The FD Maurice Lectures 2014 - Religion & Sociology: A Marriage Made in Hea...

Religious Diversity, The State & Contention

The focus of the third FD Maurice lecture is on a variety of controversies in which religious actors, organisations and communities are currently embroiled in Britain. Theological and moral aspects of the controversies about, for example, equalities legislation, multiculturalism, secularism and faith schools are often in the headlines, but Professor James Beckford will argue that sociological analysis can also throw light on broader questions about the contested management of religious diversity and the role of the state in ‘interpellating’ faith communities as its ‘partners’.