Europeanization, Religion and Collective Identities in an Enlarging Europe A Multiple Modernities Perspective

Abstract

This article analyzes the conflictive role of religion in post-1989 Europe. Three major reasons for this are addressed: first, the restoration of structural and cultural pluralism of European civilization since the breakdown of communism entails the reconstitution of the full diversity of European religion. Second, international migration as a crucial part of globalization has intensified, contributing to the transformation of Europe into a complex of multi-cultural and pluri-religious societies. Third, the wave of contemporary globalization has been accompanied by an intensification of inter-civilizational and inter-religious encounters and conflicts - particularly between Christianity and Islam. As a result, European integration and enlargement as a secular and humanist mode of cultural integration and religious governance are basically challenged by this three-fold revitalization of religion. The growing tendency is to respond to this challenge by enhancing the Christian foundations of Europe rather than, as this article argues, to follow a more cosmopolitan, secularist and religious pluralist mode of European cultural integration.