Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Archives
    • By Issue
    • By Article
    • By PDF (2008-14)
    • By PDF (1985-97)
    • All Articles
  • Sections
    • Current Research
    • Findings & Footnotes
    • On/File
  • Google Search
You are here: Home / Archive / European- and Canadian-funded research programs view religion as a new resource

European- and Canadian-funded research programs view religion as a new resource

November 1, 2011 by Richard Cimino

Print-friendly

Rising government concern about pluralism, social cohesion, and the role of Islam in Europe and Canada has led to the establishment of several large and unprecedented research programs on religion in these nations.

When speaking of this trend at the SSSR meeting, sociologist Grace Davie noted that these national programs have “generated enormous activity and a new generation of scholars, although the research findings have not reached many lay people.” The largest programs include the Religion and Society program in Great Britain, with 75 separate projects; the Future of the Religious Past program in the Netherlands; VEIL in France; Religion, State and Society in Switzerland; the Role of Religion in the Public Sphere in Scandinavia; and Religion and Diversity in Ottawa, Canada.

The European Commission is also funding 22 projects that deal in some way with religion.  There is often a large Islamic component to these programs; for instance, one-third of the projects in the Swiss program concern Muslims, even though they represent four percent of the population. But Davie argues that it is more than Muslim growth that is bringing the millions of euros to fund these programs. From the 1960s religion was largely ignored if not invisible in the public sphere, but in the 1980s and 1990s there was increased visibility to religion, even though it was seen as a “problem to be solved …. Now religion is viewed as a resource to be used,” as in the case of faith-based social services.

But while religion is re-emerging in public debate, the “increasingly religiously illiterate public don’t have a clue to what is happening,” Davie adds. The problem of getting the results of the research from these programs to lay people and religious groups is not helped by the media, which are often more “story-focused” rather than concerned with research, Davie concludes.

Print-friendly

Filed Under: Archive

Also in this issue

  • On/File: November/December 2011
  • Findings & Footnotes: November/December 2011
  • Kazakhstan seeks to manage religious fragmentation and Islamicization
  • Muslim–Coptic tensions intensify after Maspero massacre
  • Alevis in Turkey clash over identity as government policy changes
  • Dutch Bible Belt still vital, but feeling political pressures
  • Loss and challenges face British Catholics in northern heartlands
  • Church of Sweden—disestablished, but increasingly politicized?
  • Roma’s pan-ethnic identity assisted by evangelical churches
  • Current Research: November/December 2011
  • Vatican document shows global South inspiration
  • Occupy Wall Street’s religion—syncretistic and makeshift
  • Christian right takes on congregational and charismatic flavors

Search the Site

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Click on the image for downloading

© 2016-2020 Richard Cimino / Religioscope
·News Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress