The extraordinary changes in world society at the beginning of the 21st century have involved religion to a degree that would have amazed earlier observers of modernity. Within the past decade religion has been associated with some of the world's most strident forms of political encounter, including new movements of nationalism, the clerical leadership of political sects, and the religiously motivated acts of terrorism. Religion seems to be trying to tear the planet apart, even as other cultural forces seem to be trying to pull it together. The technology of the Internet, film, television, cell phones, and other forms of rapid universal communication seem to be knitting the world into a single social fabric. Consumer franchises and popular culture seem to be making the world a single global city. Religion seems to be at odds with all of this. Is religion the natural enemy of globalization? The essays in this volume explore the difficulties and possibilities of a diversity of religious groups occupying the same civil society. The authors avoid simplistic generalizations. Religion, they show, is not only identified with the culture and politics of the hostile anti-urban village--it is not simply the jihad that Benjamin Barber identified as the opponent of the homogenous global culture of McWorld. True, some religious activists have blown things up. But others have tried to smooth things over. Even the religious opposition to globalization is nuanced. Some violent activists (like Hindu extremists in India) want a new religious state. Others, like Christian militias or al Qaeda, envision a transnational religious entity--a kind of religious globalization to supplant the secular one. Prophetic religious voices call for moderation, justice, and environmental protection. Religion, these essays demonstrate, plays diverse and sometimes contradictory roles in the new cultural globalization. In a global culture the shared values of different religious traditions can provide a collective sense of virtuous conduct in public life. But religion can also support the position of enemies of global society--those who see in globalization the effort to impose the values and power of one country over the others.

How is religion changing in the twenty-first century? In the global era, religion has leapt onto the world stage, often in contradictory ways. Some religious activists are antagonistic and engage in protests, violent acts, and political challenges. Others are positive and help to shape an emerging transnational civil society. In addition, a new global religion may be in the making, providing a moral and spiritual basis for a worldwide community of concern about environmental issues, human rights, and international peace. God in the Tumult of the Global Square explores all of these directions, based on a five-year Luce Foundation project that involved religious leaders, scholars, and public figures in workshops held in Cairo, Moscow, Delhi, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, and Santa Barbara. In this book, the voices of these religious observers around the world express both the hopes and fears about new forms of religion in the global age.

This book presents the first full-length study of the relationship between religion and the controversial concept of civil society. Across the world in the last two decades of the twentieth century religions re-entered public space as influential discursive and symbolic systems apparently beyond the control of either traditional religious authorising institutions or states. This differentiation of religion from traditional institutions and entry into secular public spheres carries both dangers and possible benefits for democracy. Offering a fresh interdisciplinary approach to understanding religion in contemporary societies, this book provides an invaluable resource for students and researchers in religious studies, sociology, politics and political philosophy, theology, international relations and legal studies. Part one presents a critical introduction to the interaction between religion, modernization and postmodernization in Western and non-Western settings (America, Europe, the Middle East and India), focussing on discourses of human rights, civil society and the public sphere, and the controversial question of their cross-cultural application. Part two examines religion and civil society through case studies of Egypt, Bosnia and Muslim minorities in Britain, and compares Poland as an example of a Christian majority society that has experienced the public reassertion of religion.

This is one of the first books to explore the nexus between civil society, religion, and global governance, their impact on human security and well-being, and significance for current debates in international politics. The contributors examine salient aspects of the secular state whose monopoly on, and control of, institutional violence has reified its use of power to such an extent that the modernistic separation of church and state is being called into question, as institutional limits are sought to the abuse of that power. The volume is clearly divided into six key sections: human security and human rights the politics of civil religion the ethics of civil development civil society and global governance cross-cultural perspectives on institutional development for civil society international civil society. Within these sections the illuminating case studies span a wide geographical extent from Central and Eastern Europe to Egypt, to Latin America, Iran, Bangladesh, Australia, the Pacific and East and Southeast Asia. Civil Society, Religion and Global Governance will be of strong interest to students, policy makers and researchers in the fields of human rights, religion, political science and sociology.

This book examines the links between civil society, religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa region. The chapters in the volume explore the role of religion in shaping and changing the public sphere in regions that are developing and/or in conflict. They also discuss how these relations are reflected on civil society organizations and the role they are expected to play in transitional periods. This volume: investigates the conceptual dilemmas regarding what is ‘civil society’ in the Arab world today examines the dynamic roles of civil society organizations and religion in the Middle East and North Africa explores the future of the Arab civil society post-‘Arab Spring’ events, and how the latter continues to reshape the demand for democracy in the region. A comprehensive study of how the Arab civil society has come into being and its changing roles, this eclectic work will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, especially political Islam, international relations, Middle East Studies, African Studies, sociology and social anthropology.

Religion is traditionally portrayed as nothing but trouble in Ireland, but the churches played a key role in Northern Ireland's peace process. This study challenges many existing assumptions about the peace process, drawing on four years of interviewing with those involved, including church leaders, politicians, and paramilitary members.

Broadly speaking, The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society views the topic of civil society through three prisms: as a part of society (voluntary associations), as a kind of society (marked out by certain social norms), and as a space for citizen action and engagement (the public square or sphere).