The movement away from secularist practices and toward political Islam is a prominent trend across Muslim polities. Yet this shift remains under-theorized. Why do modern Muslim polities adopt policies that explicitly cater to religious sensibilities? How are these encoded in law and with what effects? Sadia Saeed addresses these questions through examining shifts in Pakistan's official state policies toward the rights of religious minorities, in particular the controversial Ahmadiyya community. Looking closely at the 'Ahmadi question', Saeed develops a framework for conceptualizing and explaining modern desecularization processes that emphasizes the critical role of nation-state formation, political majoritarianism, and struggles between 'secularist' and 'religious' ideologues in evolving political and legal fields. The book demonstrates that desecularization entails instituting new understandings of religion through processes and justifications that are quintessentially modern.

Theorists of "secularization" have for two centuries been saying that religion must inevitably decline in the modern world. But today, much of the world is as religious as ever. This volume challenges the belief that the modern world is increasingly secular, showing instead that modernization more often strengthens religion. Seven leading cultural observers examine several regions and several religions and explain the resurgence of religion in world politics. Peter L. Berger opens with a global overview. The other six writers deal with particular aspects of the religious scene: George Weigel, with Roman Catholicism;David Martin, with the evangelical Protestant upsurge not only in the Western world but also in Latin America, Africa, the Pacific rim, China, and Eastern Europe; Jonathan Sacks, with Jews and politics in the modern world; Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, with political Islam in national politics and international relations; Grace Davie, with Europe as perhaps the exception to the desecularization thesis; and Tu Weiming, with religion in the People's Republic of China.

The movement away from secularist practices and toward political Islam is a prominent trend across Muslim polities. Yet this shift remains under-theorized. Why do modern Muslim polities adopt policies that explicitly cater to religious sensibilities? How are these encoded in law and with what effects? Sadia Saeed addresses these questions through examining shifts in Pakistan's official state policies toward the rights of religious minorities, in particular the controversial Ahmadiyya community. Looking closely at the 'Ahmadi question', Saeed develops a framework for conceptualizing and explaining modern desecularization processes that emphasizes the critical role of nation-state formation, political majoritarianism, and struggles between 'secularist' and 'religious' ideologues in evolving political and legal fields. The book demonstrates that desecularization entails instituting new understandings of religion through processes and justifications that are quintessentially modern.

This book challenges the modern myth that tolerance grows as societies become less religious. The myth inseparably links the progress of toleration to the secularization of modern society. This volume scrutinizes this grand narrative theoretically and empirically, and proposes alternative accounts of the varied relationships between diverse interpretations of religion and secularity and multiple secularizations, desecularizations, and forms of toleration. The authors show how both secular and religious orthodoxies inform toleration and persecution, and how secularizations and desecularizations engender repressive or pluralistic regimes. Ultimately, the book offers an agency-focused perspective which links the variation in toleration and persecution to the actors of secularization and desecularization and their cultural programs.

During the 20th century many countries embarked on a process of constitutional secularization by which the role of religion gradually became limited. Yet, by the late 20th century, and increasingly following the end of the Cold War, this development began to be challenged. This book examines the return of religion in constitutions through the concept of constitutional de-secularization. It places this phenomenon in the context of the constitutional memory of the countries in which it has taken place and critically examines it against the development and standards of constitutionalism, as the prevailing constitutional legal and political theory. Central to this analysis is the impact of constitutional de-secularization on the regulation of equality in liberty, that is, both the regulation of constitutional rights and the scope for equality of those who are granted such rights. The book argues that equal liberty forms an essential part of constitutionalism as a theory, and that constitutionalism therefore entails a continuous development towards expanding it. The first and second part of the book presents a conceptual framework for the study of constitutional de-secularization. The third part presents and analyses three cases of constitutional de-secularization in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. The book will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers interested in constitutional history and theory, and the role of religion in law and its compatibility with human rights.

This book is the summation of many decades of work by Peter L. Berger, an internationally renowned sociologist of religion. Secularization theory—which saw modernity as leading to a decline of religion—has been empirically falsified. It should be replaced by a nuanced theory of pluralism. In this new book, Berger outlines the possible foundations for such a theory, addressing a wide range of issues spanning individual faith, interreligious societies, and the political order. He proposes a conversation around a new paradigm for religion and pluralism in an age of multiple modernities. The book also includes responses from three eminent scholars of religion: Nancy Ammerman, Detlef Pollack, and Fenggang Yang.

Religions are reemerging in the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied and dominated by secular institutions and ideologies. In the wake of crises exposing the limits of secular modernity, religions have again become significant players in domestic and international politics. At the same time, the Catholic Church has sought a "holy alliance" among the world's faiths to recentralize devout influence, an important, albeit little-noticed, evolution in international relations. Holy Wars and Holy Alliance explores the nation-state's current crisis in order to better understand the religious resurgence's implications for geopolitics. Manlio Graziano looks at how the Catholic Church promotes dialogue and action linking world religions, and examines how it has used its material, financial, and institutional strength to gain power and increase its profile in present-day international politics. Challenging the idea that modernity is tied to progress and secularization, Graziano documents the "return" or the "revenge" of God in all facets of life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as once predicted. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work today, he argues, we must appreciate the nature of religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.

"Handbook of Religion and the Asian City highlights the creative and innovative role of urban aspirations in Asian world cities. It points out that urban politics and governance are often about religious boundaries and processions--in short, that public religion is politics. The essays show how projects of secularism come up against projects and ambitions of a religious nature, a particular form of contestation that takes the city as its public arena. Asian cities are sites of speculation, not only for those who invest in real estate but also for those who look for housing, for employment, and for salvation. In its potential and actual mobility, the sacred creates social space in which they all can meet. Handbook of Religion and the Asian City makes the comparative case that one cannot study the historical patterns of urbanization in Asia without paying attention to the role of religion in urban aspirations"--Provided by publisher.

Since the end of the Cold War, religion has become an ever more explicit and systematic focus of US foreign policy across multiple domains. US foreign policymakers, for instance, have been increasingly tasked with monitoring religious freedom and promoting it globally, delivering humanitarian and development aid abroad by drawing on faith-based organizations, fighting global terrorism by seeking to reform Muslim societies and Islamic theologies, and advancing American interests and values more broadly worldwide by engaging with religious actors and dynamics. Simply put, religion has become a major subject and object of American foreign policy in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. In Finding Faith in Foreign Policy, Gregorio Bettiza explains the causes and consequences of this shift by developing an original theoretical framework and drawing upon extensive empirical research and interviews. He argues that American foreign policy and religious forces have become ever more inextricably entangled in an age witnessing a global resurgence of religion and the emergence of a postsecular world society. He further shows how the boundaries between faith and state have been redefined through processes of desecularization in the context of American foreign policy, leading the most powerful state in the international system to intervene and reshape in increasingly sustained ways sacred and secular landscapes around the globe. Drawing from a rich evidentiary base spanning twenty-five years, Finding Faith in Foreign Policy details how a wave of religious enthusiasm has transformed not just American foreign policy, but the entire international system.