Between December and February, the festive calendars of the world’s major religions appear to pass a symbolic relay from one tradition to another. Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan follow each other in close succession, creating a dense temporal corridor of ritual, memory, and meaning. This sequence is more than a coincidence of dates; it offers a unique lens through which to observe how religion, spirituality, and cultural belonging are negotiated in the contemporary world.

Christmas, in particular, occupies a strikingly ambiguous position within this cycle. It is at once a deeply religious celebration and a profoundly secular cultural event. For some, it marks the incarnation of divine presence; for others, it is a season of family, generosity, and collective nostalgia largely detached from theological belief. This dual character does not weaken the holiday’s significance—on the contrary, it reveals how religious symbols continue to circulate, transform, and retain emotional power even as their institutional meanings shift.

Placed alongside Hanukkah and Ramadan, Christmas becomes part of a broader rhythm that highlights the plurality of ways in which faith is lived today. These festive periods do not simply express fixed doctrines; they activate practices of remembrance, ethical reflection, and communal orientation that cross the boundaries between belief and non-belief. Together, they illuminate a world in which relationships to religion and spirituality are neither uniform nor oppositional but layered, situational, and deeply contextual.

Reflecting on this seasonal sequence invites a reconsideration of how contemporary societies relate to the sacred. Rather than signaling a linear movement toward secularization or a return to rigid religiosity, the overlapping presence of these celebrations points to a more nuanced reality: one in which tradition and reinvention coexist, and where spiritual meaning is continuously reinterpreted within both religious and secular frames.

One of the most defining experiences of contemporary spirituality is not the disappearance of faith but its radical transformation. Religion is no longer a self-evident inheritance; rather, it has become an object of choice, reflection, and often experimentation. This transformation cannot be understood along geographical or civilizational fault lines but rather in the tension between institutionalized world religions and the social logic of liquid modernity, as described by Zygmunt Bauman.

The global map of religiosity is frequently presented through a simplified, colonial logic: according to this view, the “East” is religious and spiritual, while the “West” is rational, secular, and economically developed. This dichotomy, however, is not only empirically problematic but also theoretically distorting. Contemporary comparative anthropological and sociological data demonstrate that the degree and form of religiosity are not tied to civilizational essences but to social arrangements, historical experiences, and institutional structures.

Large-scale international surveys—most notably the global studies conducted by the Pew Research Center and the World Values Survey—consistently indicate that in Western Europe, religion plays a less central personal role, rates of regular religious practice are lower, and religion’s communal and normative functions are weaker than in many other parts of the world. This phenomenon, however, should not be understood simply as “secularization,” but rather aligns closely with Bauman’s diagnosis of liquid modernity.

According to Bauman, in liquid modernity social bonds loosen, identity becomes individualized, and commitment becomes temporary. In this context, religion does not disappear but is privatized and fragmented: it loses its community-organizing and norm-generating power and becomes a source of individual meaning. From this perspective, Europe—particularly Western Europe—is not “less spiritual,” but structurally more fluid: faith is less closely tied to institutions, family traditions, or collective identities.

The colonial perspective becomes especially problematic when it portrays the “East” as homogeneously religious and traditional. Empirical data, by contrast, show that in many East Asian societies—such as Japan or South Korea—the personal importance of religion and levels of institutional religious practice are notably low, while in other regions (for example, South Asia or the Middle East) religion does indeed play a stronger normative and communal role. The “East,” therefore, is not uniformly religious, just as the “West” is not uniformly secular.

What survey data do reveal with relative consistency, however, is that religion and family as core values are less prominent in Western Europe than in many other regions of the world. This is not a cultural “deficit,” but rather a consequence of individualist social organization. Individual autonomy, self-realization, and mobility become primary values, while religion and family—as institutions requiring long-term, reciprocal commitment—are more difficult to integrate into the logic of liquid modernity.

It is important to emphasize that this does not mean that faith, spirituality, or family bonds are absent in Western Europe. Rather, they tend to exist in less collective, less normative, and less institutionalized forms. Religion often appears as a personal search, while family emerges as a network of chosen relationships rather than a prescribed way of life. By contrast, in societies where communal and familial bonds are stronger, religion is more likely to serve as a sustaining, identity-forming force.

The colonial East–West opposition thus obscures what is most significant: societies do not primarily differ along axes of “development” or “spirituality,” but rather in the extent to which they are individualist or collectivist, fluid or structured. Global patterns of religiosity support this more nuanced picture. Europe’s religious “exceptionalism” is not evidence of superior rationality but rather an indication that liquid modernity has transformed the social roles of faith, family, and community particularly deeply in this region.

Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity describes a phase of modernity in which social forms lose their durability. Institutions, norms, and identities do not disappear, but they no longer remain stable enough to provide long-term orientation for individuals (Bauman, 2000). Liquidity does not imply chaos but constant motion: change becomes the norm, and uncertainty a structural condition.

Within this social environment, identity is not an inheritance but a project. Individuals are tasked with repeatedly reconstructing themselves, while responsibility for failure is also individualized (Bauman, 2001). Freedom does not appear as liberation but as compulsion: one must choose, even in the absence of stable reference points. According to Bauman, this process generates profound existential anxiety, as structures that once provided security gradually dissolve (Bauman, 2007).

In this sense, religion does not remain untouched. Institutionalized world religions are historically linked to the logic of “solid modernity”: they offer stable narratives, normative systems, rituals, and communal frameworks. They do not merely transmit belief but entire lifeworlds—embedding themselves in everyday life and structuring time, relationships, and moral decision-making. Institutionalization here does not necessarily mean rigidity, but continuity: a framework within which a broad spectrum—from reformist to orthodox positions—can exist.

The social logic of liquid modernity, however, struggles to accommodate this type of commitment. Long-term attachment, authority, and normativity become alien in a world that rewards flexibility and constant reinvention. Religion, therefore, does not disappear but becomes fragmented and privatized (Bauman, 2000; Hervieu-Léger, 2000). A contemporary form of spirituality emerges that does not inherit a system but selects elements: practices, symbols, and teachings drawn from various traditions. Faith becomes a colorful, fusion-like tapas plate—a collage of meanings that reveals more about the individual’s identity than about the systems from which it draws.

This process is well captured within Bauman’s framework: faith becomes consumable, combinable, and temporary. Spirituality turns into an identity technology that helps individuals navigate uncertainty without demanding exclusivity or lasting commitment. In this sense, religion can be incorporated into the logic of liquid modernity—but only partially. Bauman’s theory compellingly describes the social transformation of religion, yet it does not capture the inner, existential dimension of faith: the experience of being addressed or called, rather than choosing.

At this point, Erich Fromm’s thought becomes relevant. In Escape from Freedom, Fromm argues that modern humanity has freed itself from the compulsory authority of traditional institutions, yet this liberation has resulted not in autonomy but in anxiety (Fromm, 1941/1994). Fromm distinguishes between negative freedom—the absence of constraints—and positive freedom, which entails the capacity for authentic action, creativity, and meaningful connection.

Fromm’s “traditional institutions” thus appear as ambivalent actors: they both constrain and sustain. In liquid modernity, these sustaining structures weaken, while the burden of meaning-making falls increasingly on the individual (Fromm, 1955; 1976). Contemporary, fluid spirituality can therefore be understood as an attempt by individuals to personally reconstruct a system of meaning that was previously available in institutionalized form.

In this field of tension, faith is not a net, but a wing. As long as individuals are able to fly, freedom dominates the experience. When exhaustion sets in, however, the longing for a net returns—for a framework that does not absorb but sustains. The central question of contemporary spirituality thus becomes not whether one must choose between institution and freedom, but whether a form of faith is possible that can balance freedom and groundedness within the conditions of liquid modernity.

References

Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity Press.
Bauman, Z. (2001). The individualized society. Polity Press.
Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. Polity Press.
Fromm, E. (1994). Escape from freedom. Henry Holt and Company. (Original work published 1941)
Fromm, E. (1955). The sane society. Rinehart & Company.
Fromm, E. (1976). To have or to be? Harper & Row.
Hervieu-Léger, D. (2000). Religion as a chain of memory. Polity Press.
Pew Research Center. (2017). Religious belief and national belonging in Central and Eastern Europe. Pew Research Center.
Pew Research Center. (2018). The age gap in religion around the world. Pew Research Center.
Pew Research Center. (2025). Religion and spirituality in 30+ countries. Pew Research Center.
World Values Survey Association. (2022). World Values Survey: Round 7 (2017–2022) official aggregate data file. JD Systems Institute.