CFP for the ECPR conference, to be held in August 2011 in Reyjavik, Iceland.

The politics of Christianity: conservative, traditionalist, radical

In The Next Christendom (2003) Philip Jenkins suggested that the Christian centre of gravity was changing. Echoing other scholars of religious affairs, he argued that the majority of Christians were now to be found in the ‘global south’ and that within 50 years the concept of a white Christian might seem a ‘curious oxymoron’. At the same time Jenkins noted that this new Christianity was more conservative, traditionalist and supernaturally oriented in its understanding of the faith, and that this might impact upon the very nature of Christianity as a faith and have implications for the world of politics. Leaving aside the critiques of his work, some of which echo similar critiques of Samuel Huntington’s simplistic analysis of civilisations, the experience of several major Christian communities bears out at least some of this analysis. Roman Catholicism is more and more a world religious community, regardless of the current Pope’s attempt to reassert the centrality of its European identity; Anglican debates over homosexuality has seen northern traditionalists appeal to more conservative colleagues in the south when they have lost their battles at home; the ever expanding Pentecostal community clearly believes in the supernatural phenomenon associated with the ‘gifts of the spirit’ but the political consequences of this movement are hotly debated

In this section we explore some of the ways in which these developments are impacting in the political sphere, within religious communities, in domestic political contexts and in the international arena. Individual panels might focus on:

• the ways in which globalisation and ‘southernisation’ are affecting Christianity;
• debates surrounding the religious politics of specific issues – sexuality, family values, poverty and debt, disease etc;
• developments within specific faith communities – has Benedict XVI made a difference, is Eastern Orthodoxy different in its approach to politics, can Anglicanism survive, must Pentecostalism be conservative;
• developments within specific countries – how will the Obama presidency impact upon the Christian Right, is establishment dead, does Orthodoxy reinforce authoritarian trends in Russia, Serbia etc
• developments within the international arena, eg. new Christian activism at the UN and associated agencies;
• connections being made with other faith communities.


Please submit preliminary expressions of interest or proposals for panels within the section to: John Anderson (jpa@st-and.ac.uk) and Sandy Livingstone (slivingston@abdn.ac.uk) by 26th March