Religion in a Liberal State, by Gavin D’Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers (eds)

Abstract

Gavin D'Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers (eds) Religion in a Liberal State Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 258 pp., $85.00 (cloth) $29.99 (paper), ISBN: 978-1-10704-203-2 (cloth), 978-1-107-65007-7 (paper)The proper relationship between religion and politics has long been a matter of controversy. Western societies since the Reformation have had to deal with issues of relations between Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism. In modern societies, these tensions are complicated further both by increasing religious diversity and by challenges from agnosticism and atheism. The multidisciplinary collection of essays Religion in a Liberal State, edited by Gavin D'Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers, is concerned precisely with these issues. The collection encompasses the Zutshi-Smith Lecture delivered in 2010 by political philosopher Raymond Plant at the University of Bristol, and a number of responses it inspired from across the disciplines of law, sociology, politics, and theology. The essays engage with the prevailing view among scholars that there has been a long-term trend toward and challenge it by stressing the apparent resurgence of religious practice to highlight how notions like religion, secularization, and the public-private distinction are less straightforward or unambiguous than they once appeared.As Religion in a Liberal State makes clear, social scientists have conventionally adopted two approaches to the study of religion. The Weberian approach assumed that the diffusion of science and knowledge would eventually and inevitably lead to secularization. The Durkheimian approach focused on roles played by institutions. This latter approach is open to the interpretation that, as roles like those of providing schools, hospitals, and social services, which were once filled by churches, have increasingly been taken over by other institutions, the profile of religious institutions would wane. Empty pews in Western European churches helped reinforce the notion that secularization represented the future. The United States appeared to be an exception. However, developments in both domestic and international politics have made scholars reconsider the apparent inevitability of secularization. Scholars have also noted that reference to secularization conceals the potential for different trends depending on whether one is simply looking at adherence to practices and church attendance, at societal influence of religious institutions, or at the relevance of religious values to political culture. Scholars increasingly refer to multiple secularises rather than to secularization. At issue is not only an empirical question of whether or not secularization is taking place, but also such normative questions as: whether a state's policies can ever reflect religious values; from a secularist perspective, whether resort to religious language in public dialogue should be discouraged; and, from a religious perspective, whether a believer can accommodate liberal practices without compromising her/ his religious beliefs.European institutions and the European Court of Human Rights are exercising increasing influence over these questions. In his lecture, Plant expresses concern that citizens and policymakers are being forced to confront certain issues about the influence of religion in public life due to the increasing salience of liberalism, as well as to the practice of courts exercising powers of judicial review in the interest of constitutionally entrenched understandings of human rights even in states like the United Kingdom, where the political culture and constitution were once defined by unwritten tradition, the common law, and parliamentary sovereignty. In the past, he argues, ambiguities, anomalies, and inconsistencies could be overlooked, especially when they did not create serious injustice or hardship. The formal establishment of the Church of England, which was once associated with the persecution of other religious groups, became a historical relic to which most citizens of the United Kingdom devoted little thought. …