This volume presents results from new and ongoing research efforts into the role of nonreligion in education, politics, law and society from a variety of different countries. Featuring data from a wide range of quantitative and qualitative studies, the book exposes the relational dynamics of religion and nonreligion. Firstly, it highlights the extent to which nonreligion is defined and understood by legal and institutional actors on the basis of religions, and often replicates the organisation of society and majority religions. At the same time, it displays how essential it is to approach nonreligion on its own, by freeing oneself from the frameworks from which religion is thought. The book addresses pressing questions such as: How can nonreligion be defined, and how can the “nones” be grasped and taken into account in studies on religion? How does the sociocultural and religious backdrop of different countries affect the regulation and representation of nonreligion in law and policymaking? Where and how do nonreligious individuals and collectives fit into institutions in contemporary societies? How does nonreligion affect notions of citizenship and national belonging? Despite growing scholarly interest in the increasing number of people without religion, the role of nonreligion in legal and institutional settings is still largely unexplored. This volume helps fill the gap, and will be of interest to students, researchers, policymakers and others seeking deeper understanding of the changing role of nonreligion in modern societies.

The world is confronted with multiple intersecting crises including exploitation, inequality, political polarization and climate change. World-repairing work is vitally needed. But just at a time when humans most obviously require robust moral imaginaries on which to draw, it is no longer clear what kinds of beliefs, meanings, stories and encounters inspire them to act. We know that nonreligious identities are on the rise in numerous countries throughout the world. But with so much focus on the “non” part of nonreligion, what we don’t know is what nonreligious imaginaries actually look, sound and feel like. What do nonreligious people believe in? What stories inspire them? In what moments do they find meaning? This book seeks to answer these questions through a series of short essays exploring the nonreligious imaginaries that emerge in a range of world-repairing practices, including ethical consumption, community organizing, eating habits, and environmental activism. In so doing, the book provides a crucial contribution to two areas of increasing social and political concern: First, the need to understand not only what nonreligious people are rejecting but also their sources of meaning and action. Second, the urgent need for cultural tools for mobilizing people towards more compassionate and sustainable practices.

This book explores how and if the mandate for children to worship in schools can be justified within the context of declining church attendance and increasing nonreligious identification in British society. Shillitoe asks what place compulsory worship has in an increasingly diverse and plural society, and what the answer means for the relationship between religion, the secular, and education more broadly. Through in-depth ethnographic fieldwork from across three schools in southwest England, the book reveals how examining the significance of children’s experiences expands our understanding of both collective worship in schooling and religion in social life more broadly and demonstrates that adult-centric anxieties and assumptions in this area do not always reflect the experiences of children.

This authoritative collection offers a detailed overview of religious ideas, structures, and institutions in the making of Europe. Written by leading scholars in the field, it demonstrates the enduring presence of lived and institutionalised religion in the social networks of identity, policy, and power over two millennia of European history.

The Politics of Religious Literacy challenges popular understandings of religious literacy as an inclusive framework for navigating religious diversity in the public sphere. Offering a new model, this book provides insights into the often-overlooked feelings and practices informing our questionably secular age.

This book outlines the legal status of Muslims in Italy. In particular, it highlights that, when it comes to Islam, the Italian legal system exacerbates the dilemma of contemporary constitutional democracies, increasingly caught between the principle of equality and the right to have rights, which implies the respect of diversity. It provides readers with a deep understanding of how domestic and external socio-political factors may muddle the interpretation of Italy’s constitutional provisions, starting with those relating to state secularism and religious freedom. It is argued that today, as never before, these provisions are torn between the principle of equality and the right to be different. This situation has been exacerbated by incessant states of emergency, from immigration to religion-inspired terrorism, in light of which the presence of Islam in the peninsula has been highly politicized. Italy’s experience on the legal status of Muslims provides an interesting case study and, as such, a valuable source of empirical information for a functioning and pluralistic constitutional democracy, especially when dealing with conditions of fear and insecurity. The book will be of interest to researchers, academics, and policy-makers working in the areas of law and religion, constitutional law, comparative law, and human rights.

In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries, especially in Europe, have increasingly large nonaffiliate, 'subjectively secular' populations, whilst nonreligious cultural movements like the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity, irreligion, and the relationship between them has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of modern life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, Recognizing the Non-religious develops a new vocabulary, theory and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial—involving merely the absence of religion—and substantial—involving beliefs, ritual practice, and identities that are alternative to religious ones. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious therefore opens up new, more egalitarian and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are 'not religious'. It is also argued that recognizing the nonreligious allows us to reimagine the secular itself in new and productive ways. This book is part of a fast-growing area of research that builds upon and contributes to theoretical debates concerning secularization, 'desecularization', religious change, postsecularity and postcolonial approaches to religion and secularism. As well as presenting new research, this book gathers insights from the wider studies of nonreligion, atheism, and secularism in order to consolidate a theoretical framework, conceptual foundation and agenda for future research.