Abstract

Religion has come back on to the social policy agenda since September 11, 2001. Policy makers, educators, and law enforcement agents now seek to know about religions and have become worried about the potential of mismanaged religious diversity to disrupt the day to day workings of their societies. Since the end of the Cold War two processes have been transforming the relationship between religion and society – religious diversification and religious revitalisation. These processes were occurring but below the threshold of notice from the mid 1970s through the 1980s and early 1990s. Together they are changing the way we think about religion and the ways societies think about managing religious diversity.