The Return Of Public Religion A Critical Assessment Of A Popular Claim

This article tries to solve a puzzle concerning the notion of public religion. The aim is to understand why contradictory claims are heard in Britain about the place of religion in the public sphere. On the one hand are claims that religion is resurgent. On the other hand are counterclaims that religion is systematically excluded from public life. The solution proposed by this article begins by recognising that Britain lacks the kind of sharp distinction between the state, political society and civil society that Casanova regards as a condition of modernity. The second part of the solution takes into account the strategies of British governments between 1997 and 2010 for deliberately blurring the boundary between state and civil society by summoning the 'faith sector' to enter into partnership with the state. And the final part of the solution argues that the apparent resurgence of religion in the British public sphere is largely a product of the government's 'interpellation' of the faith sector within a broader attempt to manage religious and ethnic diversity.