Sacralization by stealth
Kaufmann, Eric P. (2007) Sacralization by stealth. Other. Institute for Jewish Policy Research, London, UK.
Abstract
What are the political implications of differences in growth rates between secular and religious populations in western Europe? Dr Kaufmann’s paper claims that demographic factors can lead to a reversal of the secularisation process and to growing religiosity in society even if religious apostates outnumber converts. The secular population of western Europe might grow through defection from the religious population and from the minority of immigrants who are secular. But the main engines of religious population growth in western Europe are more powerful: religious immigrants and higher fertility. Native-born west Europeans who declare themselves ‘religious’ form about half the adult population in six north-western European countries studied by the author. Meanwhile, immigrants also tend to be more religious and fertile than the secular host population. Western Europe’s population will increasingly consist of (more religious) immigrants and their descendants, and this paper suggests a number of ways in which this demographic change may manifest itself politically. Ethnic cleavage between ‘native’ and immigrant may come to be replaced by a trans-ethnic religious divide between traditionalists and secularists—mirrored by a widening moderate/strictly Orthodox split among Jews—as has occurred in the United States since 1968.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Monograph (Other) |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Israel, European Jews, Europe identity, community, assimilation, secularisation, religious practice |
| School: | Birkbeck Schools and Departments > School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy > Politics |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Oct 2017 15:22 |
| Last Modified: | 20 May 2019 14:37 |
| URI: | http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/20016 |
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