Having this blog is very motivational. As a research unit, one of our core aims is to encourage the relevance of religion in the broad field of social sciences at LSE and beyond. The impressive scope of our writers’ work continues to fascinate me every day and we hardly need to look far to find religion getting involved in absolutely everything. 

At the end of each year, we look back at the different trends and discourses that brought people to read and write for our blog.  

A year of LSE Religion and Global Society

I’ve now edited LSE Religion and Global Society for 28 months and this is my third annual analysis, so, this year, as a treat, I’ve allowed myself a podium of fifteen top blogs. 

Overall in 2024, we published (a record-breaking) 58 articles about “religion and global society”. In total, academics, researchers, policy-makers, and professionals wrote us 59,861 words. 

Here is a round-up of our most read and shared blogs in 2024 and some of the trends I’ve seen. 

Features first 

“Religion and global society” brings up so many different subjects and our interdisciplinary blogs were as popular as usual. 

Bringing an ethnographic approach, at #13, Shahdab Perumal shared his research into how Muslims in Kerala relate to football and nakedness. 

And #14 was Zubair Abbasi’s comparative study of the effectiveness of different generative AI models to interpret Islamic inheritance law. 

While another piece co-written with Beata Polok, on the new Personal Status Law which introduced guidelines for marriage, divorce, and child custody in Saudi Arabia, was next at #15. 

Another win for secularism 

But in true LSE-style, our readers’ favourite articles discussed the role of religion in democracy and elections. And this was a big year for elections being entangled with faith, particularly in India, the US, Indonesia, Turkey, and the UK. 

Our #2 most-read article was published just before the presidential and parliamentary elections in Indonesia, analysing the evolving role of Islamic identities and religious rhetoric in the world’s largest Muslim nation. 

“Somewhat comparable to the world’s two other largest democracies – the US and India (who are also going to the polls this year) – Indonesia has experienced a rise of majoritarian sentiment which mixes populist sloganeering and identity politics to foreground the rights and beliefs of the religious majority.” 
– Chris Chaplin and Syarifuddin Jurdi 

Then, at #4 was an analysis of Hindutva and secular democracy in India – looking at the pre-election rhetoric, Amit Singh argued that India is gradually moving towards becoming a Hindu nation, abdicating its secular identity in the process.  

And, although published last year, the re-election of Donald Trump brought a renewed interest in the role of faith in the US presidential elections, which, in our #10 blog this year, Kristian Noll argued is crucial to our understanding of politics:  

“The founding of the United States and the conceptualisation of its federal political system were intimately intertwined with the guarantee of an unlimited – yet, importantly, non-prescriptive – promise of free religious expression.”
– Kristian Noll 

Meanwhile, after having three Prime Ministers in one year, the UK went through its fourth general election in nine years, and our readers wanted to know how religion would impact the results. Sharing insights from research by Theos, Paul Bickley outlined the main patterns of religious voting, in our #5th most popular blog this year. 

And, at the top spot this year, our #1 blog was Sultan Tepe’s analysis of the municipal elections in Turkey, and the heavy defeat suffered by president Erdoğan. In a measure of public opinion swayed heavily by Islamic groups and foreign policy towards Israel and Palestine. 

“Inadvertently, the elections highlighted how only breaking the cycle of polarising discourses, value monopolies, and clientelist policies could change Turkey’s political environment, giving the opposition a stronger voice.”
– Sultan Tepe 

Am I the drama? 

Religion and conflict came up a lot, and while we try to avoid the stereotype that religions only cause wars, our writers are also keen to stress the value of properly understanding the role of religion in some of the most fraught conflicts around the world. 

While the war is still raging against Gaza, one of our first blogs this year accused the dominant left, right, and liberal discourses of having a blindspot when it comes to religion. 

“I am a religious leader and a scholar of religion, so people might well argue that I am predisposed to overstate religious factors. But what I have seen on numerous trips to Israel and Palestine is an intensification of powerful religious imaginaries that are simply not understood or taken seriously in the West.” 
– James Walters 

Our readers have followed suit. In our #3rd top blog this year, Syed Hammaad Mehraj presented the critical arguments suggesting that the secular and Christian foundations of the Enlightenment have impacted how we think about violence today. 

And at #6, Dominic Nozzarella’s blog looked at the religious roots of the growing peacebuilding movement among Mennonite communities, painting a picture of the “nonresistance” and nonviolent methods of protest favoured by Mennonite groups campaigning for an end to the war in Gaza.  

Meanwhile, the discussion around religion and conflict turned towards the UK time and again.  

In January, the government designated Hizb ut-Tahrir as a proscribed terrorist organisation, bringing new critiques of the UK’s counterterrorism approach and Richard McNeil-Willson’s analysis became the #7 most-read this year. 

And #8 this year turned to Northern Ireland, where Bethany Corbett and Jocelyn Dautel have been exploring how teenagers navigate “truths” in a context polarised by ethno-religious conflict (and if you’re thinking about Derry Girls, they talk about that too).  

Cults and the LSE Faith Centre 

Not to suggest that the two are at all related, we introduced two new series to the blog this year: Cults, spirituality, and new religious movements, and Celebrating ten years of the LSE Faith Centre. 

Both topics were popular, and at #9 this year, Aled Thomas and Edward Graham-Hyde discussed the word “cult” and whether or not we should still be using it, particularly in the context of religious studies. 

“We often playfully encourage our students to think of how strange it is that some believe a man walked on water – a perfectly common and respected belief in the UK. Yet, when we take a step back, it is no less ‘strange’ than a belief in UFOs and alien deities. All beliefs are strange to those unfamiliar with them.”
– Aled Thomas and Edward Graham-Hyde 

And in the same series, #12 was by Erin Clark, who shared her work on Latter-day Saint social media influencers who are finding a balance between faith-centred content and generating a digital stream of income. 

Moving on to our tenth birthday celebrations, at #11, Grace Davie shared her insights on the LSE Faith Centre and how to approach religion at a global and secular university like LSE.  

The series launched in October to commemorate a decade since the Centre first opened and until next October, we’ll be dedicating ten blogs to different aspects of our work. So far we’ve shared the story of how it all began (including the birth of our blog), an interview with the university’s Muslim chaplain, and we’ll soon be publishing a piece on ten years of LSE’s Ashtanga yoga community. 

Employee of the year  

I’m lucky to be an editor here because we have so many regular writers and they are all brilliant (and I hope they are all reading this). But one person stood out with five blogs this year and it’s (obviously) Kristian Noll. 

I see Kristian every day at work and whenever he mentions something lightly interesting I will say “write me a blog about it” and most of the time he ignores me. But, this calendar year, Kristian made compelling cases for including religion in conversations on democracy, climate, and peacebuilding, while taking to the LSE Impact blog to share guidance for effective and accurate communication of the role religion plays. 

If anyone would like to rival Kristian, we are open for submissions in all of our running series, and for any features related to religion and global society. You can find our full guidelines and contact details here, we’d love to hear from you. 

Thank you to everyone on the team, all of our writers, and to everyone who reads our work. We’ll see you in January.