Subject and purpose of work: This work presents an economic theory of religion. Its aim is to gain insight into one of the modern concepts of religion in the perspective of secularisation. Materials ...and methods: While describing the essence of this theory, apart from personal views, also other opinions of contemporary sociologists of religion were used. Results: This study highlighted the fact that the presented concept has a diverse range of references and interprets religion in a specific way. It is a concept competing against the secularisation thesis, and its essence is in direct application of the rational choice theory and exchange theory. Conclusions: Approaching religion only through the formula of supply, significantly reduces the field of interpretation and does not explain all the mechanisms of religious changes in the contemporary world.
This collection reflects on ways in which right-wing populisms in Europe and the USA unsettle what had become common understandings of the sacred in the study of religion and politics. Whereas ...secularisation theories long associated the sacred with religion, and in particular Latin Christianity, right-wing populism has demonstrated a remarkable potential for mobilising the sacred through relentless sacralisations of nationhood. Their reliance on Christian imaginaries and symbols for predominantly and possibly exclusively secular purposes means that scholarship must rethink 'the sacred' as a potentially immanent phenomenon. Contributions from politics, sociology, and theology discuss the relationship between sacralisations of nationhood and meanings of public space, public policy on migration and integration, and ways in which Christian theology might critique the secular appropriation of religious repertoires.
In this article I present the main findings of an empirical study about contemporary spirituality in Italy begun in 2017 by reasoning about the analysis of twelve case studies which are particularly ...eloquent concerning the different spiritual worlds emerging in Catholic Italy. I argue that three main narratives—the spirituality of nature, wellbeing, and mystery—are useful to synthesize the heterogeneousness of groups, communities, festivals, and organizations engaged in the Italian “holistic milieu”. In order to address this reflection, firstly I will trace the international sociological debate that has accompanied the concept of contemporary spirituality and the relationship between spirituality and religion, a couple which I have named “frenemies”. Then, I will extend the analysis to the concept of the secular, examining the intertwining of the spiritual, religious, and secular spheres. After illustrating the landscape of contemporary spirituality in Catholic Italy more broadly, I shall focus on the case studies taken as examples of the spirituality of nature, the spirituality of health and wellbeing, and the spirituality of mystery. In the Discussion and Conclusion, I shall raise some fundamental questions that the study of contemporary spirituality poses for the sociology of religion with reference to secularisation, one of its most classic and yet contested paradigms. I shall claim that future research paths could further contribute to strengthening the idea, raised in this article, that secularisation can also be understood not only as an antithetical force to religion but as the process in Western history that has led to the emergence of a secular social space in dialogue with the religious sphere.
From the display of oversized crosses at the United States Capitol riots, to a new rhetoric centred on defence of the 'Judaeo-Christian West' in Europe: right-wing populist movements on both sides of ...the Atlantic are intensifying their use of Christian symbols and language. Many observers have interpreted such rhetoric as symptomatic of a conservative religious resurgence against secular liberalism and multiculturalism. However, several indicators suggest a more complicated relationship between the populist Right, religion, and secularisation. For instance, in the United States Donald Trump was perceived to be the least religious Republican party candidate in recent history, while in Europe church attendance remains a strong predictor for not voting for right-wing populist parties. Deploying a demand- and supply-side framework to understand the socio-demographic roots behind the rise of right-wing populist movements and the motives behind their references to Christianity, this contribution posits that right-wing populists primarily employ Christianity as a cultural identity marker to mobilise voters around a new post-religious identity cleavage. However, they often remain distanced from Christian doctrine, beliefs, and institutions, and instead seek to combine cultural references to Christianity with secular policies, suggesting a secularisation of Christian symbols rather than a resurgence of religion in western politics.
This introductory article contextualises relevant historiography and explores definitions of 'modernity', 'modernisation' and 'secularisation'. The twentieth century posed distinct challenges to ...efforts to relate faith to the social order: accelerating industrialisation, urbanisation and functional differentiation as well as the growing impact of technology and predominance of science. The subjective perspectives of Church leaders and lay Christian intellectuals as they sought to understand and respond to these conditions are historically important. This issue explores these themes in Britain and Ireland, taking into account a range of Christian reactions to transforming societies, stressing how Christians developed innovative strategies for meeting new challenges.
Building on recent literature, this article discusses four ways of studying the relationship between religion and nationalism. The first is to treat religion and nationalism, along with ethnicity and ...race, as analogous phenomena. The second is to specify ways in which religion helps explain things about nationalism – its origin, its power or its distinctive character in particular cases. The third is to treat religion as part of nationalism, and to specify modes of interpenetration and intertwining. The fourth is to posit a distinctively religious form of nationalism. The article concludes by reconsidering the much‐criticised understanding of nationalism as a distinctively secular phenomenon.
Spectacular new religious buildings on London's outskirts are often cited as evidence of London's multicultural diversity. However, the suburban location of these new buildings is usually dismissed ...as incongruous, drawing on familiar tropes of the suburbs as sites of modernisation, materialism and secularism. This paper uses this assumed incongruity to address the complexity of relationships between religion and suburban space by tracing the significance of religion in changing suburban geographies through a focus on London's suburbs. The paper begins with a critique of the absence of religion in suburban studies, which emphasise secularisation and homogeneity. The rediscovery of the creative potential of the suburbs gives little consideration to religious creativity. Similarly recent work on diasporas and religion have little to say about the significance of the suburban. Our paper uses three case studies, of different faith groups, from North and West London to explore three distinctive articulations of the relationship between religion and suburban space that we call 'semi-detached faith', 'edge-city faith' and 'ethnoburb faith'. These examples are not intended as ideal types but as analytical categories that open up the relationships between space, faith and mobilities. We argue there is a need to more carefully theorise the ways in which faith communities have engaged with the challenges of suburban geographies including processes of secularisation and suggest that the study of faith in suburbia offers new ways of thinking about the complexity of suburban space.
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