ABSTRACT
We are currently witnessing a radical reappraisal of the way in which, for over two hundred years, Western philosophy and politics have conceived of the nature of the body politic and the character of civil society. Despite the predictions of secularisation theorists, a distinguishing feature of Western societies in the twenty-first century (exemplified by the UK) is that religion has not disappeared from the public sphere. Yet this is a confusing situation. On the one hand, many faith-based organisations are experiencing a heightened public prominence as partners with government in the delivery of welfare and other public services (Dinham, Furbey and Lowndes, 2009), and interest in personal spirituality beyond creedal and institutional expressions of religion continues to be strong. On the other hand, levels of formal institutional affiliation and membership in mainstream denominations continue to decline by some measures – such as those recorded in the British Social Attitudes Survey – and public scepticism towards religion is actually increasing (Voas and Ling, 2010; Woodhead, 2014). This seemingly paradoxical co-existence of the religious and the secular takes us into uncharted territory, sociologically and theologically, and is giving rise to talk of the emergence of a ‘post-secular’ society (Keenan, 2002; Habermas, 2008; Bretherton, 2010, pp. 10-16).
