ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book provides many of the very different kinds of questions that can be asked about religion in the public sphere. These include immediate questions about policy and profound questions about the future of faith, of life, and of the world itself. The questions–and the answers offered–helps to the continuing importance of religion in the public sphere, even when religion is far from dominant. Religion was long a dynamic part of specifically English and more broadly UK public life. The welfare state became a shared project for the UK, an expression of common citizenship and mutual obligation. For many in the UK, multiculturalism has become an important part of national self-understanding. Pluralism and diversity are facts, whatever people make of them, whether people valorise multiculturalism or not.
