Religions and social progress: critical assessments and creative partnerships

This extended version of the published version is also available at www.ipsp.org/downloads.This chapter starts from the premise that some 80 percent of the world’s population affirms some kind of religious identification, a percentage that is growing rather than declining. Emphasizing the significance of belief and practice in everyday lives and local contexts, we analyze the impact of religion and its relevance to social progress in a wide variety of fields: family, gender, and sexuality; diversity and democracy; conflict and peace; everyday wellbeing; and care for the earth. We also identify a series of cross-cutting themes that establish a foundation for policy-making

Is Europe an Exceptional Case?

© 2006 IASC, University of Virgini

Religion in Europe in the 21st Century: The Factors to Take into Account

© 2006 Cambridge University PressThis article considers six factors that are currently shaping the religious life of Europe. These are the Judaeo-Christian heritage, the continuing influence of the historic churches, the changing patterns of church-going, new arrivals from outside, secular reactions and the growing significance of religion in the modern world order. Any assessment of the future of religion in Europe must take all of these into account, not least their mutual and necessarily complex interactions

Changing Britain: whilst the non-religious are growing, new religious life is flourishing in urban areas

Grace Davie’s 1994 book Religion in Britain Since 1945 has been one of the leading resources in the field of the Sociology of Religion. A revised edition, published in 2015, describes the religious situation in twenty-first century Britain, taking into account the changes that have taken place in the last two decades. Here Davie explores the nature of these transformations

Belief and unbelief: two sides of a coin

Grace Davie writes regarding the nature of religion in modern Europe, and addresses factors of key significance. She identifies five significant factors affecting contemporary religion in Europe: the cultural heritage, the historical role of the state church, new models of the growing market in religion, the arrival in Europe of new religious groups, and the growth of the secular lobby. All of these subsist alongside each other. Davie makes the interesting case that the same factors are equally present in unbelief. [This paper originally appeared in Approaching Religion, vol. 2, no. 1 (2012), published by the Donner Institute. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor.]Publisher PD

Belief and unbelief: two sides of a coin

In what follows I build on to previous writing relating to the nature of religion (including religious belief) in modern Europe and the factors that must be taken into account if this is to be properly understood (Davie 1994, 2000, 2002, 2006). These factors are: •the cultural heritage of Europe; •the ‘old’ model of a moderately dominant state church which operates like a public utility; •a ‘newer’ model which takes the form of a growing market in religion; •the arrival into Europe of new groups of people both Christian and other; •an increasingly articulate secular lobby. The first point to grasp is that all five exist alongside each other and that they push and pull in different directions. The second point provides the focus for this article: namely that exactly the same factors that account for the nature of religious belief in European society are equally present in unbelief. I will take each of them in turn in order to illustrate this point

Vicarious Religion: A Response

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion © 2010 Copyright Taylor & Francis; Journal of Contemporary Religion is available online at http://www.informaworld.co

Progress report: religion and old age

© 1998 Cambridge University PressThe interconnections between religion and old age are complex; the more so given that the concept of age itself has – for a large part of human history – been determined by religious understandings of life. In traditional societies, religion played a crucial part in structuring the transitions between one stage of the life and the next and in defining maturity and fulfilment. And up to a point it still does: in Western societies at the turn of the millennium the association of religious rituals with key moments in the life course – birth, adolescence, marriage and above all death – remains widespread. Such interconnections change over time, however; they also vary from place to place

Belief and unbelief: Two sides of a coin

Grace Davie writes regarding the nature of religion in modern Europe, and addresses factors of key significance. She identifies five significant factors affecting contemporary religion in Europe: the cultural heritage, the historical role of the state church, new models of the growing market in religion, the arrival in Europe of new religious groups, and the growth of the secular lobby. All of these subsist alongside each other. Davie makes the interesting case that the same factors are equally present in unbelief.[This paper originally appreared in Approaching Religion, vo. 2, no. 1 (2012), published by the Donner Institute. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor.

A British Perspective

I have very much enjoyed reading this book – for two reasons. The first is straightforward: the book tells me a great deal about the present state of Catholicism, both in France and elsewhere. The editors have done a fine job in producing a well-written, well-organized and wide-ranging volume full of valuable information. This is a text to put into the hands of many different people. The second reason has more to do with indirect rather than direct gain: I see in these pages a mirror of my ow..