The major purpose of this book is to critically examine the applicability of manifestations and factors of secularization in Britain to Malawi. The book was guided by the key research question, "Are the manifestations and factors of secularization in Britain applicable to Malawi?" The question was supported by other follow up questions, namely, "What were the factors that contributed to the rise of secularization in Britain?" "What is the connection between Britain and Malawi?" "To what extent does secularization in Britain affect that in Malawi?" "Does Malawi have unique factors that are specific or are the same factors at work that have contributed to the process of secularization in Britain?"

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

‘Multicultural Kingdom’ explores some of the causes and implications of ethnic diversity on the British Christian landscape – and the landscape of theology itself. Why do we prefer to remain segregated in our ecclesiology? Why do several churches of different ethnic heritage use the same building for services on Sunday but not worship together?

In Secular Translations, the anthropologist Talal Asad reflects on his lifelong engagement with secularism and its contradictions. He draws out the ambiguities in our concepts of the religious and the secular through a rich consideration of translatability and untranslatability, exploring the circuitous movements of ideas between histories and cultures. In search of meeting points between the language of Islam and the language of secular reason, Asad gives particular importance to the translations of religious ideas into nonreligious ones. He discusses the claim that liberal conceptions of equality represent earlier Christian ideas translated into secularism; explores the ways that the language and practice of religious ritual play an important but radically transformed role as they are translated into modern life; and considers the history of the idea of the self and its centrality to the project of the secular state. Secularism is not only an abstract principle that modern liberal democratic states espouse, he argues, but also a range of sensibilities. The shifting vocabularies associated with each of these sensibilities are fundamentally intertwined with different ways of life. In exploring these entanglements, Asad shows how translation opens the door for—or requires—the utter transformation of the translated. Drawing on a diverse set of thinkers ranging from al-Ghazālī to Walter Benjamin, Secular Translations points toward new possibilities for intercultural communication, seeking a language for our time beyond the language of the state.

Homosexuality is a cross-cutting challenge to Malawian society with theological, socio-cultural, economic, legal, political, and human rights implications. This book argues that the solution to the homosexuality debate in Malawi does not lie in either the criminalization or decriminalization of homosexuality; neither does it lie in homophobia nor heterophobia. However, the solution to the homosexuality debate lies in achieving a harmonious co-existence of both heterosexuals and homosexuals by practicing mutual tolerance. The book concludes by suggesting various activities to be taken by: The Government of Malawi; Gay Rights Activists; Religious Leaders; Traditional Leaders; and Malawian Society to ensure the aforementioned tolerance and understanding is encouraged.

What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and secularism—the worldwide and the worldly? While cosmopolitan politics may seem inherently secular, existing forms of secularism risk undermining the universality of cosmopolitanism because they privilege the European tradition over all others and transform particular historical norms into enunciations of truth, valid for all cultures and all epochs. In this book, the noted philosopher Étienne Balibar explores the tensions lurking at this troubled nexus in order to advance a truly democratic and emancipatory cosmopolitanism, which requires a secularization of secularism itself. Balibar argues for the idea of the universal against its particular dominant institutions. He questions the assumptions that underlie popular ideas of secularism and religion and outlines the importance of a new critique for the contemporary world. Balibar holds that conflicts between religious and secular discourses need to be reframed from a point of view that takes into account the cultural hybridization, migration and mobility, and transformation of borders that have reshaped the postcolonial age. Among the topics discussed are the uses and misuses of the category of religion and the religious, the paradoxical genealogy of monotheism, French laïcité’s identitarian turn, and the implications of the responses to the Charlie Hebdo attacks for an extended definition of free speech. Going beyond circumscribed notions of religion and the public sphere, Secularism and Cosmopolitanism is a profound rethinking of identity and difference that seeks to make room for a renewed political imagination.