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Von Hügel Institute

for Critical Catholic Inquiry
 

The Woolf Institute and the Von Hügel Institute are delighted to welcome Professor Paul Hedges (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore University of Singapore) on Thursday 30 April 2015. He will address Politics and the Religions in the UK: Interfaith Dialogue, Deliberative Democracy, and Government.

This co-hosted event will be chaired by Dr Gorazd Andrejč and introduced by Dr Edward Kessler. The response will be given by Professor John Loughlin.

Given our increasingly multi-religious society, governments have over recent decades, but especially since 9/11 and 7/7, sought to find ways to bring religions into the arena of public life as stakeholders who can contribute to social harmony. This reflects the growing international prominence of religion in the political sphere at a global level, although often opposed by certain secularists who believe that religion should be relegated to the private sphere alone. This lecture will address the way that different governments have employed interfaith dialogue as a tool to promote harmony, but focusing upon the efforts of New Labour who, it is argued, have most directly tried to address the relationship between government, interfaith dialogue, and social cohesion. The question of how this may relate to a deliberative democracy will be addressed as part of the discussion around the nature of faith and interfaith within the public sphere.

 

Date: 
Thursday, 30 April, 2015 - 17:00 to 19:00
Contact name: 
Dr Gorazd Andrejč
Contact email: 
Event location: 
St Edmund's College, Garden Room

 

 

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