Belief and unbelief: two sides of a coin

Abstract

Grace Davie writes regarding the nature of religion in modern Europe, and addresses factors of key significance. She identifies five significant factors affecting contemporary religion in Europe: the cultural heritage, the historical role of the state church, new models of the growing market in religion, the arrival in Europe of new religious groups, and the growth of the secular lobby. All of these subsist alongside each other. Davie makes the interesting case that the same factors are equally present in unbelief.

[This paper originally appeared in Approaching Religion, vol. 2, no. 1 (2012), published by the Donner Institute. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor.]