New forms of religious diversity have emerged that demand specific policies from the state, putting pressure on the established practices of religious governance. European societies have been a testing ground for many of these changes, but for decades Canada has been pioneering the management of diversity, thus offering interesting similarities and contrasts with the former. This book deals with the diverging routes of political secularization in Europe and Canada, the patterns of religious governance, the practices for accommodating the demands of religious minorities concerning their legal regulation, the management of public institutions, and the provision of social services.

The United States has long been described as a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of religions in which Muslims and Methodists, Buddhists and Baptists live and work side by side. This book explores that nation of religions, focusing on how four recently arrived religious communities--Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs--are shaping and, in turn, shaped by American values. For a generation, scholars have been documenting how the landmark legislation that loosened immigration restrictions in 1965 catalyzed the development of the United States as "a nation of Buddhists, Confucianists, and Taoists, as well as Christians," as Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark put it. The contributors to this volume take U.S. religious diversity not as a proposition to be proved but as the truism it has become. Essays address not whether the United States is a Christian or a multireligious nation--clearly, it is both--but how religious diversity is changing the public values, rites, and institutions of the nation and how those values, rites, and institutions are affecting religions centuries old yet relatively new in America. This conversation makes an important contribution to the intensifying public debate about the appropriate role of religion in American politics and society. Contributors: Ihsan Bagby, University of Kentucky Courtney Bender, Columbia University Stephen Dawson, Forest, Virginia David Franz, University of Virginia Hien Duc Do, San Jose State University James Davison Hunter, University of Virginia Prema A. Kurien, Syracuse University Gurinder Singh Mann, University of California, Santa Barbara Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida Stephen Prothero, Boston University Omid Safi, Colgate University Jennifer Snow, Pasadena, California Robert A. F. Thurman, Columbia University R. Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago Duncan Ryuken Williams, University of California, Berkeley

Multireligious Reflections on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community presents a multi-religious discussion of spiritual and ethical formation through friendship. Contributors discuss the positive effects of friendship and some of the culturally diverse ways that friendships develop. Friends help us co-exist in diverse societies, live sustainably in our ecosystems, heal from trauma, develop inner virtues, engage wisely in social action, and connect with the divine. While friendship is a core human value, cultural traditions have used different tools to build friendships. For example, Indigenous communities emphasize reciprocity on the land; Jewish traditions encourage respect for study partners; Buddhist teachers suggest discernment in befriending; Christian texts speak of bringing God’s love into community. The fifteen scholars contributing to this book draw on the teachings of six different global traditions: Indigenous, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian. Each scholar applies the tools of their tradition—reciprocity, respect, discernment, love, and more—to discuss how we might become our best selves in community.

Strangers in This World brings together a consortium of scholars to reflect on the religious, political, anthropological, and social realities of immigration through the prism of the historical and theological resources, insights, and practices across an array of religious traditions. The volume, reflecting the diversity of religious cultures, is nevertheless unified in arguing that immigration is an important aspect of the major religions at their core and connects to vital points of theological reflection and practice in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Native American religious traditions.

Spaces are produced and shaped by discourses and, in turn, produce and shape discourses themselves. ‘Space’ is becoming a significant and complex concept for the encounter between people, cultures, religions, ideologies, politics, between histories and memories, the advantaged and the disadvantaged, the powerful and the weak. As a result, it provides a rich hermeneutical and methodological inventory for mapping interculturality and interreligiosity. This volume looks at space as a critical theory and epistemological tool within cultural studies that fosters the analysis of power structures and the deconstruction of representations of identities within our societies that are shaped by power.

The World Parliament of Religions adopted the view that there will not be peace in this world without including peace among religions. Yet, even with the unified force of the world’s religions and wisdom traditions, this cannot be accomplished without justice among people. In one way or another, “unity” among religions, as based on justice and the will to accept the other’s religions and even irreligiosity as means of justice, will not prevail without an internal and external, spiritual, theological, philosophical and practical investigation into the very reasons for religious strife and fanaticism as well as the resources that people, cultures, religions and wisdom traditions might provide to disentangle them from the injustices of their host regimes, and to seek the “balance” that leads to a measure of universal fairness among the multiplicity of religious and non-religious expressions of humanity. “Conviviality” expresses the depth and breadth of “living together,” which itself can be understood as a translation of a central term of Whitehead's philosophy and the process tradition—“concrescence” (growing together, becoming concrete)—as it is recently and increasingly used in different discourses to name the concrete community of difference of individuals, cultures, and religions in appreciation of the mutual inclusiveness of their lives. This book seeks to bring together experts from different religious (and non-religious) traditions and spiritual persuasions to suggest ways in which the living wisdom traditions might contribute to, and transform themselves into, a universal conviviality among the people, cultures and religions of this world for a common future. It wishes to test the resources that we can contribute to this concurrent and urgent matter, aware of Whitehead's call for a radical transformation of power and violence in thought and action as, perhaps, the ultimate theory of conflict resolution.