MACMILLAN Secularization, Desecularization, and Toleration: Cross-Disciplinary Challenges to a Modern Myth

This book challenges the modern myth that tolerance grows as societies become less religious. The myth inseparably links the progress of toleration to the secularization of modern society. This volume scrutinizes this grand narrative theoretically and empirically, and proposes alternative accounts of the varied relationships between diverse interpretations of religion and secularity and multiple secularizations, desecularizations, and forms of toleration. The authors show how both secular and religious orthodoxies inform toleration and persecution, and how secularizations and desecularizations engender repressive or pluralistic regimes. Ultimately, the book offers an agency-focused perspective which links the variation in toleration and persecution to the actors of secularization and desecularization and their cultural programs. Review  “Working both conceptually and empirically, the chapters in this volume interrogate the connections between secularization, de-secularization and tolerance - relationships that are complex to say the least. Understanding them better requires the clear thinking and careful scrutiny discovered in these pages - a collection to be read, marked and inwardly digested. I recommend it very warmly.” (Grace Davie, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Exeter, UK)  “Offering compelling interdisciplinary research from across the globe and over time, this volume is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the relationship religious toleration holds with secularization, desecularization and many distinctive political, historical, and social contexts. The research has more than a few surprises.” (Roger Finke, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Religious Studies, and International Affairs, Penn State University, USA) “For far too long, intellectuals in the west have, following the skeptical Enlightenment tradition, presumed the equation of secularity with tolerance. But that presumption is based more on faith than evidence. This volume opens up the hugely important question of the relationship between religion, secularisms, and tolerance of various sorts, disrupting our simplistic, received verities.” (Christian Smith, author, The Secular Revolution) From the Back Cover This book challenges the modern myth that tolerance grows as societies become less religious. The myth inseparably links the progress of toleration to the secularization of modern society. This volume scrutinizes this grand narrative theoretically and empirically, and proposes alternative accounts of the varied relationships between diverse interpretations of religion and secularity and multiple secularizations, desecularizations, and forms of toleration. The authors show how both secular and religious orthodoxies inform toleration and persecution, and how secularizations and desecularizations engender repressive or pluralistic regimes. Ultimately, the book offers an agency-focused perspective which links the variation in toleration and persecution to the actors of secularization and desecularization and their cultural programs. About the Author Vyacheslav Karpov is Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University, USA. Manfred Svensson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Andes, Chile.