Church and Religion in Contemporary Europe Results from Empirical and Comparative Research

During the last decades, the academic special field of sociology of religion, as well as the general public, has witnessed lively debates on the “new” role and significance of religion in modern societies. Not only perceptions such as a “clash of civilizations” or a “return of religion”, but also a renewed discussion on the relationship between religion and politics seem to stimulate the above mentioned questions. Meanwhile, a considerable quantity of empirical studies focused on the revitalization of religion or the prospects of a continuing secularization have been conducted. The topic of this publication deals with the results derived from a wide range of these studies, a large number of them focused on comparative analyses about the situation of churches and religion in Europe.

– The Comparative View on Religion and Religiosity.- Why, at all, do we need Religion? Religion and Morality in Post-Communist Europe.- Religious Pluralism and Dimensions of Religiosity: Evidence from the Project Religious and Moral Pluralism (RAMP)..- Religiosity in Europe and in the Two Germanies: The Persistence of a Special Case – as revealed by the European Social Survey.- Religion in Finland and Russia in a Comparative Perspective.- Religiosity in Central and Eastern Europe: Results from the PCE 2000 Survey in Comparison.- Secularization as a European Fate? – Results from the Church and Religion in an Enlarged Europe Project 2006.- Religious Oddities: Explaining the Divergent Religious Markets of Poland and East Germany.- Church-State Relations and the Vitality of Religion in European Comparison.- European Exceptionalism: Lazy Churches, Pluralism, Adherence and the Case of the Dutch Religious Cartel.- Religion, Popular Piety, Patchwork Religion.

Gert Pickel, Prof. Dr., Professor of Sociology of Religion at the Institute for Practical Theology, University of Leipzig.
Olaf Müller, research associate at the Cluster of Excellence „Religion and Politics in Pre-modern and Modern Cultures“ and at the Institute of Sociology at University of Münster.