Religious Diversity And Social Change

Floods of immigration and rapid industrialization and urbanization in America at the turn of the century set in motion the transformation of many long-established institutions. This book examines specific ways in which cultural changes affected the structure of the religious establishment. Statistical models are applied to United States Census data from 1890 and 1906 on city and church populations, revealing connections between the growth of cities, the increase in literacy, and the formation of ethnic subcommunities that led to a new level of religious diversity. The author analyses evidence of growing competition among churches and of a level of individual commitment to congregations, demonstrating that the patterns of religious community established at the turn of the century provided the basis for the current denominational system. The author further analyses the relationship of religious diversity to urban secularization, as well as its role as a catalyst to sectarian conflict. In offering a quantitative assessment of issues central to the history of American religion, this book is a significant contribution to the study of religion in America.

This text presents a new critical theory addressing religious diversity, Christian religious privilege, and Christian hegemony in the United States. It meets a growing and urgent need in our society—the need to bring together religiously diverse ways of thinking and being in the world, and eventually to transform our society through intentional pluralism. The primary goal of Critical Religious Pluralism Theory (CRPT) is to acknowledge the central roles of religious privilege, oppression, hegemony, and marginalization in maintaining inequality between Christians and non-Christians (including the nonreligious) in the United States. Following analysis of current literature on religious, secular, and spiritual identities within higher education, and in-depth discussion of critical theories on other identity elements, the text presents seven tenets of CRPT alongside seven practical guidelines for utilizing the theory to combat the very inequalities it exposes. For the first time, a critical theory will address directly the social impacts of religious diversity and its inherent benefits and complications in the United States. Critical Religious Pluralism in Higher Education will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in higher education, as well as critical theorists from other disciplines.

Family and religion face a myriad of challenges in the modern age. Although many social theorists think these institutions would be greatly weakened or eliminated in the course of modernization, this book rejects that notion and demonstrates that both family and religion--no matter what significant transformations they may be undergoing--are nevertheless well rooted in societies throughout the world. The persistence and vitality of these two institutions contradict the secularization thesis or the family decline thesis. Though the importance of religion and family is manifested in different ways and in different contexts, these institutions are important virtually everywhere, in both the public and private spheres. Family, Religion, and Social Change in Diverse Societies deals with family and religion together, examining their unique relationship as institutions as well as the way in which they interact with other social institutions, including politics and economics. Authored by an international group of scholars in sociology and anthropology, the fourteen essays are complex analyses of social change processes occurring within societies. Taking an inter-institutional perspective, each essay explores the special link between religion and family in a specific society. Together, the introduction and essays in the book cover societies on five continents, examining varying levels of economic development, diverse religious traditions, and differing degrees of cultural homogeneity. Providing informative and compelling studies, Family, Religion, and Social Change in Diverse Societies offers a good mix of both descriptive and statistical information.

This book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in learning about the many ways in which religious diversity is manifest in day-to-day life Canada. Each chapter addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with religious diversity in a different realm of social life from families to churches, from education to health care, and from Muslims to atheists. The contributors present key concepts, relevant statistical data and real-life stories from qualitative data. The content of the book is supplemented by links to online learning resources including videos, websites and photo essays.

"This book explores the governance of religious diversity in Western immigration countries. It focuses on changes in the political, legal, and social responses to religious diversity that have resulted from increased international migration and the public visibility of new religious minorities in Europe, North America, and Australia. Contributors examine contemporary theoretical debates about international migration, religious diversity and integration policy, and present original in-depth analyses of specific national contexts, allowing readers to observe social forces at work in the governance of religious diversity. These national case studies are put into comparative perspective through an examination of both international normative frameworks for policy-formulation and the impact of contemporary world events on public discourse about the relationship between religious diversity and migration." --Book Jacket.

With the theory of secularization increasingly contested as a plausible development at a global scale, this book focuses on the changing significance of the religious element within a context of complex diversity. This concept reflects the rationale behind the deep transformations that have taken place in the dynamics of social change, giving way to a recombination of social, political and cultural cleavages that overlap and compete for legitimacy at a national and supranational level. Far from disappearing with modernization, new forms of religious diversity have emerged that continue to demand specific policies from the state, putting pressure on the established practices of religious governance while creating a series of normative dilemmas. European societies have been a testing ground for many of these changes, but for decades Canada has been viewed as a pioneering country in the management of diversity, thus offering some interesting similarities and contrasts with the former. Accordingly, the book deals with the diverging routes that political secularization has followed in Europe and Canada, the patterns of religious governance that can be recognized in each region, and the practices for accommodating the demands of religious minorities concerning their legal regulation, the management of public institutions, and the provision of social services.

Religious diversity is now a social fact in most countries of the world. While reports of the impact of religious diversity on Europe and North America are reasonably well-known, the ways in which Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific are religiously diverse and the ways this diversity has been managed are not. This book addresses this lack of information about one of the largest and most diverse regions of the world. It describes the religious diversity of 27 nations, as large and complex as Indonesia and as small as Tuvalu, outlining the current issues and the basic policy approaches to religious diversity. Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands are portrayed as a living laboratory of various religious blends, with a wide variance of histories and many different approaches to managing religious diversity. While interesting in their own right, a study of these nations provides a wealth of case studies of diversity management – most of them stories of success and inclusion.

The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity engages with one of the most characteristic features of modern society. An increasingly prominent and potentially contentious phenomenon, religious diversity is intimately associated with contemporary issues such as migration, human rights, social cohesion, socio-cultural pluralisation, political jurisdiction, globalisation, and reactionary belief systems. This edited collection of specially-commissioned chapters provides an unrivalled geographical coverage and multidisciplinary treatment of the socio-political processes and institutional practices provoked by, and associated with, religious diversity. Alongside chapters treating religious diversity in the ‘BRIC’ countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, are contributions which discuss Australia, Finland, Mexico, South Africa, the UK, and the United States. This book provides an accessible, distinctive and timely treatment of a topic which is inextricably linked with modern society’s progressively diverse and global trajectory. Written and structured as an accessible volume for the student reader, this book is of immediate interest to both academics and laypersons working in mainstream and political sociology, sociology of religion, human geography, politics, area studies, migration studies and religious studies.