The Impact of Immigrant Religions on the Nature of Religious Pluralism in the USA and Western Europe

Abstract

Some of the most significant consequences of transnational immigration is growing religious diversity and finding a way to manage it. This article considers the concept of pluralism, the differences in religious pluralism between America and Western Europe occurring due to immigration, as well as the roles and possibilities of immigrant religions in the process of adapting to the host society. The history of immigration, models of immigrant incorporation and adaption, patterns of religious pluralism and types of secularism strongly vary in the aforementioned regions. Religion in America is a positive resource and a basis for incorporating immigrants into American society, their recognition in public life, assimilation and construction of an American identity. By contrast, in Western Europe immigrant religions, particularly Islam, are perceived primarily as an obstacle to incorporating immigrants into European societies and their recognition in the public domain. This is explained mainly by the secularist mindset of European people in general, their uncertain “private” religiosity in the context of “Euro-secularity”, the European concept of religion’s place in the “private domain”, as well as types of state-religion relations and institutional patterns of recognition which differ from America.