As part of our tenth anniversary celebrations, we’ve launched a blog series to commemorate and reflect upon the work of the LSE Faith Centre over the past decade. As we enter this year’s Interfaith Week, Grace Davie shares some thoughts on the LSE Faith Centre and how to approach religion at a global and secular university like LSE.
I am an alumna of the LSE, gaining a PhD in 1975. My thinking was deeply coloured by particular colleagues in the Department of Sociology at that time. Among them was David Martin, a leading scholar in the sociology of religion, who captured the dominant mood in the School – indeed in the social sciences more generally – by describing himself as ‘an academic deviant living by a non-existent subject’.
I have been reminded of this on several occasions; one such has particular relevance to the Faith Centre. Already retired, I was invited to co-edit the chapter on religion in the three- volume report generated by the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP), published in 2018. The details lie beyond this essay but one point stands out: namely that significant sections of those involved (almost all senior social scientists) were distinctly doubtful about the relationship between religion and social progress. The reasons were clear: religion was either irrelevant (secularisation had done its job), or negatively perceived (toxic, to put it bluntly). So why include a chapter on religion in a report on social progress? Our response is summarised in an earlier blog, but can be captured as follows: religion can undoubtedly be destructive of people and places; at the same time, countless religiously-motivated individuals and the communities of which they are part improve the health and wellbeing of their respective societies on a daily basis.
It was more or less at this point that I came across the LSE Faith Centre. James Walters came with a couple of colleagues to a launch event for the IPSP’s final report in which the chapter on religion was foregrounded. It was clear that we had much in common and I was delighted a month or two later to accept an invitation to join the Advisory Board of the Centre. Since then, I have watched their work go from strength to strength. But why has this happened at the London School of Economics – a bastion of secular social science – and why now?
My response is threefold: it lies in the evolution of the School; in the development of global religion; and in the responses of social science.
LSE – like almost all UK universities – has growing numbers of overseas students; indeed, it leads the field in this respect. Currently, just under 70 percent of the School’s students come from outside the UK. Not only do they come, but bring their cultures and aspirations with them, including their religions. Facilities for the care of these students have adapted accordingly. The LSE Faith Centre has done this spectacularly well. Over and above the arrangements for the pastoral support of different faiths are the Beecken Faith & Leadership course and the initiative known as Interfaith Encounter: Israel and Palestine.
The Beecken Faith & Leadership course is billed as ‘our flagship extra-curricular student programme, designed to enable you, the next generation of leaders, to positively engage with religious difference and build a more peaceful global society’. Noting that students arrive from Israel and Palestine, from India and Pakistan, and from many very different faiths, it is hard to overestimate the significance of this work. The Interfaith Encounter – currently paused for obvious reasons – takes a group of students each year to Israel/Palestine and engages sur place with ‘the three religious traditions of this highly contested region of the world to see how they underpin today’s conflict, but also how they might contribute to its resolution’. A glance at the responses to these endeavours will reveal how much they are appreciated.
A common thread underlies these initiatives: religion – for better or worse – thrives in much of the modern world. For many this is counter-intuitive. We are regularly told, correctly, that ‘no religion’, if not out-and-out atheism, is growing steadily in the UK, in much of modern Europe and, increasingly, in the United States. Much work is ongoing in this field – see, for example, the Understanding Unbelief project at the University of Kent. Take a look, however, at the recent datasets of the Pew Research Centre and a different picture emerges. Not only does religion remain ‘very important’ in the lives of the great majority of people in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America, but the birth rates in these places are markedly higher than those that house religiously-unaffiliated populations. The projections, at least in the short term are clear: ‘that the vast majority of the world’s people will continue to identify with a religion, including about six-in-ten who will be either Christian (31%) or Muslim (30%) in 2050. Just 13% are projected to have no religion’.
What is to be done? Clearly, we – including social scientists – need to understand these trends more fully and keep them at the forefront of academic analyses. So far, the response is uneven. Excellent work exists in a variety of fields but the political scientists – especially the IR specialists – are out in front, inevitably as they confront the significance of religion in the modern world order. Also, ahead of the game are those who work at the cutting edge of policy, and in particular aid and development: consider, for example, the relief agencies in the Middle East. Most interesting of all in this context of this essay, however, are the initiatives of the Faith Centre itself, as it partners with a range of specialists in the School to understand better the significance of religious dialogue at the intersections of conflict, gender and climate change.
None of this would happen without inspirational leadership and a dedicated team. As they celebrate their tenth anniversary, hats off to those who have built and maintain these initiatives; the School – and indeed many others – are in their debt.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE Religion and Global Society nor the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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