Paper presentation during XXI World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, panel on ‘Religion Renegotiated: Faith-Based Organizations and the State since the 1960s’, Erfurt, Germany, August 23-29, 2015: http://www.iahr2015.org/iahr/3158.html.
Panel description:
‘Christian faith-based organizations have long been regarded as constitutive to the functioning of civil society and hence granted a special position in both the communis opinio and legislation of European societies. However, rampant deconfessionalization and growing disbelief have undermined Christianity’s societal position, and with Islam increasingly becoming the religion of European-born citizens and whilst visibility of Muslim communities has become more apparent, issues on the ‘proper’ interlocution between state-religion-society are more than ever at the heart of public debate. Nonetheless, few issues are at once so central and so understudied as the relationship between faith-based organizations and the state. This panel will theoretically assess to what extent and how the boundaries between the state and faith-based organizations have been reshaped since the 1960s. The papers tackle these issues by an empirical focus on developments in social policy, the law and public debates in the Netherlands.’
Hans-Martien ten Napel 