Grace Davie

Religion in Britain since 1945 : believing without belonging

Frontispiece: Ordinary God, : Donald Davie. Foreword: Professor David Martin. 1. Introduction. 2. A Rapidly Changing Context. 3. The Sacred and the Secular: Religious Generations in Post-war Britain. 4. Religious Constituencies. 5. The Ordinary Gods of British Society. 6. Believing without Belonging: Variations on a Theme. 7. Handing on the Tradition: The Significance of Age and Gender. 8. Church and State: A Framework for Discussion. 9. Religious Professionals: Lay and Ordained. 10. Religion and Modernity: A Theoretical Postscript. Bibliography and References. Index.

The religiosity of women in the modern West

In western societies influenced by Christianity, women are more religious than men on virtually every measure. If religion is rooted (as Marx suggested) in economic vulnerability, can the religiosity of women be explained by economic or social circumstances? Or what about the vulnerability of the physical body - can womens religiosity be explained by their greater contact with birth and death? If modernity entails the progressive eradication of all kinds of vulnerability, what might this mean for the future of religion in general and of womens religiosity in particular? And what further twists to the story might postmodernity add? The article uses these questions as a frame for reviewing the literature on womens religiosity in the modern West.

Religion in Europe in the 21st Century: The Factors to Take into Account

This article considers six factors that are currently shaping the religious life of Europe. These are the Judaeo-Christian heritage, the continuing influence of the historic churches, the changing patterns of church-going, new arrivals from outside, secular reactions and the growing significance of religion in the modern world order. Any assessment of the future of religion in Europe must take all of these into account, not least their mutual and necessarily complex interactions.

New Approaches in the Sociology of Religion: A Western Perspective

This article has three sections. The first deals with the attempts by the sociology of religion to come to terms with the post-modern condition; it draws on the argument set out in the final chapter of Davie (1994). The second section updates these ideas taking account of more recent evidence. The third looks to the future; it is based primarily on the more theoretical aspects of Davie (2002a). It illustrates the needfor rather different approaches in the sociology of religion as the debates of the new century assert themselves.

Vicarious Religion: A Response

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion

Praying Alone? Church-Going in Britain and Social Capital: A Reply to Steve Bruce

This article responds to Bruces reluctance to consider the decline in church-going in Britain in relation to wider changes in social behaviour, more especially the unwillingness of increasing sections of the population to participate in voluntary activity or civic engagement of any kind. It covers two points in particular: the first relates to the Putnam thesis and the particular place of religion in this; the second considers in more detail the relationship between religious belief and religious practice.

Global Civil Religion: A European Perspective

This article responds to the notion of a global civil religion from a European perspective. In so doing, it makes use of three rather different starting points, which - broadly speaking - work outwards in terms of their geographical scope. The initial two are concerned with the European situation itself. The first looks at the concept of civil society (and by implication the role of religion within this) in a European context, scrutinizing (a) the different pressures of East and West Europe with respect to civil society (not least its relationship to the state) and (b) the significance of the churches in the evolving voluntary sector. The pivotal role of the territorial state is diminishing in both parts of Europe, but for very different reasons. The second section demonstrates both the capa- cities and the limitations of the major European religious traditions to operate on a European as opposed to national scale, bearing in mind that the tensions between European and global are just as real as those between European and national for at least some of these traditions - the Anglicans being an obvious example. Notwithstanding the Anglican case, this section will contain a signi- ficant amount of material on the role of Christian Democracy in the forming of both European identity and the European Union (in many respects the analysis mirrors Casanovas account of transnational Catholicism, but on a smaller

Religion and old age

Summary report . Published by the European Values Group, London and Tilburg,Netherlands.Bauman, Z. 1992. Mortality , Immortality and Other Life Strategies . Polity, Cambridge.Blakemore,K.andBoneham,M.1994. Age , RaceandEthnicity .OxfordUniversityPress,Oxford.Chester, R. and Smith, J. 1996. Acts of Faith: A Study of Older People and Their Places ofWorship . Counsel and Care, London.Cole, T. 1992. The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America . CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.Davie, G. 1994. Religion in Britain since †››— : Believing Without Belonging . Blackwell,Oxford.Delamont, S. 1995. Appetites and Identities: An Introduction to the Social Anthropology ofWestern Europe . Routledge, London.Featherstone,M.andWernick,A.1995. ImagesofAgeing:CulturalRepresentationsofLaterLife . Routledge, London.Haber, C. and Gratton, B. 1993. Old Age and the Search for Security . Indiana UniversityPress, Bloomington, Indiana.Hazan,H.1984.Religioninanoldagehome:symbolicadaptionasasurvivalstrategy.

Creating an Agenda in the Sociology of Religion: Common Sources/Different Pathways

This article has three sections. The first sets out the theme: that is the task or tasks of the sociology of religion. The variations on this theme follow, for it becomes immediately clear that not all sociologists of religion either identify or set about their assignments in the same way. The second section tackles similar issues but from a different perspective: it is concerned with the evolution of the sub-discipline in different parts of the world and in different language communities. We share common sources in the sociological classics; in later generations, however, distinctive discourses have emerged in different global regions. The final section offers a worked example of one particular debate: that which relates to new religious movements in different parts of the world. This article, and to a considerable extent my idea for the conference from which it emerged, has two points of departure. The first lies in the evolution of my own work since the mid 1980s; the second in a specific invitation to think more about the current agenda in the sociology of religion. Both points need further elaboration. Since the mid-1980s I have been concerned with the connections between religion and modernity. The canvass on which I have worked, however, has widened steadily. I started my thinking with reference to the urban areas of Britain and, more specifically, with reference to the religious situation in Liverpool in the North West of England (Ahern and Davie 1987). I then worked in more detail on the religious life of modern Britain (Davie 1994), a book that contains an important theoretical chapter concerning the connections between religion and modernity. In 2000, I published Religion in Modern Europe, which placed the British material within the European context where it rightly belongs.

A short afterword: Thinking spatially about religion

Three of the articles that precede this afterword are about Britain (more specifically about London). This means that their narratives unfold in a society in which the dominant religion for more than a millennium has been a territorially embedded state church, noting that the territorial resonance works at local as well as national level. The parish (the local unit) has been, and in many senses remains, a core element of not only British but European life. It is, moreover, an institution in which the secular and religious overlap: for centuries the parish administered the essentials of life for the vast majority of Europeans. The fourth paper concerns a very different society: the Philippines. That said, a dominant theme within Tremlett’s discussion reflects the attempt by Europeans (in this case the Spanish) to impose their own ways of living on to Filipino society. It seems pertinent to ask, therefore, what the implications of the territorial model are, whether in Europe or beyond, and how they change over time. An important clarification is necessary before going further: that is to avoid any kind of value judgements about the merits or otherwise of the model as such. It is quite clear that it has both advantages and disadvantages, which vary depending on the allegiance/attitudes of the observer. A model based on territory can be seen as inclusive, designed to serve the passive as well as active religious constituency, and concerned for the welfare of all who live within its boundaries regardless of their religious or other persuasions. Conversely, a parish can be seen as exclusive (indeed excluding) in the sense that the ‘space’ in question is already occupied – meaning that alternative forms of religious organization are in some way ‘second class’. There is a similar ambiguity in terms of social change. A territorial model gives stability (territory does not move); at the same time, it runs the risk of becoming ‘static’ – an evident disadvantage in times of rapid change. All of these perspectives are clearly visible in John Eade’s engagement with the religious life of London. As Eade makes abundantly clear, the religious factor must be taken into account in any serious attempt to understand the development of London (a truly global city). Religion, however, is linked to a whole variety of others factors: notably class, ethnicity and generation. In parenthesis, it is surprising that Eade