Etudier l'histoire patrimoniale de la politique de laïcisation sous la Troisième République permet de revenir aux origines du pacte laïque moderne, et d'en comprendre la construction. Les "lois laïques" ont en effet eu des conséquences patrimoniales importantes qu'une recherche effectuée au niveau local du département de l'Isère permet de mesurer. La politique anticongréganiste initiée dès le début des années 1880 s'est accompagnée de la prise en charge d'un certain nombre de services d'intérêt collectif jusqu'alors confiés aux institutions religieuses, tels l'éducation ou l'hospitalier. La loi 1901 vient, tout en consacrant une liberté d'association, organiser la liquidation de nombreuses congrégations, dont celle des Chartreux qui aura un fort impact en Isère. Puis, en 1905, la séparation de l'Eglise catholique et de l'Etat conduit à une privatisation du culte qui occasionne, du fait du refus pontifical d'accepter le statut légal prévu en 1905, de nouvelles opérations complexes de redistributions matérielles. Apprécier sur le terrain, la réalité de la mise en oeuvre de la politique de laïcisation sous un angle patrimonial permet de mesurer l'importance des volontarismes politiques et des compromis pragmatiques qui ont permis d'aboutir finalement à une situation pacifiée. / To understand the modern state of religions in France, specially Catholicism, and how a peace has been found between State and Religion after a long conflict, this thesis studies the patrimonial effects of the secularization during the Third Republic (1880-1940). It's a local study which is interested by the reception of the politic of secularization in Isère. The material consequences of the secularization in France show what compromises had been necessary and how we came from conflicts to peace, from 1880 to 1924 and the agreement between France and Vatican.

Le système juridique des Etats de droit musulman est composé de règles et de principes hétérogènes. A côté du droit positif codifié, les règles religieuses constituent une source de référence pour le législateur et pour le juge. La constitutionnalisation de l’islam comme religion officielle et comme source de législation dans les Etats de droit musulman, développe ce pluralisme juridique. La coexistence des différentes sources de droit, positive et religieuse, est accentuée par le système de personnalité des lois. Dans ce contexte, l’effectivité de la liberté de religion proclamée par la Constitution des Etats de droit musulman est remise en cause. Le principe d’égalité sans discrimination fondée sur la religion, la liberté de pratiquer librement sa religion ou encore le droit de changer de religion sont encadrés par la législation ou par la jurisprudence. Bien que tous les Etats aient amorcé le processus de constitutionnalisation, les juges constitutionnels peinent à affirmer leur autonomie par rapport au pouvoir exécutif. Le droit musulman est instrumentalisé par les pouvoirs politiques pour asseoir leur autorité sur une légitimité religieuse. Toutefois, la jurisprudence avant-gardiste de la Haute Cour constitutionnelle égyptienne qui a affirmé son indépendance et la jurisprudence civile des tribunaux tunisiens qui ont interprété l’article 1er de la Constitution tunisienne, sont le signe encourageant d’un changement possible. / The legal system in states governed by Islamic law is comprised of a set of heterogeneous rules and principles. Alongside its codified, positive law, religious laws serve as a referential source for the legislature and judiciary. The constitutionalization of Islam as both an official religion and a legislative source in Islamic law states nurtures this legal plurality. The coexistence of these different sources of law, positive and religious respectively, is further accentuated by the subjective variability of law. In this context, the existence of freedom of religion, as enshrined in the constitutions of these Islamic law states, is called into question. The principle of equality without discrimination on grounds of religion; the liberty to freely practice one’s religion; or, indeed, the right to change one’s religion, are framed by legislation or jurisprudence. Although all states have begun the process of constitutionalization, constitutional judges still struggle to assert their autonomy over the executive branch. Islamic law is being exploited by political powers wishing to anchor their authority in religious legitimacy. Nonetheless, encouraging signs of change are evident in the forward-thinking jurisprudence of certain jurisdictions.

Universities have traditionally been thought of as “secular enclaves” (Bryant, 2006: 2) that have the capacity to liberalise or even eradicate personal religious beliefs. Despite this assumption, religious activity on university campuses shows no sign of declining, due in part to the failings of the secularisation thesis and the rise of religious pluralism. In the media more recently, there have been frequent references to religious organisations on campus, in particular to clashes between Christian societies and Student Unions, and between Islamic and atheist societies. The management of religion on university campuses has also become a political issue with the Prime Minister David Cameron intervening on recent guidelines (proposed by Universities U.K.) advising that external religious speakers be allowed to segregate student audiences based on gender. As a direct result of Cameron’s intervention the advisory comment was removed. In light of the above, the aim of this thesis is to explore how Christian, Jewish and Muslim students navigate the terrain of the university and whether such an environment is challenging or conducive to their faith in terms of degree content, interactions with peers and involvement in relevant societies and/or chaplaincies. This thesis also explores student reactions to the New Atheism, a label attributed to a group of provocative authors – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens – all of whom are united in their belief that religion is irrational, false and evil. Often described as the chief proponent of the New Atheism, Richard Dawkins has also recently shown his support for UCL’s atheist society in their disagreement with the Student Union over the uploading of a satirical religious cartoon to their Facebook page. The research which forms the basis of this thesis was carried out between 2011-2013 and features the use of qualitative semi-structured interviews and the presentation of New Atheist extracts from Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris. Over 30 participants were included in the project with a minimum of 10 students from each (Islamic, Christian and Jewish) faith group. The multi-faith angle of this project offers a unique insight into how different faith groups navigate the university, with some common issues emerging across all faith groups as well as faith-specific issues. Sociological research in this area has tended to focus on Christian students and this has meant that certain concerns (such as dietary provisions and prayer space) have tended to be overlooked by researchers. The findings of this research project are multi-layered and complex. Religious students differed in terms of their expectations of higher education institutions: some students viewed the university in purely educational terms (and as having no religious function), while others saw the university as a place for both educational and spiritual development and where personal faith could be integrated with their academic studies and social life. The experience of religious students in using chaplaincies and societies was also mixed, with some students reporting fears of being “judged” by other members of the same faith group. There also appeared to be intra-religious tension across all faith groups but this was more prevalent among the Christian and Islamic societies due to denominational differences. Inter-religious (as opposed to intra-religious) tension emerged particularly in the students’ responses to the New Atheism. Rather than seeing New Atheist literature as a direct challenge to their own faith, the participants recognised that “other” religious believers might be guilty of the New Atheist’s accusations – therefore highlighting a surprising degree of convergence between religious participants and New Atheist arguments.

Secularisation is at the centre of a vibrant debate in the sociology of religion. In the last two decades, literature has started to challenge old predictions and interpretations of the future of religion, but few studies present a detailed contextual examination of religious change in contemporary societies. Offering a comparative analysis of Scotland and Sweden, two nations in the relatively secularised Northern Europe, this thesis argues that diverse historical and political trajectories shape distinct patterns of religious beliefs and practices. Scotland and Sweden are two secularising nations characterised by historically dominant Protestant churches, but which nonetheless differ largely in their experiences of religious decline. In order to discern and differentiate key aspects of religious change in each nation as well as to explore contextual meanings of religion, a mixed methods approach was adopted, comprised of secondary quantitative data analysis as well as in-depth interviews. Data analysis identified and highlighted broader patterns and individual understandings of religious beliefs as well as three dimensions of religious belonging: church attendance, religious identification and membership, and participation in rituals. Results show that on measures of religious beliefs and church attendance, Sweden appears further secularised than Scotland. Arguably, Sweden has seen rapid and relatively early secularisation, with important social structural and political changes that occurred in the second half of the 19th century. With noticeable generational differences, data on Scotland point towards the mid-20th century as a crucial time of religious decline. Additionally, the remaining functions of the national churches differ considerably in the two nations. A majority of Swedes identify with the Church of Sweden, which serves a largely secular purpose as part of a cultural heritage and as a provider of life cycle ceremonies. By contrast, the Church of Scotland has maintained a stronger commitment to religious doctrine in a nation that is more religiously diverse. The findings ultimately draw attention to the importance of context in the study of diverse and complex processes of religious change. As a result, they reveal limitations to attempts in the contemporary sociology of religion set out to generalise and dichotomise European trends of religious belief and belonging.

This thesis is the first study of 'Christian radicalism' in the Church of England between 1957 and 1970. Radicalism grew in influence from the late 1950s, and burst into the national conversation with John Robinson’s 1963 bestseller, Honest to God. Emboldened by this success, between 1963 and 1965 radical leaders hoped they might fundamentally reform the Church of England, even though they were aware of the diversity of their supporting constituency. Yet by 1970, following a controversial turn towards social justice issues in the late 1960s, the movement had largely reached the point of disintegration. The thesis offers five central arguments. First, radicalism was fundamentally driven by a narrative of epochal transition, which understood British society in the late 1950s and early 1960s to be undergoing a seismic upheaval, comparable to the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Secondly, this led radicals to exaggerate many of the social changes occurring in the period, and to imagine the emergence of a new social order. Radicals interpreted affluence as an era of unlimited technology, limited church decline as the arrival of a profoundly secular age, and limited sexual shifts as evidence of a sexual revolution. They effectively created the idea of the ‘secular society’, which became widely accepted once it was adopted by the Anglican hierarchy. Third, radical treatment of these themes was part of a tradition that went back to the 1940s; radicals anticipated many of the themes of the secular culture of the 1960s, not the other way round. Fourth, far from slavishly adopting secular intellectual frameworks, radical arguments were often framed using theological concepts, such as Christian eschatology. Finally, for all these reasons, Christian radicals made an original and influential contribution to the elite re-imagination of British society which occurred in the 1960s.

Diploma thesis tackels the question of evangelisation, specifically then the question of modern ways of evangelisation in present world. In the first part the work concentrates on definition of key terms. Then the work specifies how different religious documents see evangelisation. In this part the work explains the tasks of evangelisation. In the next part the work covers the origins of secularisation of the society in the Czech lands and its influence on the spiritual life of people. The work then describes some of the modern evangelisation methods with the emphasis on Alpha course. In the last part the work covers some of the calls of pope František and how those calls are reflected in the Alpha course. The aim of this work is to look at the Alpha course as a suitable tool of evangelisation in terms of the present Czech society.

En 1983, alors que les sociétés modernes occidentales s'ouvrent à une libéralisation des lois sur l'avortement, l'Irlande prend le chemin inverse en adoptant le huitième amendement défendant la vie de l'« enfant à naître », amendement conditionné par la doctrine catholique. Nous interprétons cette situation comme un blocage et cherchons à y donner un sens par la mise en perspective du débat en regard du processus de sécularisation dont nous apprécions l'avancée. La question de l'avortement est utilisée ici comme un moyen d'observation privilégié de ce processus à l'échelle individuelle d'une part, et à l'échelle institutionnelle (la relation Église-État) d'autre part. Mais le débat ne se limite pas aux frontières de l'Irlande et s'exporte à l'échelle européenne. L'exception irlandaise sur cette question au sein de l'UE prend une tournure identitaire, une identité ancrée dans le catholicisme, dès lors que la protection de la « vie à naître » est défendue en dehors des frontières, ce qui fut le cas lors de la ratification des traités européens de Maastricht et de Lisbonne. Nous analysons l'attitude de l'Europe sur le droit à la vie tel qu'il est garanti par la Convention européenne des droits de l'homme. Bien qu'elle n'ait pas tranché la question entre le droit à la vie de l'« enfant à naître » ou le droit de la femme à choisir l'avortement, l'Europe pourrait bien être un cheval de Troie car elle est largement favorable aux droits de la femme et à sa santé reproductive, et l'Union ne se prévaut d'aucune confession. / As western modern societies have gradually liberalised their abortion laws, Ireland took the opposite way by adopting the eighth amendment vindicating the right to life of the “unborn” in 1983, an amendment clearly influenced by the prevailing Catholic ethos. The aim of this research is to give sense to this landmark event which we interpret as a moral blocking. To this end, we put the debate in perspective within the secularisation process, the advance of which we propose to assess. The abortion issue is encompassed here as a privileged tool to assess this process both at the individual and institutional level (Church-State relationship) levels. However, the debate is not confined to Ireland and occasionally takes a European dimension. Indeed, the Irish position on abortion is an exception within the EU and has developed as a symbol of the country's Catholic identity when defending its values on unborn human life on the European stage as occurred during the ratification processes of the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties. We analyse Europe's approach to the right to life as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to the Irish context. Although Europe does not privilege the “unborn's” right to life over the woman's right to choose and vice versa, it might be a Trojan Horse as European institutions are generally in favour of women's rights and reproductive health, and the EU resisted pressure from the Vatican to have any Christian religious denomination engraved in its constitution.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Aim: The aim of this essay has been to study how the Swedish church has created the image of their religious activity through media. This has been by studying the three commercial campaigns launched by the Swedish church during the years 2000, 2001 and 2003. Questions asked are: How has the Swedish church chosen to profile it self? Which discourses can be recognized in the campaigns? Which messages has been communicated through the campaigns? How has these discourses created the image of the Swedish church?</p><p>Method: The methodological framework is critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Faircloughs’ three-dimensional model. Thirteen images all part of the campaigns are analysed using a semiotic method. The analytical method focuses on the discourse practise and the text.</p><p>Main results: The images of the Swedish church differ in the campaigns. The religious discourse in the first campaign “A place for contemplation” is more open and modern and creates the image of the Swedish church as an open and welcoming church. In the two other campaigns “Are you looking in the right place?” the religious discourse is more traditional Lutheran aimed towards people who already are believers in the Christian faith.</p><p>Keywords: Swedish church, religion, media, discourse, semiotics, secularisation, commercial, campaign.</p>

Abstract Aim: The aim of this essay has been to study how the Swedish church has created the image of their religious activity through media. This has been by studying the three commercial campaigns launched by the Swedish church during the years 2000, 2001 and 2003. Questions asked are: How has the Swedish church chosen to profile it self? Which discourses can be recognized in the campaigns? Which messages has been communicated through the campaigns? How has these discourses created the image of the Swedish church? Method: The methodological framework is critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Faircloughs’ three-dimensional model. Thirteen images all part of the campaigns are analysed using a semiotic method. The analytical method focuses on the discourse practise and the text. Main results: The images of the Swedish church differ in the campaigns. The religious discourse in the first campaign “A place for contemplation” is more open and modern and creates the image of the Swedish church as an open and welcoming church. In the two other campaigns “Are you looking in the right place?” the religious discourse is more traditional Lutheran aimed towards people who already are believers in the Christian faith. Keywords: Swedish church, religion, media, discourse, semiotics, secularisation, commercial, campaign.

This study focuses on why people not longer want to be a part of a religious communion they have earlier been a part of. To examine this I have made seven interviews with people who have left their previous communions. Together with the methodological and theoretical discussions on discourse analysis, Richard Jenkins discussions on identity and theories concerning the post-modern society, I have made an analysis on how these people consider their previous communions and its members. They refer i.e. to the social control, the ‘closed’ culture and the non-questioning-culture that constitute the communions and its techniques. They also question why the communions present themselves as ‘good’, despite their deficiencies. Here I claim that in the same time these people question these techniques, they get exposed by them.