Jørn Borup

Religious Diversity and Pluralism: Empirical Data and Theoretical Reflections from the Danish Pluralism Project

Although religious pluralism is a key word for understanding contemporary religious life, it is only recently that in-depth studies of religious pluralism have appeared. This article presents major findings from the Danish Pluralism Project, a collective research project which was launched in 2002. Religious diversity has grown in Denmark with the arrival of new immigrant groups and with new forms and interpretations of traditional religious and spiritual traditions. More importantly, the relations and interactions between religious groups—the hallmarks of religious pluralism—are still incipient. Both religious diversity and religious pluralism build on assumptions of stable relationships between religion and religious adherents and clear-cut boundaries between religious groups, assumptions which may be difficult to sustain in late modern societies. This article gives an overview of the Projects findings and discusses theoretical challenges related to religious diversity and religious pluralism.

Who are these Buddhists and How Many of Them are There? Theoretical and Methodological Challenges in Counting Immigrant Buddhists: A Danish Case Study

Abstract Religious demography is generally a challenging endeavor and counting and defining religions and religious identities in an Asian context is notoriously difficult. Buddhists in both Asia and the West have a long tradition of gray-zone religiosity, which means that membership and mono-identity is less common than syncretic engagement and hybrid identity. The immigrant Buddhists in the West are generally far more numerous than the convert and new age Buddhists. Their numbers are, however, extremely difficult to ascertain. This article discusses the methodological and theoretical problems in quantifying immigrant religion and the challenges of operationalizing such constraints into concrete methods. The empirical data derive from the author’s engagement in research on Buddhism in Denmark, in which traditions from both Theravada and Mahayana groups are represented. While concrete figures are suggested, it is also concluded that further empirical research as well as comparison with more contexts are necessary for the continued refinement of usable methods in counting immigrant religion.

Eastspirit: Transnational Spirituality and Religious Circulation in East and West

Eastspirit analyses ‘Eastern’ concepts, practices and traditions in their new ‘Western’ and global contexts as well as in their transformed expressions and reappropriations ‘back in the East’ within the framework of mutual interaction and circulation, regionally and globally.