The Future of Religious Heritage examines the resurgence of religious heritage in a secular age and frames such heritage as both legacy from the past and promise for the future. Drawing on case studies from across Europe, this volume addresses the intersection of three well-defined areas of research: secularism, religious heritage and the question of renewal. Considering the heritagisation of religion and the sacralisation of heritage, contributions to the book consider to what extent the idea of renewal, so pivotal to religious and secular ontologies, is present in heritage formations. Thinking about the temporalities of re-enactment and reconstruction, this volume examines whether heritage practices incorporate religious time into secular practice. Problematising such temporalities of the sacred in our post-secular age, the volume explores how these intersections of religious and secular time in heritage practices inform constructions of the future. The Future of Religious Heritage addresses the paradox of the secularisation of religion and the sacralisation of heritage in a post-secular age. It will appeal to academics and students with an interest in critical heritage studies, religion, and (post)secularism, and will also be of interest to those studying re-enactment, regeneration and renewal.

This book offers a unique transdisciplinary collection of essays written by highly renowned international scholars.

Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, architectural historian Robert Proctor examines the transformations in British Roman Catholic church architecture that took place in the two decades surrounding this crucial event. Inspired by new thinking in theology and changing practices of worship, and by a growing acceptance of modern art and architecture, architects designed radical new forms of church building in a campaign of new buildings for new urban contexts. A focussed study of mid-twentieth century church architecture, Building the Modern Church considers how architects and clergy constructed the image and reality of the Church as an institution through its buildings. The author examines changing conceptions of tradition and modernity, and the development of a modern church architecture that drew from the ideas of the liturgical movement. The role of Catholic clergy as patrons of modern architecture and art and the changing attitudes of the Church and its architects to modernity are examined, explaining how different strands of post-war architecture were adopted in the field of ecclesiastical buildings. The church building’s social role in defining communities through rituals and symbols is also considered, together with the relationships between churches and modernist urban planning in new towns and suburbs. Case studies analysed in detail include significant buildings and architects that have remained little known until now. Based on meticulous historical research in primary sources, theoretically informed, fully referenced, and thoroughly illustrated, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the church architecture, art and theology of this period.

The Routledge Handbook of Religious and Spiritual Tourism provides a robust and comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the literature in this growing sub-field of tourism. This handbook is split into five distinct sections. The first section covers past and present debates regarding definitions, theories, and concepts related to religious and spiritual tourism. Subsequent sections focus on the supply and demand aspects of religious and spiritual tourism markets, and examine issues related to the management side of these markets around the world. Areas under examination include religious theme parks, the UNESCO branding of religious heritage, gender and performance, popular culture, pilgrimage, environmental impacts, and fear and terrorism, among many others. The final section explores emerging and future directions in religious and spiritual tourism, and proposes an agenda for further research. Interdisciplinary in coverage and international in scope through its authorship and content, this will be essential reading for all students, researchers, and academics interested in Tourism, Religion, Cultural Studies, and Heritage Studies.

Demography drives religious change. High-fertility societies, like most of contemporary Africa, tend to be fervent and devout. The lower a population's fertility rates, the greater the tendency for people to detach from organized or institutional religion. Thus, fertility rates supply an effective gauge of secularization trends. In Fertility and Faith, Philip Jenkins maps the demographic revolution that has taken hold of many countries around the globe in recent decades and explores the implications for the future development of the world's religions. Demographic change has driven the secularization of contemporary Western Europe, where the revolution began. Jenkins shows how the European trajectory of rapid declines in fertility is now affecting much of the globe. The implications are clear: the religious character of many non-European areas is highly likely to move in the direction of sweeping secularization. And this is now reshaping the United States itself. This demographic revolution is reshaping Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism. In order to accommodate the new social trends, these religions must adapt to situations where large families are no longer the norm. Each religious tradition will develop distinctive emphases concerning morality, gender, and sexuality, as well as the roles of clergy and laity in the faith's institutional structures. Radical change follows great upheaval. The tidal shift is well underway. With Fertility and Faith, Philip Jenkins describes this ongoing phenomenon and envisions our collective religious future.

This book shares papers from a conference taking a deeper look at the victims of ISIS and beyond that all religious minorities of Iraq. This is the first book that considers all the religious minorities that existed in modern Iraq, including both historic communities and new groups that recently came with labour migration, especially to the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan. The book resulted from a conference in 2018 organized exactly at the site of the Simele Massacre in 1933. The campus of the American University of Kurdistan is located on the site of the first big massacre against a religious minority in Iraq. The conference entitled ‘Beyond ISIS: Minorities and Religious Diversity in Iraq and the Future of Êzîdî, Christians, Shabak, Yarsan, Mandeans and other Religious Minorities in the Middle East’ brought together Iraqi and international scholars, activists, and religious and community representatives. This book contains papers presented at the conference that included contributions on Iraq’s religious diversity and the historical and contemporary consequences of genocide and persecution on the religious minorities of Iraq.

This book explores emerging conflicts about religious liberty and discrimination. In point-counterpoint format, it brings together longtime LGBT rights advocate John Corvino and rising conservative thinkers Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis to debate Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs), anti-discrimination law, and age-old questions about identity, morality, and society.

Religion is alive and well in the modern world, and the social-scientific study of religion is undergoing a renaissance. For much of this century, respected social theorists predicted the death of religion as inevitable consequence of science, education, and modern economics. But they were wrong. Stark and Bainbridge set out to explain the survival of religion. Using information derived from numerous surveys, censuses, historical case studies, and ethnographic field expeditions, they chart the full sweep of contemporary religion from the traditional denominations to the most fervent cults. This wealth of information is located within a coherent theoretical framework that examines religion as a social response to human needs, both the general needs shared by all and the desires specific to those who are denied the economic rewards or prestige enjoyed by the privileged. By explaining the forms taken by religions today, Stark and Bainbridge allow us to understand its persistence in a secular age and its prospects for the future, This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985. Religion is alive and well in the modern world, and the social-scientific study of religion is undergoing a renaissance. For much of this century, respected social theorists predicted the death of religion as inevitable consequence of science, education,

This book explores the recent trend toward the transformation of religious symbols and practices into culture in Western democracies. Analyses of three legal cases involving religion in the public sphere are used to illuminate this trend: a municipal council chamber; a town hall; and town board meetings. Each case involves a different national context—Canada, France and the United States—and each illustrates something interesting about the shape-shifting nature of religion, specifically its flexibility and dexterity in the face of the secular, the religious and the plural. Despite the differences in national contexts, in each instance religion is transformed into culture or heritage by the courts to justify or excuse its presence and to distance the state from the possibility that it is violating legal norms of distance from religion. The cultural practice or symbol is represented as a shared national value or activity. Transforming the ‘Other’ into ‘Us’ through reconstitution is also possible. Finally, anxiety about the ‘Other’ becomes part of the story of rendering religion as culture, resulting in the impugning of anyone who dares to question the putative shared culture. The book will be essential reading for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of sociology of religion, religious studies, socio-legal studies, law and public policy, constitutional law, religion and politics, and cultural studies.

Theology of religions has defaulted in the last two decades to an epicyclic inclusivism which seeks to undermine pluralism with claims that it is covertly triumphalistic and that it mirrors the logic of exclusivism. With the exception of pioneers in the field such as John Hick and Paul Knitter, most major figures in this theological field have retreated from pluralism and promote versions of particularism and inclusivism. Pluralism: The Future of Religion argues for an apophatic pluralism that is motivated by the insight that it is impossible to secure universal assent for changeable bodies of religious teachings. This insight implies the non-finality and consequent 'departicularization' of all religious teachings and their inclusivistic defenses. These conclusions point us inevitably toward pluralism and lead us out of the inclusivistic impasse of contemporary theology in religions.