religions and social capital. theses on religion(s), state(s), and society(ies): with particular...

Religions and Social Capital. Theses on Religion(s), State(s), and Society(ies): with Particular Reference to the United Kingdom and the European Union

Paul Weller University of Derby

The article explores aspects of the relationship between social capital and religious organizations with particular reference to the United Kingdom and the European Union. It draws on guidance from the Local Government Association, a recent report on the interface between government and faith communities from the Faith Communities Unit of the Home Office, and the results of research for the Council of Europe. All this is explored through reference to seven theses on the relationships between religion(s), state(s), and societ(ies) and by using some of the thinking of Marc Luyckx (1994) on the position of religion in post-industrial and postmodern societies.

Dans cet article,/'explore le lien entre le capital social et les organismes religieux en faisant rdf~rence plus particuli~rement au Royaume-Uni et dt l'Union europ&nne. Je re'inspire de la Local Government Association, un nouveau rapport sur l'interface entre le gouvernement et les groupes confessionnels de la Faith Communities Unit of the Home Office, et des r~sultats de recherche du Conseil de l'Europe. Tous ces thbmes sont explores fl l'aide de sept theses sur les liens entre la religion, l'Etat et la socidt~, eL ?l I'occasion, de certains points de vue de Marc Luyckx sur la situation de la religion dans les soci~t~s postindustrielles et postmodernes.

Key words/Mots-clefs: Civic society/Soci6t6 civile; Religious plurality/Pluralit6 religieuse;Voluntary sector/Secteur b6n6vole; European Union/Union europ6enne; United Kingdom/Royaume-Uni; Secularity/S6cularit6; Social capital/Capital social.

�9 2005 by PCERII. All rights reserved./Tous droits r6serv6s. ISSN: 1488-3473

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Introduction

Starting with his article"Bowling Alone" (Putnam, 1995), which was later developed into a book (Putnam, 2000) of the same title, the United States political scientist Putnam translated into wider public discourse the idea of social capital first introduced into political theory by Coleman (1988, 1990).

Putnam's application of this concept to the contemporary US originated with his study (1993a; 1993b) of the evolution of patterns of local government in Italy, on the basis of which he argued that key aspects of social capital are behaviours that can be learned and developed over time through ongoing social relationships supported by organizations and groups in the community.

Trust and cooperation are seen as key elements of this social capital. Putnam has argued that in recent decades the US has experienced a decline in social capital. His overall thesis has been critiqued on several grounds, including methodological disagreement with the empirical instruments that produced his data and interpretive disagreements with the conclu- sions he has drawn from his data. However, the notion of social capital has now become firmly established in public discourse. This has in turn been part of other theoretical and policy developments that have increasingly recognized the vital importance to the public good and the healthy func- tioning of democracies of (alongside the public and private sectors) civic society or the third sector in which voluntary and community organizations play a particularly important role.

Although often overlooked in the social and political constructs of modernity, it is increasingly being recognized (in the United Kingdom in particular) that religion and religious organizations form a substantial part of civic society and that they contribute significantly to the preservation and development of both bonding and bridging social capital. In this article I explore aspects of this relationship between social capital, religion, and religious organizations with particular reference to the UK and the European Union (EU) while also including some references to the wider Europe of which both are a part.

In exploring the themes, I refer to recent guidance documents Faith and Community and Guidance on Community Cohesion (Local Government Association [LGA] et al., 2002a, 2002b) in order to assist local authorities in the UK to take account of the religious dimensions of social capital when fulfilling their statutory roles in policy development and service provision. Reference is also made to the report Working Together (Faith Communities

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Unit, 2004) of the UK Home Office, which reviews the overall interface between government and the faith communities of the UK.

Finally, these UK policy developments are set in the context of research conducted for the Council of Europe during the mid-1990s by its Group of Consultants on Religious and Cultural Aspects of Equality of Opportunities for Immigrants, the results of which were published in a 1996 study. The description and discussion of these policy and social developments is then explored in interaction with seven theses 1 on the relationships between religion(s), state(s), and society(ies) that I have developed from a quarter- century of practical engagement in and academic study on the place of religion(s) in the pluralizing society and state of the UK, the EU, and the wider Europe.The article ends with some broader reflections on the future of Europe that draw on work undertaken by Marc Luyckx (1994), formerly of the European Commission's Forward Studies Unit.

Theses on Religion(s), State(s), and Society(ies)

In a way, theses are the academic equivalent of newspaper headlines or political slogans.They do not claim to offer the last word, but their purpose is both to facilitate and to provoke debate and discussion.

At the same time, the seven theses presented here are not intended to be only debating principles. Rather, they are intended, at least potentially, also to be working principles that might themselves actively contribute to policy debates and the development of new directions in the relationships between religion(s), state(s), and society(ies). As such they are addressed to religious traditions and communities, to the wider societies of which they are a part, and to the states in which they are set. Furthermore, although they are inevitably limited by the specific context in which they were originally developed, it is hoped that they might also facilitate debate on the extent to which they might have any validity beyond their origins in the UK, the EU, and the wider Europe.

Thesis 1 States that assign religions to the private sphere will impoverish themselves by marginalizing important social resources and might unwittingly be encouraging of those reactive, backward- and inward-looking expressions of religious life that are popularly characterized as fundamentalisms. Putnam's argument that the US has seen a significant reduction in social capital is contested. However, despite historical and contemporary

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differences between Europe and the US, one lesson of the failure of politically and economically alternative socialist states in Europe was that healthy states need a healthy civil society.

In addition, in contrast to the more popularized versions of some of the classical (Cox, 1965; Berger, 1967; Wilson, 1969) secularization theories which suggested that religion was likely to fade away from the public sphere amid the affluence of the capitalist West and the state-spon- sored atheism of the Communis t East secularization has not turned out as expected (Martin, 1978; Dobbelaere, 1981, 1984; Bruce, 1992). Although religion is not as central to the institutions of public life as it once was (Gilbert, 1980) nor generally any longer part of the unselfconscious warp and woof of cultural life (Brown, 2001), it has not completely faded away (Berger, 1999).

Rather, in comparison with other parts of the third, civic, or voluntary and community sector, groups and organizations of the religious majorities still retain extensive networks of people and plant (Finneron & Dinham, n.d.; Newton, 1992; Randoloph-Horn, 2000; Lewis & Randolph-Horn, 2001). In a context where governments of all kinds are more modest about what they can achieve on their own and are increasingly looking for appropriate social partners to work with in implementing social policy, there is a growing recognition that to fail to engage with religious organizations is unnecessarily to limit the effectiveness of both policy development and service delivery. In the UK the LGA's (2002a) Faith and Community report explains this as follows.

Among the typical resources which faith groups and local inter faith structures can offer as part of the voluntary and community sector are local networks, leadership and management capacity, buildings with potential community use, and volunteers. (p. 7, para 3.4)

Such recognition is important not only with regard to the extensive social networks still represented by majority religious traditions. It is also increasingly pertinent in the context of a rise in religious self-definition and organization among migrant and minority ethnic groups, which has meant that for many individuals and groups religion has become at least as significant a marker of identity as ethnicity and sometimes the primary marker (Cable, 1994).

However, until relatively recently the multicultural policy and practice of "modern"states and societies focused more on ethnicity and culture rather than also being inclusive also of religion. As a result, there has often been


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a significant gap between the parameters of public policy and the basis on which substantial groups of people have understood and organized themselves. If this gap is not addressed by creative policy developments that engage with religion as the primary form of self-definition and organization that for many it has become, then the state and the wider society can have no real grounds for complaint if those who identify and organize thus feel that they have no alternative but to turn to what is popularly called fundamentalism, but perhaps more appropriately should be seen as a range of fundamentalisms (Marty & Appleby, 1991, 1994, 1995).

One of these fundamentalisms involves a pietistic and self-protecting withdrawal from the wider society. Here the element of bonding capital can be strong, but at the expense of its development into bridging capital. Alternatively, there can be a radical separatist oppositionalism that starts from the presupposition that no constructive progress in can ever be made in dialogue with the state or in engagement with the wider society.

Undoubtedly, challenging and difficult issues are involved in being more inclusive toward religions making a significant contribution to the public sphere. These include concerns about how this might affect those who do not belong to any explicit religious tradition or commitment and also the question of the relationship of such openness to other aspects of equal opportunities and human rights such as matters of gender and sexual orientation. Nevertheless, if people of diverse religions are not given posi- tive opportunities to engage with the structures of wider society, then a likely by-product of this is that fundamentalisms of one kind or the other will be confirmed and encouraged.

Thesis 2 Religious traditions and communities offer important alternative perspectives to the predominant values and power structures of states and societies. Religions are a reminder of the importance of the things that cannot be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, and heard for a more balanced perspective on those things that can be experienced in these ways. This thesis is not intended to be a confessional statement of faith that only those with a religious perspective can affirm, although its formula- tion is intended to be something with which religious people and groups might be able to identify. Rather, this thesis argues that it is important to recognize that the kind of social capital produced by religion may have distinctive (Smith, 2003) as well as shared features when considered be- side the contributions of other parts of civil society. In the UK the LGA's (2002a) Faith and Community report illustrates such an approach. On the

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one hand, it notes, "Faith groups are an important part of the voluntary and community sector," thus recognizing their commonality with other groups in civic society. However, the report also recognizes that religions have"distinctive characteristics and potential of their own"and describes these characteristics in terms of the role of religious groups as"sources of values and commitment" (p. 3, para 2.2).

Thus if a genuinely participative role for religious groups is to be facilitated in a partnership mode, such groups must be able to feel that they can contribute on a basis that is rooted in the integrity of their own self-understanding. At the same time, when governments want religious communities, organizations, and groups as social partners, they naturally want them to be so for practical and political purposes. As expressed by the LGA's (2002b) Guidance on Community Cohesion,

All major faiths promote equality and respect for others as a fundamental value. In most cases, at a personal and community level, this translates into good community relations and integrity in public life. Such values can be a real resource in the practical implementation of community cohesion strategies. (p. 21)

Religious groups may well offer partnership to government and other public bodies because of their wish to give practical expression to what they understand to be the ultimate and the unconditioned roots of their tradition. But it is also precisely because of the nature of these roots that religious groups may be suspicious and/or resistant to the possibility of being merely co-opted into government agendas. This is because governments tend to want dialogical partners who are safe and who will deal with relatively safe topics in safe ways. For example, governments welcome values contributions toward the goal of community cohesion, but may be less comfortable with values that disturb the status quo in pursuit of social or economic justice.

Because the reference point of their commitments relates to an ul- timacy beyond human history, religious traditions and groups can offer important reminders that human institutions and systems should be seen only as penultimate and provisional and also that they can become dangerous when they either see themselves, or are seen by others, as being of ultimate significance. With arguably little in terms of radical political and economic alternatives being offered by mainstream political parties, it is important that states and societies be reminded that how they live and

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organize themselves is neither natural nor inevitable, nor is this the only possible way.Thus in capitalist societies, religions are a reminder that profit, wealth, and unlimited consumption are not the only criteria for social and economic organization.

Thesis 3 Religious communities and traditions should beware of what can be seductive calls from within their traditions to form "religious unity fronts" against what is characterized as the secular state and what is perceived as the amorality and fragmentation of modern and postmodern society. Whereas the first two theses are offered as a challenge to states and societies and their tendency to exclude religious groups, this third is offered as a challenge to religious traditions, communities, and organized groups. When space is opened for religions to participate more fully in the wider society, these groups may be tempted to use the opportunity to try to recover perceived lost ground in the societies and states in which they no longer play a dominant and integrating role.

For example, this can be seen in a number of the Eastern and Central European countries that formerly had Communis t governments. Here the majority religions, having been pushed to the margins of society, are today often seeking to reestablish not only their basic rights, but also some of their earlier privileges. Even where such profound social, political, and economic upheavals have not taken place, religions can be tempted to use openness toward their contributions opportunistically. Because of this, the report of the Council of Europe's Group of Consultants on Religious and Cultural Aspects of Equality of Opportunities for Immigrants (1996) noted,

There is also a suspicion in some quarters that some historically established churches may be seeking to exploit the presence of the new religions and their desires to regain some of the territory lost to the secular state and society. (para 2.2.2)

Even where the space for religious contributions is created in religiously inclusive ways there is a danger of what I have elsewhere (Weller, 2005) identified as the possibility of a"Multi-Faith neo-Constantinianism. 'That is, while seeking to contribute to the social good, religious groups fall prey to the possibility of becoming unself-critically instrumentalized in politically and economically neo-Conservative projects that seek the"denationaliza-

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tion of compassion"through the promotion of voluntarist effort in place of public and state responsibility.

For religious traditions and groups in Europe, nostalgia for the recre- ation of a pre-modern set of social and political arrangements in which religions are the dominant and integrating force of societies is not a realistic possibility. The rights not to believe have been important social and religious gains, and religious people have often needed the critique of the secular. At the same time, both religious and non-religious people need to recognize that the notion of a secular state is highly context-specific.

In fact, one interesting conclusion to emerge from the November 1998 Council of Europe seminar on"Religion and the Integration of Immigrants" was that,"It was underlined that the use of the term'secular, ' referring to the relationship between the State and religion, should be re-examined and clarified on a pan-European level, with a view to reaching a common understanding" (Council of Europe Directorate of Social and Economic Affairs, 1999, p. 173). Thus lafcit~ in France is different from secular state in India and also from the separation of church and state in the US. Among other models, the idea of a secular state may, therefore, imply:

�9 exclusion of religions from the public sphere;

�9 creation of an arena in which religious participation is encouraged but religious communalisms are challenged; or

�9 it may give constitutional embodiment to the non-establ ishment of particular religions and to the promotion of religious freedom.

Each of these basic alternatives (and also a whole range of variant understandings) can lead to significantly different constitutional, legal, and practical consequences in the relationships between religion(s), state(s), and society. Therefore, alongside the necessity for critical self-evaluation on the part of religious groups and organizations in relation to the reality and challenge posed by the secular, a critical reevaluation is also required of what is meant by secular.

Thesis 4 National and political self-understandings that exclude people of other than majority religious traditions, either by design or by default, are historically speaking fundamentally distorted. Politically and religiously, such self-understandings are dangerous and need to be challenged.



Table 1

Religion Buddhist Christian Hindu Jewish Muslim Sikh Other religions Total: all Religions No religion Not stated All no religion/not stated

UK Total UK % 151,816 0.3% 42,079,417 71.6% 558,810 1.0% 266,740 0.5% 1,591,126 2.7% 336,149 0.6% 178,837 0.3% 45,162,895 76.8% 9,103,727 15.5% 4,288,719 7.3% 13,626,299 23.2%

Note. Reproduced from Inter Faith Update, 21, p. 3, the newsletter of the Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom. Due to rounding, percentages may not total 100%. Source: Census, April 2001. National Statistics Web site www.statistics..qov.uk. Crown copyright, 2004. Reproduced with permission of the Controller of HMSO.

It is important not to overstate the actual degree of religious diversity that exists in states and societies that are nevertheless pluralizing (Weller, 2001). In the UK for the first time (outside of Northern Ireland) the 2001 Census included a question on religious self-identification that included the results shown in Table 1.

Many factors can be debated about what the Census results do and do not show (Voas, 2003;Voas & Bruce, 2004; Weller, 2004). However, several broad items are clear. First, Christianity remains a factor of at least some significance in the self-understanding of almost three quarters of the population of the UK (71.6% or 42,079,417 people). In addition, 5.2% of the population (3,083,478 people) identify with religions other than the majority traditions of Christianity. Finally, 15.5% of the population (9,103,727 people) indicate they are of no religion. The relationship of the 7.3% of the population recorded as not stated is contested. However, it would be too simplistic to assume they should be added to those who responded no religion. Thus the contemporary religious landscape of the UK exhibits contours that are at the same time Christian, secular, and religiously plural and can perhaps, therefore, best be described as three-dimensional (Weller, 2005).

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Because religion as bonding capital can operate particularly strongly in tandem with ethnicity and national identity, the LGA (2002a) Faith and Community report notes that religious diversity is,

sometimes seen as a threat, linked to deep anxiety about migration and immigration and spilling over into overt racism. Hostility to difference of religion is accompanied by unwillingness to accept the status quo or to find common ground in shared citizenship or in values that might be shared. (p. 7, para 3.6)

In connection with this, it is significant to note that the summer 2001 disturbances in the English northern mill towns that involved Muslim youth and gave rise to current policy approaches to "community cohesion" were provoked by British National Party propaganda specifically directed at Muslims rather than ethnic minorities in general (Cantle et al., 2001: Denham et al., 2001). Such potential for"religionized racism" can be significant and dangerous, particularly in the context of a heightened atmosphere of Islamophobia (Mien & Nielsen, 2002) following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the subsequent Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In order to tackle this, relationships need to be built and mechanisms developed at all levels of society that are inclusive rather than exclusive in approach. The LGA's (2002a) Faith and Community report described the challenges involved as follows.

One of the characteristics of a democratic, plural society is that it should enable the diverse elements within it to come together with a sense of common purpose, while respecting the integrity of the cultural and faith identities of its different component groups. (p. 3, para 2.3)

Identifying appropriate ways to do this---~om symbolic events through consultative mechanisms and policy fora to the evolution of appropriate guidelines for the involvement of religious groups in the delivery of public services is one of the key challenges facing religiously plural societies.

Thesis 5 Religious communities and traditions need to preempt the dangers involved in becoming proxy sites for imported conflicts involving their co-religionists in other parts of the world. But because they are themselves part of wider global


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communities of faith, religions have the potential to contributing positively to a better understanding of role of the states and societies of their own countries in a globalizing world.

Religion is once again on the public agenda, often because of its appear- ance in the guise of identity politics and its part in international politics and diplomacy. The Satanic Verses controversy (Appignanesi & Maitland, 1989) was a key example of this, but not the only one. In what the historian Arnold Toynbee (1956) called conditions of the"annihilation of distance," inter-religious conflict in one part of the world can significantly affect inter- religious relations elsewhere. However, issues about the global identity of religious minorities are not only to be found at the level of overt violence. Concems also arise from foreign funding of religious organizations and from the involvement of foreign embassies in the development of communities, a key example of this being the contested territory of Islam and Muslim organizations in the Turkish Muslim communities of the Federal Republic of Germany (Jonker, 2004; Seufert, 2004).

Such tensions are, of course, not new. For example, historically, Eng- lish Protestants perceived that Roman Catholics were at least potentially fifth columnists in the state because of their links with the Vatican. Jews have had to live with suspicions about the meaning of Zionism in the relationship between diaspora Jews, the modern state of Israel, and the policies and practices of Israeli governments. At the same time, although their international connections can make religions vulnerable to real or perceived dangers of adding to social conflicts rather than healing them, in principle it is also these connections that can position religions well to act as resources for integrating national identities with a developing sense of global consciousness and responsibility. In an increasingly globalizing and localizing world, religious communities stand at the intersection between the global and the local. They are part of transnational communities of information and solidarity while also rooted in the local communities of which they are a part.

While communication technologies proliferate, what is actually represented through the global media conglomerates is narrowed. In this context religious communities and organizations can offer important alternative channels of information that challenge the individual escapism and collec- tive selfishness of Western consumer societies. As in the days of the Cold War, when the Christian Churches often functioned as a bridge of alternative information in contrast to the enemy images about both sides, so also today religions have the potential to challenge the oversimplifications of


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the political thesis of a"clash of civilizations" (Huntington, 1996; see cri- tiques in Senghaas, 1998). Thus, for example, being themselves often part of transnational and multicultural communities, religions offer reminders that there are Christian Palestinians and Christian Iraqis (Wessels, 1995) and millions of Muslims in the West (Nielsen, 1992; Lewis & Schnapper, 1994).

Thesis 6 Religious establishments and other traditions and social arrangements that provide particular forms of religion with privileged access to the social and political institutions need to be reevaluated. There is a growing need to imagine and to construct new structural forms for the relationship between religion(s), state(s), and society(ies) that can more adequately express an inclusive social and political self-understanding than those that currently privilege majority religious traditions. The study of the Council of Europe Group of Consultants on Religious and Cultural Aspects of Equal Opportunities (1996) underlines that:

Because of the particular European history, churches have come to occupy a particular place in the public arena, in many cases one of privilege even when some church leaders will argue that the privilege is doubtful. Even when such privilege is not embedded in law, it exists in practice based on history and institutional and cultural advantage. (para 3.3.8)

However, some argue that aspects of the old models of religion(s), state(s), and society(ies) have kept open a space (e.g., the presence of Church of England Bishops in the House of Lords) in the machinery of the state that has offered some access also for minority faith communities (see discus- sions in Modood, 1997). Thus it is possible for representatives of minority religions to see the continued establishment of the Church of England as preferable to what they perceive as the dangers of an ideologically secular- izing disestablishment. However, it is the argument of this thesis (which I have discussed in greater detail elsewhere, Weller, 2000, 2005) that such forms for embodying the relationships between religion(s), state(s), and society(ies) are no longer adequate to the changed realities of three-dimensional (Christian, secular, and religiously plural) societies.

At their best, religious establishments can offer enlightened pater- nalism. At their worst, they reinforce the structural marginalization of minority religious traditions. Nevertheless, it is far from straightforward


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to create new and more inclusive structures and processes. Attempting to do so is fraught with the uncertainties and sometimes dangers of the unknown. Nevertheless, is it beyond our ability to envisage new models for the relationship between religion(s) and government(s)? Could there not be practical models that would neither presuppose the dominance of one religious tradition or the exclusion of all, neither the full incorporation of religion(s) into government(s) nor their complete detachment from it? It is possible that the pattern of emerging inter-faith initiatives (see In- ter Faith Network for the UK, 2003) at local, regional, national, UK, and international levels might have something, albeit untidy, to offer here to evolutionary change. These include:

�9 faith coalitions/programs working on single issues;

�9 local councils of faiths developing as broader partners with local authorities;

�9 more religiously inclusive national bodies being developed in relation to particular sectors of society, for example, changes in prison service, community work, and so forth.

Although untidy, fragile, and ambiguous, the development of such alternative patterns offers what might be seen as "worked parallel alternatives" (Weller, 2005). In time it is possible that these could develop a utility and legitimacy that could lead to their acceptance initially as complementary and possibly later as alternative as patterns for the relationships between religion (s), state (s), and society(ies) in comparison with existing establishments of religion.

Thesis 7 Inter-religious dialogue is an imperative for religious communities and for the states and societies of which they are a part. There is a need to continue the task of developing appropriate inter-faith structures at all levels in states and societies and in appropriate transnational and international structures. At the local level the Faith and Community (LGA, 2002a) guidance states, "The value of more formal structures of this kind in multi-faith cities and towns is becoming increasingly apparent" (p. 24, para 7.9.) Once the contribution of religious groups and organizations to the development of social capital is recognized, then inter-faith organizations and structures increasingly come to be seen as potentially important contributors to

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bridging social capital. In this connection, although there is a role for dialogue in itself at the

theological and philosophical levels, in order to gain a wider public benefit, it is also important for public authorities to be involved. An example of this in the UK is the creation of local strategic partnerships that involve local authorities, other public sector bodies, business, and the voluntary and community sectors in collaborative local strategic planning. Thus Guidance on Community Cohesion (LGA, 2002b) in the UK argues:

The development of effective local inter faith structures, bringing together representatives of different faith communities in a local authority area, can provide a valuable framework both for promoting mutual understanding and co-operation between them and as a mechanism for consultation by the local authority and other public bodies. (p. 21)

About 140 local inter-faith groups exist in the UK, some of which are informal and predominantly concerned with relations between religions. Increasingly, though, more formalized structures are being developed that work at the interface between religions and local authorities (Inter Faith Network for the UK, 2003).

At the national level in the UK since 1987, the Inter Faith Network for the UK (Weller, 1994) has been working on relationships between the faith communities themselves and between these communities and the wider agendas and structures of public life. Although remaining an independent charity, the Network has also been a significant partner organization with the government and with the Commission for Racial Equality in relation to a range of issues and projects.

At the European level, in 2002 the international and inter-religious Non- Governmental Organization the World Conference on Religion and Peace established a European Council of Religious Leaders that is committed to working to end conflicts, to reaffirming the religious rejection of terror, and to promoting peace and justice among the peoples, religions, and traditions in Europe. In the EU, apart from the Soul for Europe program (2003), little inter-faith infrastructure has so far emerged, although as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam (Scharf, 2003), issues of religious discrimination and measures to tackle it have now been taken up in the competence of the EU. Indeed, in the light of this and the growing importance of the EU for all aspects of life of its member states and societies, further development


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of inter-faith initiatives and infrastructures can be anticipated at the EU level.

Although fragile and fraught with difficulties in both their creation and their maintenance, inter-religious dialogue initiatives (and especially those that work at the interface of religions and secularity) need to be positively encouraged and carefully nurtured. They are in fact particularly important in contexts where the transmutation of religious identities into the service of identity politics itself becomes a central part of conflict through the absolutization of such identities and results in a violence that attempts "religio-ethnic cleansings" of the kind that occurred during the Bosnia- Herzogovina and Kosovo conflicts.

By contrast, although the capacity and potential of inter-religious initiatives should not be overestimated, they do at least have the potential for creating bridging social capital by facilitating the development of a common stakeholding (religious and secular) in a wider community life. At the same time they can also provide channels of communication at least for addressing conflictual trends and developments that can lead to tears in the fabric of societies, which if unchecked can also lead to the breakdown of states.

Concluding Reflections

In the context of the effects of globalization and the decline of the nation state, religions are once again emerging into the public sphere as important alternative forms of identification. As such they are capable of providing individuals and groups with a sense of belonging that can make connections between the local and the global in what otherwise may be experienced as the destabilizing social, personal, and epistemological fluidity of (post)modern life.

In diverse societies there is often a search for some commonly agreed- on principles and practices to provide working foundations for integrating the diversities in a social organism that function at least tolerably well. Be- cause religions embody significant historical continuity and relative stability, governmental powers-that-be increasingly recognize the potential contribution of religious organizations and groups as having significant potential to make creative contributions to the identification and promotion of the key common values and procedures necessary for undergirding a shared social sense of mutual belonging. At the same time, religions themselves see in this recognition an opportunity for exerting some influence in public life.

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In considering the place of religions in contemporaryWestern societies, Marc Luyckx (1994) suggested that three"ideal types" or"social cosmolo- gies'can be identified.These are what he calls the" agrarian,'the" scientific- industrial," and the'post-industrial."Yhe agrarian cosmology is associated with established state or folk religion and is based on the assumption of a society where organic unities Weber's Gemeinschafien and pyramidal hier- archies operate. The scientific-industrial cosmology is associated with the secularist projects of modernity in which in the context of the transforma- tion of Gemeinschafien into Gesellschaften, the previous organic unities are broken up, leading to the characteristic compartmentalization, increased specialization, and fragmentation of modernity. This has either initiated or reinforced movements for the separation of religion and politics and religion and the state. In contrast to both the agrarian and the scientific- industrial models, Luyckx argues that the only theoretically adequate and socially viable model for the contemporary and future plural Europe is a post-industrial model, which he characterizes with the image of a round table.

Luyckx (1994) argues that the project of the nation state was an attempt on the basis of the scientific-industrial model to address the question of how to achieve cohesion in the context of the breakdown of earlier organic unities. But he believes that such a model is ultimately incompatible with the lifestyles of agrarian, pre-modern communities that still exist even in Europe, not least through migration of communities with Third-World origins that were often rural in nature. At the same time, the complexity and diversity of contemporary European societies means that nostalgia for pre-modern models can remain only that. However, in contrast to agrarian-pre-modern and scientific-industrial-modern models, Luyckx believes that a post-industrial-postmodern model can incorporate aspects of both the modern and the pre-modern models.

There are no easy solutions here. However, it is increasingly clear that the modernist approach of trying to maintain the privatization of religions is no longer a realistic or effective option. Religious organizations and groups have a dynamic that can be both destructive and creative. How they play their role in societies and states depends in part on their integrity in relation to their founding visions and values, but also on how they are accommodated, excluded, or partnered by the states and societies of which they continue to form a numerically substantial as well as socially and politically important part.


REI.IGIONS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a paper Religions and Social Capital: Seven Theses on Religion(s), State(s) and Society(ies) presented at the seminar "Religious Communities in Pluralistic Societies: 'Clash of Civilizations' or Sources of Social Capital" in the "Metropolis Presents" series of seminars spon sored by the Multiculturalism Program at the Department of Canadian Heritage Ottawa, Canada, March 18, 2003.

Note

The theses were first published in Weller (2002a, 2002b). As they appear here the theses are in a different order and have some slight textual amendments to their originally published form. The permission of the Editor of the Baptist Quarterly to use the theses and to draw on some text in the original published article is gratefully acknowledged. An abridged version of the original publication appeared in Weller (2002c) andin Weller (2005). Earlier versions of the propositions that formed the basis of those later published were developed in conference presentations: Jews and Muslims in Europe: Some Propositions and Questions for European States, Societies and Religions at"From Xenophobia to Tolerance: Jews and Muslims in Europe"at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Paris, October 1995. A more generalized form of that presentation entitled Religion(s), State and Soczety, ... Theses and Proposmons. fior Europe was repared for the Council of Euro e Sere nar on 'Rehglon and the Integration of Migrants'held m Strasbourg, November 1998. theses were also presented at author's Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Inter-Religious Relations at the Uni- versity of Derby, on Insiders or Outsiders? Religion(s), State(s) and Society: Propositions for Europe at the University of Derby, November 2000.

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