Contributor Information

Elisabeth Arweck is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick and Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Religion. She has conducted research on New Religious Movements, religion and education, alternative educational programmes, mixed-faith families, religious socialization and religious diversity. She is Senior Research Fellow on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/research/wreru/research/current/ahrc/)

James A. Beckford

James A. Beckford is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He has conducted research on religious organizations, Jehovah’s Witnesses, controversial New Religious Movements, church–state relations, religion in prisons, and theoretical ideas about religion. He has also served as a member of the Commissioning Panel for the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/commissioning).

Robert Bluck

Robert Bluck (now retired) was Associate Lecturer in Religious Studies at The Open University. His doctoral research on Buddhism in Britain was published as British Buddhism (2006) and in several articles and book chapters. He has been a practising Buddhist for forty years in the Theravada and Zen traditions.

Ralf Brand

Ralf Brand is Senior Lecturer in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester’s Architecture Research Centre (MARC). He studies the ‘co-evolution’ of social and material change and applies this angle as Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘Multi-Faith Spaces – Symptoms and Agents of Religious and Social Change’
(http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/architecture/research/mfs/).

Callum Brown

Callum Brown is Professor of Religious and Cultural History at the University of Dundee. He has published ten books and more than fifty articles and book chapters, including The Death of Christian Britain (2nd edn 2009) and Religion and Society in Twentieth Century Britain (2005).

Rebecca Catto

Rebecca Catto is Research Associate for the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/) at Lancaster University. She has published on contemporary non-Western Christian missions to the UK, religion in Britain, and law and the sociology of religion. She has advised the Equality and Human Rights Commission on religion or belief and is currently Principal Investigator on ‘The Young Atheists Research Project’, funded by the Jacobs Foundation.

Mark Chapman

Mark Chapman is Vice Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, Reader in Modern Theology at the University of Oxford, and Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University. His most recent books are Anglican Theology (2012), Doing God: Religion and Public Policy in Brown’s Britain (2008) and Bishops, Saints and Politics: Anglican Studies (2007). He has written widely on modern church history and theology. He is also a Church of England priest ministering in a group of parishes near Oxford.

Yuko Chiba

Yuko Chiba studied at Queen’s University Belfast, London School of Economics and University of Ulster. Her research interests include the rights of minority belief people and persons with disabilities. She is a former Research Fellow on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘Opting Out of Religious Education: The Views of Young People from Minority Belief Backgrounds’ at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/opting_out_of_re_could_and_should_be_easier).

Douglas J. Davies

Douglas J. Davies is now Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University and before that was a professor at Nottingham University. As an anthropologist and theologian he has published many books on Mormons, Anglicans, Death Studies and on historical-theoretical aspects of Religious Studies. He holds the higher Oxford Doctor of Letters degree, is an Honorary Doctor of Theology from Uppsala University, and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has been Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded collaborative studentship ‘British Woodland Burial: Its Theological, Ecological and Social Values’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/from_earth_to_earth).

Adam Dinham

Adam Dinham is Reader in Religion and Society at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is qualified as a social worker and has practised in Social Work and Community Development in city contexts. He is policy advisor to a number of faith-based agencies and policy bodies, and has advised central government on issues of public faith. He is Director of the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London and has published widely on faith in the public realm. He is also Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded research network ‘FaithXChange’ (www.faithxchange.org.uk/default.asp).

Gladys Ganiel

Gladys Ganiel is Lecturer in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast (the Irish School of Ecumenics). She is the author of Evangelicalism and Conflict in Northern Ireland (2008) and co-author, with Claire Mitchell, of Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture (2011). She has also published on religion and politics in Zimbabwe and South Africa, charismatic Christianity, the emerging church, and the Democratic Unionist Party.

Sophie Gilliat-Ray

Sophie Gilliat-Ray is Reader in Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University, and Founding Director of the Islam-UK Centre, also at Cardiff University. She is the author of numerous books and journal articles concerned with religion in British public life, and the training and education of religious professionals. Her new book Understanding Muslim Chaplaincy (with S. Pattison and M. Ali) is due for publication by Ashgate in 2013. She has led the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project Leadership and Capacity Building in the British Muslim Community (http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/share/research/centres/csi/research/muslimchaplaincyproject/index.html).

David J. Graham

David J. Graham is Director of Social and Demographic Research at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, London, and Honorary Research Associate at the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies, University of Sydney. He is a Board member of the Association of Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) and was formerly Senior Researcher at the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He has written widely on demographic, geographic and sociological aspects of Britain’s Jewish population and recently (2008) completed his DPhil on this topic at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Ceri Peach. He is currently working on a series of national quantitative surveys of Britain’s Jewish community.

Mathew Guest

Mathew Guest is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Religion at Durham University. He has published widely on Christianity in late modern Western cultures, focusing especially on the evangelical movement, and is the author of Evangelical Identity and Contemporary Culture (2007) and Bishops, Wives and Children: Spiritual Capital Across the Generations (with Douglas Davies, 2007). He is Principal Investigator for ‘Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England’ (http://www.cueproject.org.uk) funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme.

Graham Harvey

Graham Harvey is Reader in Religious Studies at The Open University, with research interests in the performance, material cultures and literatures of Jews, Pagans and indigenous peoples. His publications include Religions in Focus: New Approaches to Tradition and Contemporary Practices (2009), Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism (2nd edn, 2007), Animism: Respecting the Living World (2006), Researching Paganisms (co-edited with Jenny Blain and Douglas Ezzy, 2004), and The A to Z of Shamanism (co-authored with Robert Wallis, 2010).

Robert Jackson

Robert Jackson is Professor of Religions and Education at the University of Warwick, and Director of Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. He is also Professor of Religious Diversity and Education at the European Wergeland Centre, Oslo. His books include Rethinking Religious Education and Plurality: Issues in Diversity and Pedagogy (2004). He is Principal Investigator on the Religion and Society project ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/research/wreru/research/current/ahrc/) and a member of the Programme’s Steering Committee (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/steering_committee).

Sarah Johnsen

Sarah Johnsen is Senior Research Fellow at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Her main research interests include homelessness and street culture (begging, street drinking and street-based sex work), the role of faith-based organizations in the provision of social welfare, and ethical issues in research involving vulnerable groups. She is co-author of Swept up Lives? Re-envisioning the Homeless City (with Paul Cloke and Jon May, 2010) and contributed to Homelessness in the UK: problems and solutions (2009). She has been Principal Investigator on AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘The Difference that “Faith” Makes’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/faith_based_services_for_homeless_people_do_not_bible_bash).

Peter Jones

Peter Jones is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Newcastle.
He has written on many different aspects of rights, including human rights, group rights, democratic rights, welfare rights, and rights of free expression. His published work has also ranged over a number of other subjects, including toleration, identity, recognition, cultural diversity, democracy, global justice, international society, and the nature of liberalism. He has been Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded research network ‘Religion, Discrimination and Accommodation’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/uploads/docs/2011_05/1304497269_Jones_Phase_1_Network_Block.pdf).

Kim Knott

Kim Knott is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Leeds, and was Director of AHRC’s ‘Diasporas, Migration and Identities’ Programme from 2005 to 2011. She participated in the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme, completing a replication of a project first carried out in the 1980s on religion and the secular sacred in the British media (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/traditional_practice_may_be_down_but_media_coverage_of_religion_is_up). A co-authored book is forthcoming. Her previous books include Diasporas: Concepts, Intersections, Identities (co-edited with Seán McLoughlin, 2010), The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis (2005) and Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction (2000).

Gordon Lynch

Gordon Lynch is Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology at the University of Kent. He has previously been co-chair of the Media, Religion and Culture Group within the American Academy of Religion, and Chair of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Religion Study Group. His books include The Sacred in the Modern World: A Cultural Sociological Approach (2012). He is Principal Investigator on the Religion and Society funded collaborative studentship ‘Negotiating the Secular and the Religious in Higher Education’ (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/crcs/research/Religion_and_the_secular_in_UK_higher_education) and the research network ‘Belief as Cultural Performance’ (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/crcs/research/belief_network). He is also a member of the Programme’s Steering Committee (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/steering_committee).

David Martin

David Martin is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Adjunct Professor at Liverpool Hope University. Before that he worked at the LSE from 1962 to 1986 and then at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and in association with Boston University. He also taught at Lancaster University from 1993 to 2006. His most recent book is the Future of Christianity. Reflections on Violence and Democracy, Religion and Secularization (2011). This discusses some of the issues raised in the chapter in this volume, as does his On Secularization. Towards a Revised General Theory (2005).

Alison Mawhinney

Alison Mawhinney is a lecturer in human rights and public law at the School of Law, Bangor University. She is the author of Freedom of Religion and Schools: the Case of Ireland (2009). She has published on religious discrimination in employment, the human rights obligations of non-state service providers and the protection of religious liberty in education. She was Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘Opting Out of Religious Education: The Views of Young People from Minority Belief Backgrounds’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/opting_out_of_re_could_and_should_be_easier).

Jolyon Mitchell

Jolyon Mitchell is Professor of Communications, Arts and Religion, and Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI),at the University of Edinburgh. A former BBC World Service producer and journalist, his publications include: Promoting Peace, Inciting Violence: The Role of Religion and Media (forthcoming, 2012), Media Violence and Christian Ethics (2007) and The Religion and Film Reader (co-edited with S. Brent Plate, 2007).

Shuruq Naguib

Shuruq Naguib is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. Her research interests include Classical Muslim hermeneutics, Modern Islam and gender, ritual purity and Islamic law. Two of her recent publications are ‘Aisha Abd al-Rahman (Bint al-Shati): The journey of an Egyptian exegete from hermeneutics to humanity’ in Reading the Qur’an: Language, Culture & Interpretation in 20th Century Tafsir (edited by Suha Taji-Farouki, forthcoming, 2011) and ‘Horizons and Limitations of Muslim Feminist Hermeneutics: Reflections on the verse of menstruation’ in New Topics in Feminist Philosophy of Religion (edited by Pamela Sue Anderson, 2010).

Ulrike Niens

Ulrike Niens is Lecturer in the School of Education, Queen’s University Belfast. Her research and teaching focuses on peace education and inclusion, identity and citizenship. Ulrike is chair of the School of Education’s Ethics Committee and editorial board member of Compare and Peace & Conflict: The Journal of Peace Psychology. She was a member of the team for the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘Opting Out of Religious Education: The Views of Young People from Minority Belief Backgrounds’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/opting_out_of_re_could_and_should_be_easier).

Malory Nye

Malory Nye is Principal of the Al-Maktoum College in Dundee, an independent college of higher education, and is also Professor of Multiculturalism at the college, and Honorary Professor at the University of Aberdeen. He has authored three books, including Multiculturalism and Minority Religions in Britain (2001) and Religion: the Basics (second edition, 2008), and co-authored the report Time for Change (2006), which mapped out the development of the teaching of the study of Islam and Muslims in British universities. He has also edited the journal Culture and Religion for a number of years.

Elizabeth Olson

Elizabeth Olson is Senior Lecturer of Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh and specializes in geographies of religion, development and ethics. She is the author of numerous book chapters and articles, and editor of several books on development and religion including Religion and Place (with Peter Hopkins and Lily Kong, forthcoming). She is Principal Investigator of two research projects funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. The first explores the changing perspectives of young Scottish Christians (‘Relational Religious Identities’), and the second examines the religiosity of young people living in deprived neighbourhoods of Britain (‘Marginalized Spiritualities’; http://youthandreligion.org.uk/).

Stephen Orchard

Stephen Orchard is Honorary Associate Professor, School of Education, Brunel University and a retired United Reformed Church minister who, after local ministries, served as Assistant General Secretary (Community Affairs), British Council of Churches, 1982–1986; Director of the Christian Education Movement, 1986–2001; and Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge, 2001–2007; also the President of the Cambridge Theological Federation from 2005 to 2007. He was Secretary of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales from 1991 and Chairman from 1999 to 2001. In retirement he serves on various educational trust bodies and is currently working on several projects in church history.

Christopher Partridge

Christopher Partridge is Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. His research and writing focuses on alternative spiritualities, counter-cultures and popular music. He is the editor, with Alyn Shipton, of the monograph series ‘Studies in Popular Music’(Equinox). His most recent book is Dub in Babylon: Understanding the Evolution and Significance of Dub Reggae in Jamaica and Britain from King Tubby to Post-punk (2010). He has also served as a member of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme’s Commissioning Panel (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/commissioning).

Brian Pearce

Brian Pearce OBE was Director of the Inter Faith Network for the UK for twenty years from its establishment in 1987, and helped over the previous two years in the process which led to this. He stood down as Director in September 2007 and has subsequently worked for the Network on a part-time basis as an Advisor on Faith and Public Life. Before becoming involved full-time in interfaith work, he served in the civil service from 1959 to 1986, including posts in the Department of Economic Affairs, Civil Service Department and HM Treasury, where he was an Under Secretary. He is a member of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme’s Steering Committee (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/steering_committee).

Norman Richardson

Norman Richardson lectures in Religious Studies and intercultural education at Stranmillis University College, Belfast, where most of his current work is with student teachers. He has been involved in promoting inclusive and intercultural approaches to the content and teaching of RE in Northern Ireland’s schools and also in processes of community relations and inter-religious encounter, as reflected in his recent co-edited book, Education for Diversity and Mutual Understanding: the Experience of Northern Ireland (Peter Lang, 2011). He was a member of the team for the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded project ‘Opting Out of Religious Education: The Views of Young People from Minority Belief Backgrounds’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/research_findings/featured_findings/opting_out_of_re_could_and_should_be_easier).

Gurharpal Singh

Gurharpal Singh is Dean of Arts and Humanities at SOAS and Chair in Religions and Development in the Department for the Study of Religion. He was the Deputy Director of the Religions and Development Research Programme (DFID) and has served as a member of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme’s Commissioning Panel (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/commissioning). His publications include The Partition of India (2009, with Ian Talbot), Ethnic Conflict in India: A Case Study of Punjab (2000), and India’s Troubled Democracy (forthcoming, 2013).

Brendan Stuart

Brendan Stuart is a mature doctoral student in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University, UK, having started his academic studies following a career in mental health. He is currently undertaking his PhD study into the spiritual dimensions of mainstream contemporary music festivals in Britain; exploring a primary interest in the interface between religion, popular culture and generational dynamics.

Giselle Vincett

Giselle Vincett is a sociologist of religion at the University of Edinburgh where her recent work has focused on studying the religiosity of young people in the UK in two research projects: the first, centred on young Christians, and the second on young people growing up in areas of deprivation, both led by Elizabeth Olson and funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (http://youthandreligion.org.uk/). Previously, her work has focused on alternative spiritualities and religious feminism. She is currently working on a co-edited book on contemporary forms of Christianity to be published by Ashgate.

Paul Weller

Paul Weller is Professor of Inter-Religious Relations at the University of Derby and Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regent’s Park College, Oxford. He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme project ‘Religion and Belief, Discrimination and Equality in England and Wales: Theory, Policy, and Practice, 2000–2010’ (see http://www.derby.ac.uk/religion-and-society). His published works include Time for a Change: Reconfiguring Religion, State and Society (2005) and Religions in the UK: Directory 2007–10 as editor (2007).

John Wolffe

John Wolffe is Professor of Religious History at The Open University. He is the author of The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain 1829–1860 (1991); God and Greater Britain: Religion and National Life in Britain and Ireland 1843–1945 (1994); Great Deaths: Grieving, Religion and Nationhood in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (2000) and The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney (2006) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is currently working on a project on Protestant–Catholic conflict and A Short History of Evangelicalism. He has also been Principal Investigator on the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society funded collaborative studentship ‘From Sunday Schools to Christian Education’ (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/religion_in_education_naomi_stanton) and served as a member of the Programme’s Commissioning Panel
(http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/about/programme_management/commissioning).

Linda Woodhead

Linda Woodhead is Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University, Director of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/) and Visiting Professor at Aarhus University. Her research considers religion in late modern societies. Her books include A Sociology of Religious Emotions (with Ole Riis, 2010), The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality (with Paul Heelas, 2005) and An Introduction to Christianity (2010). She is currently editing a book on Innovative Methods in the Study of Religion, andpreparing a book on Religion in Public: Realignments in State, Society and Market, based on the Wilde Lectures delivered at the University of Oxford in 2011.

John Zavos

John Zavos is Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the University of Manchester. His recent publications include Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia (co-authored with Jacqueline Suthren Hirst, 2011), and several articles on Hinduism and Hindu organizations in the UK. He is also the principal editor of Public Hinduisms (2012). He has worked extensively on the Hindu nationalist movement and is the author of The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in India (2000). Since 2008 he has been editor of the journal Contemporary South Asia.