Introduction

Religion has been conspicuous in the recent development of social and community cohesion discourse in the UK and other nation states. Religion is seen simultaneously as problem and solution, a cause of social division and bloody conflict, but also a resource in building civic ‘partnership’, inclusive local governance, ‘strong communities’ and a vibrant civil society. This public prominence of ‘faith’ and ‘faith communities’ is a relatively recent development, a cause, variously, for surprise, dismay, celebration and often for febrile debate.

Secularisation, the draining of social significance from religious thinking, practice and institutions (Wilson, 1966), had been regarded as irreversible and ultimately universal. A defining feature of modernity in the West has been the ascription of religion to the private realm and to issues of personal religious practice and spirituality, distinct from the public, secular, sphere of the state and politics. In England, despite the established status of the Church of England, this division has been particularly pronounced. Academic marginalisation has also been evident, with religion often reduced to an epiphenomenon, a surface manifestation beneath which the ‘real’ causes of human development and conflict (specified in terms of such concepts as ethnicity, class and gender) can be uncovered (McTernan, 2003). Relatively little public research funding in the UK has been assigned to religion, while social policy debate in the decades after 1945 was preoccupied by the scope and delivery of state-funded welfare, with religious organisations accorded a subordinate role.

The secularisation thesis continues to draw strength from the sharp decline in participation at formal worship in the main UK Christian denominations (see, for example, Brierley, 2000; Bruce, 2002). But other commentators point to the persistence, and indeed revival, of religion across the globe, with ‘only secular Western Europe and Australasia … appear[ing] to be conforming to the demise of the public deity so confidently pronounced by the founding fathers of modern social science’ (Ruthven, 2004, p 196). Parekh goes further, arguing that ‘the kind of inexorable and comprehensive secularisation predicted and hoped for by secular writers has not occurred even in advanced western societies’ (2006, p 323).

Moreover, although it remains a personal matter for many, religion also refuses to remain confined to the private realm. Many Christians in the UK act in the ‘public square’, giving contemporary expression to longstanding social and political engagement, motivated by religious belief.