Is God Back? Reconsidering the New Visibility of Religion

Is God Back? Reconsidering the New Visibility of Religion examines the shifting boundary between religion and the public sphere in Europe and the Middle East. Asking what the 'new visibility of religion' means and challenging simplistic notions of living in a 'post-secular' age, the chapters explore how religion is contested and renegotiated in the public sphere – or rather, in different publics – and the effects of these struggles on society, state and religion itself.

Whereas religion arguably never went away in the USA, the re-emergence of public religion is a European phenomenon. Is God Back? provides timely case studies from Europe, as well as extending to the Middle East, where fledgling democracies are struggling to create models of governance that stem from the European secular model, but which need to be able to accommodate a much more public form of religiosity. Discussions include the new visibility of neo-Pagan and Native Faith groups in Europe, Evangelical Christians and Church teaching on sexuality in the UK, and Islamic social Movements in the Arab world.

Drawing from empirical and theoretical research on religion and national identity, religion and media, church-state relationships, and religion and welfare, Is God Back? is a rich source for students and scholars interested in the changing face of public religion in the modern world, including those studying the sociology of religion, social policy, and theology.

Titus Hjelm is Lecturer in Finnish Society and Culture at University College London, UK.

1. Understanding the New Visibility of Religion, Titus Hjelm (Lecturerin Finnish Society and Culture, UCL, UK)
Part I: Conceptualizing Public Religion
2. Conceptualizing the Public in Mediatized Religion, Mia Löveheim (Professorin Sociology of Religion, University of Uppsala, Sweden)
3. Renegotiating Public Religion: Perspectives on Secularization andthe Post-Secular, Marta Axner (Researcher at the Uppsala Religion and SocietyResearch Centre, Sweden)
4. Religious Cleavages and Social Cohesion in European Civil Societies,Annette Schnabel (Professor of Sociology, Bergische Universität Wuppertal,Germany) and Florian Grötsch (Researcher, Bergische Universität Wuppertal,Germany)
5. A Militant Tendency? Examining Anti-Secularist Discourse in theUnited Kingdom, Steven Kettell (Associate Professor of Politics andInternational Studies, University of Warwick, UK)
6. Negotiating the Public and Private in Everyday Evangelicalism, AnnaStrhan (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Religious Studies, University ofKent, UK)
7. Nationalism and Transnationalism in Contemporary Pagan and NativeFaith groups in Europe, Kathryn Rountree (Professor of Anthropology, MasseyUniversity, New Zealand)
Part II: Reconfiguring the Religion-State Relationship
8. Religion and the State in the 21st Century:the Alternative between Laicité and ReligiousFreedom, Luca Diotallevi (Professor of Sociology, University of Rome TRE)
9. The Sacred State: Religion, Ritual and Power in the United Kingdom(Norman Bonney, Emeritus Professor, Edinburgh Napier University, UK)
10. The Role of Religion in the Scottish Independence Referendum, PaulGilfillian (Lecturer in Sociology at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK)
11. One Volk, One Church? A Critique of the 'Folk' Church Ideology inFinland (Titus Hjelm, Lecturer in Finnish Culture and Society, UCL, UK)
12. Religion, Democracy and the Challenge of the Arab Spring (IanMorrison, Assistant Professor of Sociology, American University in Cairo,Egypt)
Part III:Religion and Social Action
13. Islamic Social Movements in the Arab World and Social WelfareProvision: A Viable Form of Social Action (Rana Jawad, Lecturer in SocialPolicy, University of Bath, UK)
14. Understanding Religion and Ethnicity in the Care in older BlackAfrican and South Asian Communities in the UK, Akile Ahmet (Post-doctoralResearch Fellow, Brunel University London, UK)
15. Religion and the transnational Roma Mobilization, Raluca BiancaRoman (PhD Candidate, University of St Andrews, UK)
Bibliography
Index