Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging

Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging challenges the predominant modernity theory arguing that Europe can be considered as one multiple modernity. In that, the book presents a collection of essays showing the plurality of discourses and variety in human self-reflexion on notions of religious and belonging in everyday lives. Emphasis is placed on religious actors and individuals in Europe, and the multiplicity of their senses of religious identification and belonging.

About the Author :
Martina Topić is a Co-Founder of, and a Research Associate at, the Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Zagreb, Croatia. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Culture and Religion and Working Paper Series in Religion and Culture. Srdjan Sremac is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Theology of VU University Amsterdam, and a Research Member of the Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Lived Religion at the same university.

Review :
"Europe as a Multiple Modernity ... explores the complexity and diversity of religious belonging in Europe, providing insights and provoking questions about how religion functions in 'post-secular' public spheres. It places the perceptions and actions of religious actors at the centre of debate. Such a book should stimulate further reflection on how religion continues to matter both in the politics and the 'every day' lives of Europeans."—Dr Gladys Ganiel, Coordinator of the Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Programmeat the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland"This fresh scholarly volume … tackles the problem of different paths of European religious modernity against the backdrop of more than a dozen case studies from different national contexts. Comparative and empirical perspectives allow us to move from the theoretical level to the level of 'tangible' issues and stories that can demonstrate complexities of religious life in the context of the globalized and multicultural world of late modernity. The focus of the volume is centered on human self-reflexivity and human agency as one of the constitutive characteristics of modernity, as interpreted by Eisenstadt. … The interplay between culture, ethnicity and religion at the level of identity and belonging is examined at length. The basic message of all the essays refers to the ongoing (or renewed) importance of religion as an identity marker. If we wish to understand contemporary Europe in terms of religion, we should move from a study of 'decline' or 'increase' of traditionally measured religiosity to reflections upon transformations as well as plurality of cultural meanings and social functions associated with religious identity and religious belonging at the individual and group levels. We may hope together with the editors that the volume will stimulate further research on the topic and broaden its scope to other national and cultural contexts."—Dr Roman Vido, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic"This volume presents an overview and an examination of the question of religious identity in contemporary Europe. The quality of the volume is best seen in encompassing all religious traditions and European regions. In line with Inglehart's postulate according to which the rule is 'that there is no rule', each of these contributions illustrates the specificity of religious differences, and difficulties in generalising the findings of the analyses of the identity drama in the conditions of contemporary Europe: a Europe that is, at the same time, an arena of modern framework and traditional tendencies."—Dr Danijela Gavrilović, Professor of Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Moral, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Sociology University of Niš, Serbia