Critical Philosophy of Religion and the Secularisation Thesis in Urban Nigeria: A Philosophical and Empirical Analysis

This study provides a philosophical and empirical analysis of the secularisation thesis in the context of urban Nigeria, examining whether the processes of modernisation, urbanisation, and education that classical sociology of religion predicted would produce secularisation have done so in Lagos (South West) and Abuja (North Central), and what philosophical implications the findings have for the sociology and philosophy of religion. The secularisation thesis, associated with Max Weber and Bryan Wilson, has been philosophically contested, and its application to sub-Saharan African urban contexts remains empirically and philosophically under-examined. A mixed-methods philosophical design is employed, combining systematic philosophical analysis of secularisation theory and the philosophy of religion from Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas with a quantitative survey of 400 urban adults in Lagos and Abuja measuring religious belief intensity and participation against modernisation indicators, supplemented by 35 qualitative interviews with sociologists of religion and philosophy academics. Findings reveal that urbanisation and education in Lagos and Abuja have produced a distinctive pattern of reflexive religiosity rather than secularisation, in which individuals maintain strong religious commitment while critically reinterpreting its content, constituting a philosophical challenge to both the secularisation thesis and the desecularisation counter-thesis. The study contributes an original philosophical account of reflexive religiosity as a third position in the secularisation debate. Keywords: secularisation thesis, philosophy of religion, urban Nigeria, Charles Taylor, reflexive religiosity.