God in the Tumult of the Global Square: Religion in Civil Society by Mark Juergensmeyer, Dinah Griego, and John Soboslai

Abstract

Reviewed by: James G. Mellon, independent scholar, Halifax, NS, CanadaIn the midst of the tumult at Cairo's Tahrir Square during the protests that ultimately brought down the Mubarak regime in 2011, Muslims were able on Friday to engage in prayer safe from the intervention of troops because they were surrounded as they prayed by a ring composed of Coptic Christians, and on Sunday the Coptic Christians could pray without harassment because they were protected by a ring of Muslims. Even those with little knowledge of global politics during the last 20 years must be aware, to some degree, of the rising profile of religion in the public arena, whether the emergence in both democratic and non-democratic forms of Islamic revivalism, the rise of Hindu nationalism, or the in American politics of the Religious Right. Conventional notions of secularization tended to hold that over time the of religion in public life would gradually but invariably diminish, and that religion would be increasingly consigned to the private sphere. Recent developments have challenged such conventional notions, and this led New York's Henry Luce Foundation to sponsor a workshop held at the University of California at Santa Barbara on Religion in Global Civil Society. This foundational event, held in 2012, led to a series of further workshops among academics and representatives of various faiths in Santa Barbara, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Cairo, Shanghai, and Moscow. in the Tumult of the Global Square: Religion in Global Civil Society encapsulates the results.God in the Tumult of the Global Square does a profound service in framing the issues involved. It also conveys just how complex the subject is. In some cases, religion seems to be on the cutting edge of progressive movements; in other cases, it seems associated with the defence of traditional identities besieged by globalization. Globalization opens up new horizons for many, even as it potentially threatens notions of identity, accountability, and authority. Juergensmeyer, Griego, and Soboslai observe that, at a time in which globalization and the emergence of nascent local nationalisms complicate issues of identity, religion sometimes operates to erode and sometimes to reinforce existing notions of identity. Sometimes it supports, and sometimes it inhibits democratization. Nevertheless, invariably it exercises power that cannot be ignored. The authors note the protests of recent years, observing that God is in these public squares as well. In almost every case, religion has played a role (115). They point out thatIn Turkey and Iran, the protestors were motivated, in part, by antagonism against government policies that they felt forced religious standards on personal behavior. …