Religious Diversity and the Challenge of Social Inclusion

As societies have become religiously diverse in ways and extents not familiar in the recent histories of most, the issues of how to include this diversity and how to manage it, that is, questions about how to be a religiously diverse society have come to the fore. As a result religion has become part of the social policy conversation in new ways. It has also occasioned new thinking about religions, their forms and the complexity of ways they are negotiated by adherents and the ways they are related to society, the state and each other. This issue of Social Inclusion explores these issues of social inclusion in both particular settings and in cross-national comparative studies by presenting research and critical thought on this critical issue facing every society today. (author's abstract