Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-15T16:12:38.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Afterword

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2022

Beth R. Crisp
Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria
Adam Dinham
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths University of London
Get access

Summary

I was delighted to be part of the residential colloquium that constituted the second element of the project that lies behind this book (see p 16). On the final day, I (together with Professor James Beckford) was invited to make some concluding reflections. I can see from the preceding chapters that a number of the themes that I introduced at this juncture have been taken up by those who were present. Selectively these include the need to be aware that shifts in perception, just as much as reality, are crucial to our understandings of the post-secular; that religious literacy is best considered as a plural construct; and that context matters hugely in our understanding of these issues.

In this short Afterword I want to place the colloquium, and the project of which it is part, in a broader perspective. The colloquium took place in May 2015. Shortly before this I had accepted an invitation to become a coordinating lead author (CLA) for the chapter on religion in a project entitled the ‘International Panel on Social Progress’ (IPSP). Thus the two activities ran side by side. The scale was different but the parallels between them became ever more striking as the months passed.

International Panel on Social Progress

The IPSP brought together more than 200 scholars from a wide range of disciplines and from many different parts of the world to assess and synthesise the state-of-the-art knowledge that bears on social progress across a wide range of economic, political and cultural questions. The goal was to provide the target audience (individuals, movements, organisations, politicians, decision-makers and practitioners) with the best expertise that social science can offer.

The process – to a significant extent modelled on the Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – was a long one. A team of five to ten authors took responsibility for each of the 22 chapters, working under the direction of the two CLAs. Following IPCC practice, an initial draft of the chapters was posted online for several months in the latter part of 2016 in order to collect comments from the widest possible audience and to allow the authors to read and respond to each other's work.

Type
Chapter
Information
Re-imagining Religion and Belief
21st Century Policy and Practice
, pp. 183 - 192
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×