Belief and unbelief: two sides of a coin
Davie, Grace (2012)
The Donner Institute, Åbo Akademi
2012
Kuvaus
Grace Davie, University of Exeter
Grace Davie is Professor Emeritus in the Sociology of Religion at the University of Exeter. She is a past-president of the American Association for the Sociology of Religion (2003) and of the Research Committee 22 (Sociology of Religion) of the International Sociological Association (2002–6). In 2000-1 she was the Kerstin-Hesselgren Professor in the University of Uppsala, where she returned for the 2006–7 academic session and again in 2010. In January 2008, she received an honorary degree from Uppsala. In addition to numerous chapters and articles, she is the author of Religion in Britain Since 1945 (Blackwell 1994), Religion in Modern Europe (OUP 2000), Europe: the Exceptional Case (DLT 2002) and The Sociology of Religion (Sage 2007); she co-author of Religious America, Secular Europe (Ashgate 2008), and co-editor of Predicting Religion (Ashgate 2003) and Welfare and Religion in 21st Century Europe (2 vols) (Ashgate 2010 and 2011).
Grace Davie is Professor Emeritus in the Sociology of Religion at the University of Exeter. She is a past-president of the American Association for the Sociology of Religion (2003) and of the Research Committee 22 (Sociology of Religion) of the International Sociological Association (2002–6). In 2000-1 she was the Kerstin-Hesselgren Professor in the University of Uppsala, where she returned for the 2006–7 academic session and again in 2010. In January 2008, she received an honorary degree from Uppsala. In addition to numerous chapters and articles, she is the author of Religion in Britain Since 1945 (Blackwell 1994), Religion in Modern Europe (OUP 2000), Europe: the Exceptional Case (DLT 2002) and The Sociology of Religion (Sage 2007); she co-author of Religious America, Secular Europe (Ashgate 2008), and co-editor of Predicting Religion (Ashgate 2003) and Welfare and Religion in 21st Century Europe (2 vols) (Ashgate 2010 and 2011).
Tiivistelmä
In what follows I build on to previous writing relating to the nature of religion (including religious belief) in modern Europe and the factors that must be taken into account if this is to be properly understood (Davie 1994, 2000, 2002, 2006). These factors are:
•the cultural heritage of Europe;
•the ‘old’ model of a moderately dominant state church which operates like a public utility;
•a ‘newer’ model which takes the form of a growing market in religion;
•the arrival into Europe of new groups of people both Christian and other;
•an increasingly articulate secular lobby.
The first point to grasp is that all five exist alongside each other and that they push and pull in different directions. The second point provides the focus for this article: namely that exactly the same factors that account for the nature of religious belief in European society are equally present in unbelief. I will take each of them in turn in order to illustrate this point.
•the cultural heritage of Europe;
•the ‘old’ model of a moderately dominant state church which operates like a public utility;
•a ‘newer’ model which takes the form of a growing market in religion;
•the arrival into Europe of new groups of people both Christian and other;
•an increasingly articulate secular lobby.
The first point to grasp is that all five exist alongside each other and that they push and pull in different directions. The second point provides the focus for this article: namely that exactly the same factors that account for the nature of religious belief in European society are equally present in unbelief. I will take each of them in turn in order to illustrate this point.