David Herbert
Ashgate, 2004

This book presents the first full-length study of the relationship between religion and the controversial concept of civil society. Across the world in the last two decades of the twentieth century religions re-entered public space as influential discursive and symbolic systems apparently beyond the control of either traditional religious authorizing institutions or states. This differentiation of religion from traditional institutions and entry into secular public spheres carries both dangers and possible benefits for democracy.

Offering a fresh interdisciplinary approach to understanding religion in contemporary societies, this book provides an invaluable resource for students and researchers in religious studies, sociology, politics and political philosophy, theology, international relations and legal studies. Part one presents a critical introduction to the interaction between religion, modernization and post modernization in Western and non-Western settings (America, Europe, the Middle East and India), focusing on discourses of human rights, civil society and the public sphere, and the controversial question of their cross-cultural application. Part two examines religion and civil society through case studies of Egypt, Bosnia and Muslim minorities in Britain, and compares Poland as an example of a Christian majority society that has experienced the public reassertion of religion.

Reviews

'Drawing from an interesting range of social theory and some innovative case studies, Herbert examines both the nature and the future of public religion in the modern world. At the start of the 21st century, understanding, and indeed shaping, that future is an urgent political task.'
Grace Davie, Reader in the Sociology of Religion, University of Exeter.

'After the traumatic events of September 11 understanding the complex and ever-changing relationship between religion and modernity has taken on a new urgency. Those scholars who for so long assumed that religion is simply irrelevant to modernity have been less than helpful. David Herbert represents a younger generation of religionists and social scientists that are prepared to look afresh at the evidence about, say, Islam in modern Egypt or Catholicism in liberated Poland. He is well equipped to do so and has written a fascinating and challenging book.'
Professor Robin Gill, University of Kent at Canterbury