Lene Kühle

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.

Deep Equality in an Era of Religious Diversity

alike share a visceral impatience with uncertainty, exacerbated in these politically uncertain times. Nevertheless, in the age of Donald Trump, Brexit, and ISIS, the capacity humans have for developing epistemological awareness promises to sustain conversation between disparate, and often antagonistic, communities and creating the mutual understanding on which the peace of the world depends. Sumser has made his own small, but significant, contribution towards that end.

Radicalisation and the Limits of Tolerance: A Danish Case-Study

Since 2004/05, radicalisation has emerged as the major framework for addressing the presence of extremist views and actions among Muslims in the West. In 2009 the Danish government drafted an action plan to prevent radicalisation. Departing from an empirical study of a neo-orthodox Muslim milieu in Denmark, this article places the definition of radicalisation provided by the Danish action plan in the context of the target groups own ideas on Islam, jihad, democracy and terrorism, and argues that the definition not only conflates circumstantial differences highlighted by interviewees, but also neglects to distinguish properly between individual sympathies and group affiliation, attitudes and actions. The definition is further criticised for problematising opinions and/or attitudes that are illiberal or un-democratic, but which hitherto have been considered to be within the limits of tolerance. This is obviously questionable from a liberal-democratic perspective but, more importantly, this may prove to be counter-productive in terms of security, as it can push certain Muslim positions even further to the margins of society. The article argues that the conflation of central distinctions in the official discourse of radicalisation has narrowed the limits of tolerance, and that this move reflects a general development towards ‘perfectionist liberalism’ in Western societies post-9/11.

Religion and State: Complexity in Change

This chapter discusses the changing Nordic religion–state relations. Since the 1980s, formal separations between the Lutheran majority churches and the state have taken place in several countries. All the Nordic states have a system of recognition of minority religions, and various forms of symbolic and financial support of religion. While the symbolic support of (mostly majority) religion in terms of holiday and blasphemy laws has been reduced, there has been some increase in the presence of religion in state institutions. This chapter also discusses the role of religion in legitimating the state and ends with an analysis of Swedish debates on religion in primary schools. The results are discussed in light of differentiation between religion and state, and illustrate the complexity in these relations.

Policies of Radicalisation as Anti- and Countercult Ideologies

The similarities between research in ‘new religious movements’ and radicalization has been noticed by several scholars. This article however attempt to view the entire logic of ‘radicalization controversies’ through the lens of ‘cult controveries’. With a point of departure in material from Denmark, similarities are found between the position of scholars attempting to provide nuanced understandings of complex phenomena as well as in dynamics between radical groups and counter-jihad groups. The article suggests that current understandings of processes of radicalisation, de-radicalisation and securitisation may benefit from insights from comparisons with anti-cult movements setting the agenda for public discourses on NRM movements in the 1980s.

Studying religion and community: A critical perspective

This article is a commentary on a keynote lecture by Kimmo Ketola, Tuomas Martikainen and Hanna Salomäki at the 32nd ISSR Conference in 2013. The author presents three critical questions about ways of defining, measuring and interpreting the changes in the notion of ‘community’ that are occurring in the contemporary world.