Religious diversity

This article on religious diversity questions the utility of the nation-state as the primary focus of the analysis of contemporary forms of this phenomenon, which is mostly global. Notwithstanding its increasingly complex nature, the discussion maintains that religious diversity offers the researcher a useful conceptual tool for examining how changes in religion impact on social life, and the converse. Religious diversity - differences within and between religious groups in a society - has re-entered the sociology of religion in new and powerful ways. Religious difference has become a factor in local and global conflicts and peace building.