books: Funktion der Religion and Die Religion der Gesellschaft.