The themes we have chosen for this chapter are intriguing and complex, and at the same time very specific and typical of contemporary religion, and therefore important when attempting to understand the relation between religion and migration. Others could have been selected. Yet we argue that these themes cover some very dynamic fields. Clearly, some research has been done, however it is our conviction that migration researchers need to engage much more with these themes.

We begin by examining religious practices that are not necessarily formally sanctioned by theology before moving on to discuss migrant missionaries who often have a substantive impact on other migrants. We then turn to conversion as an important process connected to migration and to converts, who frequently play important roles in the religious lives of migrants. This is followed by a focus on the theologies of migrants, including those of migration. Finally, we turn to charity activities and creativity, as these are truly important aspects of the religious ethical and aesthetic values of many migrants.

1 Religious Practices

We have argued that religion should be studied as a social phenomenon, as it is upheld by utterances, writings and other actions. It is important to research religiously motivated practices – or habits as they tend to become – as these tend to be crucial for people. Further, practices also connect people to each other and enable the transfer of religion to others, such as younger generations.

Research on migration and religion has focused on these more seemingly private practices to a lesser degree than features such as the public aspects of religion (e.g., Holm Pedersen & Rytter, 2018; Gardner & Grillo, 2002; Dessing, 2001). But religious practices are important for relating the individual and the group to the past, the present and, typically for religion, the future. French sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger (2000) describes religion as ‘a chain of memory’ that creates a sense of awareness of belonging and continuity, with practices functioning as metonyms. Religious practices, supported by religious traditions, may appear to be static – performed in the same manner and to the same extent over long periods of history – and, truly, some practices, not least rituals, have remarkable tenacity over time. However, that is not the whole story; religious practices also change, the legitimation of them changes and the place, time and frequency of where and when they are seen as appropriate change even more often.

Practicing religion also means deciding whether and how to make space and time for it. In Chapter Three (Sects. 3.2.1 and 3.2.2) we introduced the concept ‘ritualisation’ to emphasise that rituals need to be appropriated by actual people, and when believers position themselves in relation to rituals, when they embody a particular ritual act, they also understand that ritual through their emotions, and through the corporality and the intellectual processing it invites. By default, that appropriation and embodiment become personal. Even central rituals, like the Christian communion, is performed, perceived and understood in different ways depending on the person, but also the place and situation.

It is worth stressing that religious practices do not have to correspond to theological norms; people can perform them with dedication without ever knowing the meaning that religious specialists ascribe to them. Additionally, we would claim that depending on age, life situation and theological knowledge, a single individual will experience the same religious practice in different ways throughout their lives. Not surprisingly, but less often stressed, religious practices after migration tend to find forms acceptable to the surrounding established groups, and quite often new forms develop quickly and take root before religious specialists manage to formulate a legitimation of them through theological thinking (e.g., Dessing et al., 2013; Otterbeck, 2010). Therefore, relations with religious practices should not be presumed in research; they should be studied.

Highlighting religious practices in migration processes also gives us the opportunity to understand more about how gender is negotiated and re-constructed. Gender roles may, for example, be challenged due to new socio-economic patterns. Adult migrant women are to a marked degree engaged in occupational work, younger women pursue higher education and, for many, such patterns tend to coincide with the change in home country, while fewer powerful disciplinary institutions often mean more radical and faster changes. This is not the case, however, for every migrant woman; some will, instead, experience continuity in gender discourses and culturally gendered household chores (e.g., Keaton, 2006; Dessing, 2001; Fortier, 2000; Andizian, 1986). The balance between change and continuity, the expectations of gendered minds and the tenacity of religious discourse and socio-economic conditions are interesting areas of research, especially when combined with gender (e.g., Brah, 1996).

Below, we illustrate three themed trends in religious practices, all partly focusing on gender: the re-conceiving of religion and religious practices over generations; the maintenance of ritual behaviour despite changed gender relations; and finally, the abandoning of religious practice.

1.1 Religious Practices, Generation, and Gender

Magdalena Nordin (2004) demonstrates that prayers as a religious practice among Swedish-Chileans on an aggregated level seemed to be quite stable, with only minor changes in frequency of prayer due to migration, but this differed on an individual level. One interesting change was location. For some, when still in Chile, prayer mostly took place in a church but in Sweden it was more practiced at home or outdoors in nature. The reason was not a lack of churches, but the way the churches in Sweden affected the Swedish-Chileans – or, rather, did not affect them. As one woman explained, Swedish churches do not ‘move me. They do not summon me’. She added that practicing prayer in a church in Sweden is too far removed from who she is; it is not part of her identity (p. 218).

Another example is the wearing of headscarves among Syriac Orthodox Christian immigrants in the European diaspora (Nordin & Westergren, 2023). The practice is strongly gendered and almost exclusively restricted to women, although a few rituals also include headscarves for men. Among Syriac Orthodox churchgoers in Sweden, up to 80 percent of women wear headscarves during the liturgy. However, this practice varies due to occasion, with fewer women wearing it for Christmas, Easter and weddings; timing in the liturgy, with almost every woman wearing it when celebrating Eucharist; and also age, as older women wear large, tight headscarves covering their hair, and younger women use smaller, transparent headscarves. Girls are encouraged in different ways to wear these scarves from a young age, yet there seems to be no demand that they do so; however, for some, not using one was considered a protest against gender discrimination in the church.

In sum, wearing a headscarf appears to be expected, but diversely practiced and slowly changing in the diaspora (Nordin & Westergren, 2023). This is in line with Christine Jacobsen’s (2006) study of people active in Muslim youth organisations in Norway in which she demonstrates that negotiations are constantly ongoing and may lead to small shifts in practices, yet there are seldom any clear statements of how things should be or how they should change. What researchers need to be aware of is that even religious behaviour backed up by theological discourse may change quite rapidly with changes social circumstances. Theological discourse is likely to follow rather than lead. On the other hand, social media makes this claim increasingly problematic as behaviour that has manifested itself in discourse in one place may be read and reflected upon in places where similar behaviour has just been initiated. Typically, UK and North American discourses on Islam and gender include some very equal-minded theology that has not been internally produced in Scandinavia until very recently and then often partly inspired by UK and North American discussion and practices (Petersen, 2020). To discover what is truly going on when it comes to changes in religious practices and how theology changes due to this, researchers must actively immerse themselves in observation of religious practice and discussions taking place among religious peers, on social media and at religious gatherings.

1.2 Perceiving Religious Practices, but Reimagining Them

Religious practice is often rooted in systems of ideas and behaviour that provides it with context and systemic logic. When socio-economic contexts and social structures have changed due to migration, practices signalling the submission of women might become obsolete but might also be retained and socially renegotiated. For example, Jewish women have traditionally been described as niddah (one who is excluded) during menstruation, which means, among other things, that intercourse with a man is prohibited as the woman is in a state of tumah (impurity). This state ends after having completed a mikveh (ritual bath, lit. a pool of water) 7 days after menstruation finishes. The idea of niddah and the importance of the mikveh is upheld by some Jewish groups but far from all (Baker, 1993). In North America and the European diaspora, the ritual bath has been reimagined as a spiritual experience rhyming with a more individualised spirituality, while the element of impurity is toned down. Women use the mikveh in line with a therapeutic spirituality, as a way of taking control, initiating healing and entering new stages in life (Roos, 2010). Old places for mikveh have been revamped and new ones have emerged, taking on the role of spas and rivalling commercial spas. The change seems to have started in the US but has spread worldwide, catering for an era with a changed understanding of the female body and spirituality, yet the reimagined practice still allows the adherents to uphold traditional vocabulary and normative legitimation.

1.3 Abandoning Religious Practices

Nora Ahlberg (1991) observed that immigrants from Pakistan to Norway seldom managed to uphold locally grounded practices in the new country; instead, migration brought a new emphasis to theological orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Practices that had been crucial for women’s religiosity were abandoned, mainly because they were performed in a sacred geography left behind. Muslim women in Pakistan are not expected to participate in rituals at mosques, and are sometimes hindered from doing so; instead, the country’s many shrines, together with other places and objects imbued with the sacred, have been a key element in women’s opportunities to engage religiously outside the home. Such localism of religious practice allows the believer to navigate a sacred geography wherein different places can be sought out for different problems and needs, whether health and fertility or fortune and protection from vice (McGuire, 2008: 25). When migration removed believers from the shrines, however, it was difficult to maintain relations with these religious practices.

Pakistani Barelvi Muslims of all genders are involved in regional or local cults, not least around saints. Muslim saints (pir in Urdu) are believed to be alive; they transcend the limitations of time and space and can be among the living or simply operating after their earthly existence, meaning they can continue to guide their adherents after migration by sending them dreams and signs in the everyday. Still, it is at graves or the centres where they operate that the presence of the saints is the strongest. To counter the risk of becoming irrelevant, saints appoint khalifas or deputies through whom they work, who bring highly valued greetings, messages or objects that the saint has physically touched into the diaspora; such treasured objects are charged with baraka, the spiritual power that flows through the saint. Being close to these objects or understanding the saint’s transmitted dreams can be vital for decision making or matters of health, although such extraordinary messages and objects are rare. Clearly, it is a struggle to claim authority and relevance when at a distance; from the adherents’ perspective, it seems difficult to uphold practices when separated in space (e.g., Werbner, 2003).

2 Missionaries

A particular category of migrants are missionaries who aim to spread and revitalise the message or engage in pastoral care. Many religious organisations are led by persons who have migrated for other reasons, but here we discuss those who travel as missionaries.

The legal situation for missionaries is not the same all over Europe. In most countries, it is legal to proselytise, but in certain countries, notably in eastern Europe, some religions are not recognised and cannot be promoted, especially by foreigners. For example, in Moldova, ‘excessive proselytising’ is not legal according to Article 4.4 of the Law on Freedom of Conscience, Thought and Religion and foreign citizens are banned from public religious activities if not granted permission by the local authorities. Missionaries from Jehovah’s Witnesses and from Pentecostal movements have frequently found themselves discouraged by authorities in states like Bulgaria and Georgia, but also in France where Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular have met a lot of resistance over the years (e.g., Besier & Stokłosa, 2016; Byrnes & Katzenstein, 2006).

Below we discuss three examples of migrating missionaries: those who aspire to spread a particular religious interpretation; those who aim to revitalise a faith; and those who come to dispense pastoral care to a parish.

2.1 Spreading the Word

In larger western European cities, one is likely to run into migrant missionaries propagating their faith publicly. Christians and Muslims from various groups, the Hare Krishna and Falun Gong activists all take to the streets. Others advertise their faith over the radio or on television or simply at a centre somewhere. One group that stresses mission is the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community whose missionaries can be found all over Europe. Theologically, every Ahmadiyya is seen as a missionary but, practically, only some and only men are trained specifically for the role. The aim is to spread Islam in its Ahmadiyya version through setting examples, tabligh (missionary work) and isha’at (publications) (Valentine, 2008). Regardless of where they originate, most Ahmadiyya missionaries receive higher religious education in the city of Rabwah, the only Pakistani city where Ahmadiyyas are in the majority. From Rabwah, they are sent to positions all over the world to engage in missionary and pastoral work. The Ahmadiyya scholars are trained in theology, missionary techniques and languages, a training that is then extended to wherever an Ahmadiyya scholar works with a group of adherents. Their publications are translated into local languages as soon as possible, even small languages like those in Nordic countries (Otterbeck, 2000). The movement approaches its work very methodologically.

In 2003 the Ahmadiyya community inaugurated the huge Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden, south London, which serves as the global headquarters. Apart from being a place of worship, it is also a centre for media production, with the satellite TV channel ‘Muslim TV Ahmadiyya International’ as one of its main products. The huge centre, an important place for training and networking among the migrating missionaries, attracts Ahmadiyyas to London, thus increasing migration. Part of their missionary strategy is networking. Wherever in Europe you find Ahmadiyyas, they will be attempting to engage in dialogues with established groups of Christians and Jews but rarely with other Muslim groups. The Baitul Futuh mosque is a spacious place for stylish meetings, with great Pakistani food. The Ahmadiyya community invites the highest officials possible – mayors, professors, MPs – to provide the movement with legitimacy and also to create solidarity and security (Valentine, 2008). At the largest meetings, missionaries from all over Europe attend and make certain to bring in important people from the country where they currently live.

When missionaries are working and travelling like this, they generally have good economic backing, contacts and housing. They are educated for the task and might already have learnt the local languages in training. This makes them rather privileged and special among migrants. They are almost exclusively men even though some Protestant missionaries and Buddhist monks are women.

2.2 Revitalizing Faith

The second group of travelling religious specialists are the revitalisers, preferably charismatics sent by an organisation to invigorate faith. At times, of course, the differences between the first and second group are small or merely depend on perspective.

A powerful narrative circulates among West African charismatic churches that Christianity in Europe is slowly dying. Missionaries are sent to Europe from former colonies to deliver the Christian message back to Europe in so-called reverse mission. This is especially true of Pentecostal groups that actively try to save European souls with a message that is often highly conservative or traditional on questions of gender, sexual preferences and healing. In fact, the movement’s message is rather similar to the style of Christianity once presented by colonial powers; indeed, religious practices and beliefs have changed to a lesser degree than in the former colonial centres (e.g., Kubai, 2014; Währisch-Oblau, 2009).

Kim Knibbe (2011) studied the Pentecostal Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), originating in Nigeria, in the Netherlands. To understand the RCCG, transnational, global and colonial power processes must be taken into consideration. The goal of the Church, as for other Pentecostal churches, is to save peoples’ souls through Jesus by changing the way they act and think. There are global Pentecostal understandings of what this includes, but, in the case of the RCCG, Knibbe found that they are seen by non-Nigerian citizens as Nigerian (or African) ways to be Christian, whilst among the members of the church they are seen as part of a general Pentecostal way to be Christian. With the goals of reaching out to everyone and re-Christianising Europeans, the RCCG is faced with the delicate task of whether and how to negotiate these fundamental parts of its theology to facilitate these ends (Knibbe, 2011; see also Knibbe, 2018; Pasura, 2014; Ward, 2006).

2.3 Pastoral Care

The third group consists of trained religious specialists sent out to provide pastoral care who are regarded by the sending states or organisations as expats. This is an old tradition. Priests, rabbis, monks and imams of different denominations have always travelled with or followed migrants with aspirations of catering to their religious needs in anything from life rituals via prayers to the education of children. Among Muslims, such trained personnel are sent out from Turkey and Morocco, especially targeting people with a Turkish or Moroccan family history. Other states, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, aspire to reach a broader audience of Arabic speakers but the pattern is same: the state gives salaries to young men who have newly passed their examinations in theology to spend time (often a few years) in Europe (e.g., Nielsen & Otterbeck, 2016). The Turkish Diyanet, the directorate of religious affairs, even offers training in major languages like German for those eager to travel.

Katarina Plank has documented how Theravada Buddhist retreat centres in Sweden are being maintained on the initiative of women born in Thailand who have migrated to Sweden because of marriage (80% of migrants from Thailand to Sweden are women) (Plank et al., 2016; Plank, 2015). These centres invite and provide livelihoods for male monks who uphold and spread sacred knowledge and rituals and provide authority. Generally, the monks have their training in Thai temples and institutions and many of them specifically aim to be able to travel abroad, especially at the beginning of their career; most arrive with a temporary work permit, expecting to return to Thailand eventually. They are generally coordinated by the Thai state and maintain transnational networks with other monks. In many ways, the monks’ position is rather precarious as the women have the power to remove them if they are unsatisfied with them, while many of the migrant Theravada Buddhist women have Swedish citizenship – yet another structural advantage. This reverses traditional gendered poles of power and renegotiates religious authority, retaining it in terms of ritual but not guaranteeing that the expected reverence is extended to the young men’s social roles. Still, many monks are skilled and liked and there are seldom any problems.

Thus, from the examples above, we can conclude that missionaries and other religious specialists are regarded as crucial by many religious agents. They spread the knowledge of their traditions, engage and enthuse people, generate conversions, have the ambition to school children religiously and publicly represent groups. But they also, to a large extent, fail. They are not very efficient and do not cause mass conversions or engagement. Some have difficulties adapting to new contexts and can be exposed as ignorant about local conditions by second-generation youth who are at home in the context. They are generally better at catering to the first generation’s nostalgia than they are at offering paths to those growing up in the diaspora (e.g., Otterbeck, 2010; Jacobsen, 2006).

3 Conversions

When trying to understand relations between migration and religion, conversions are important. The research on religious conversion related to migration in western Europe has generally been about conversion to Islam (e.g., Zebiri, 2007; Jensen, 2006; Wohlrab-Sahr, 1999; Köse, 1996), and in a few cases from Islam (e.g., Hassan & Bilici, 2007). The focus has most often been on non-migrant women converting to Islam (e.g., Shanneik, 2012; Soutar, 2010). There are some studies of conversion to Buddhism, not least by Martin Baumann together with a variety of collaborators (e.g., Prebish & Baumann, 2002), but we have encountered little research on conversion to other ‘immigrant religions’. We will, however, offer a general presentation of the importance of religious conversion in understanding how migration relates to religion.

3.1 What Conversion Can Tell Us About Migration

Conversion raises concern and agitates feelings and, therefore, regularly features in the media in Europe, perhaps suggesting that conversion is a very broad phenomenon; actually, it is numerically marginal. For example, Karagiannis (2011) estimates there to be 200,000 to 320,000 converts to Islam in Europe, making up less than 2 percent of the Muslim population of Europe. Thus, these coverts are less than half a per mille of Europe’s total population. Hackett et al. (2019) calculate that more people in Europe leave Islam for other religions or for atheism than convert to Islam. Between 2010 and 2016 the net loss was 160,000. Yet, for the people involved – the converts and their partners, children, siblings, parents and friends – it tends to be a lifechanging, deeply emotional experience. In comparison with Islam, the number of converts to Buddhism are estimated in similar absolute figures, but European coverts make up around a third of all Buddhists in Europe (Prebish & Baumann, 2002). Regardless of this difference, both among Muslims and Buddhists, converts are overrepresented among the spokespersons of the respective groups.

Conversion may be part of a refugee’s claims to refugee status, prompting the UNHCR (2004) to issue guidelines acknowledging that this is particularly difficult to evaluate and that it comes down to the asylum seeker to prove the gravity of the consequences of conversion in the country of origin and the earnestness of the conversion. Yet if the asylum application is dismissed, an actual conversion may result in imprisonment or even capital punishment in the country of origin. Thus, the authorities responsible for refugee applications have the taxing task of trying to establish whether the conversion is genuine or a tactic to gain asylum, despite the impossibility of finding unbiased ways to measure religious beliefs. Even the religious migrants themselves may have doubts about their own beliefs, are likely to lack formal knowledge of theological propositions and, moreover, are in a very stressful situation. Consequently, there are many cases when religious conversions have not been accepted as sufficient reason to gain refugee status. A 2019 report from the free churches in Sweden showed that 68 percent of the applications by refugees from Afghanistan that made reference to having converted to Christianity were rejected. The decision-making body includes a jury with representatives from the Swedish political parties who exhibit considerable differences in levels of trust. Those from the populist party, the Swedish Democrats, which generally supports an anti-immigration stance, voted in 95 percent of cases to reject such applications, while the Left party’s representative – generally supportive of immigration – only proposed that 15 percent should be rejected, a difference of 80 percent (The Conversion Investigation, 2019).

Sometimes immigrants convert to majority churches in the receiving country. In Sweden, the Church of Sweden is one of the religious denominations with the largest number (but not share) of immigrant members, and many of these are converts (Thurfjell & Willander, 2021; see also Mogensen & Damsager, 2007). The Pentecostal churches are generally skilful in attracting immigrant converts. They have a tradition of organising subgroups that follow up on former identities (ex-Muslims for example) and cater to minority languages (Nordin, 2004, 2007). Are these conversions also processes of integration? While it is apparent that immigrants can be integrated into religious groups, that does not automatically lead to integration into the wider society. In European countries, religious belonging is not necessarily a bridge to inclusion. In fact, it may be the other way around, regardless of whether the belonging is to a Pentecostal or a majority church. Nonetheless, for the individual, turning to the right religious group might be invaluable, as it may lead to job opportunities, future partners and, evidently, ontological security.

Conversion often involves marriage. In most religions, the religious scholars promote marriage with co-religionists but may still tolerate marriage to spouses of other religions. Undoubtedly, some convert to enable marriage and it is difficult to judge from the outside if conversion is due to conviction or a tactic. Marriages outside one’s own ethno-religious group can be seen as an important part of the integration processes, as was pointed out by US researcher Milton Gordon (1964) over half a century ago. After the initial establishment of a new religious group through migration, the next generation tends to marry people from other migrant and established groups, either respecting religious convention or not depending on the flexibility of religious dogmas, which range from tolerant to downright condemnatory.

3.2 Conversion and Identity

Identity formation in the processes of conversion has been a major theme in research on the phenomenon. Lewis Rambo (1993) has constructed an influential theory in which the importance of both context and time is crucial. Context is to be understood both at a micro (life history) and macro (society) level and needs to include social, cultural, religious and personal aspects. The conversion process (time) includes the initial crisis and quests, and later encounters, interactions, commitments and consequences, all of which have varying degrees of salience and insignificance during the conversion process.

These aspects are also part of the processes that people in Europe undergo when converting to Islam (e.g., Shanneik, 2012; Köse, 1999; Sultán, 1999; Wohlrab-Sahr, 1999). In her research on Danes – both men and women – converting to Islam, Tina Jensen (2006) highlights the different ways of being Muslim among these converts on the long and winding road leading to Islam, and how this process continues even after the formal ritual of conversion has taken place. For the Danish converts there is an ongoing negotiation between adoption by Muslim communities, communities constructed among Danish converts, former religious belongings and society in general. Among the Danish converts in this study, only 52 percent had resigned their membership in the Danish Folk Church and their new Muslim names were seldom registered.

Yafa Shanneik found many similar processes of identity formation in her study of young women in Ireland converting to Islam (2012). She highlights these women’s own agency in the conversion process, and notes that their view of Catholicism helps motivate the conversion due to their perceptions of their greater opportunities for status and power in Islam than in ‘post-Catholic’ society in general. As Shanneik writes, ‘Their conversion is a space that offers women, to a certain extent, autonomy as well as social and religious status—a kind of empowerment they did not have before becoming Muslims’ (Shanneik, 2012: 167). Shanneik also shows that, while the conversion processes are driven by their own agency, they are also under the control of the Muslim communities they join.

In their study in 2007, Mogensen and Damsager reflected on whether conversions related to immigration can change the very idea of Danishness. If people change their religious belonging – for example, immigrants to the Danish Folk Church and non-immigrants (‘ethnic Danes’) to Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism – is it then, over time, reasonable to construct a national Danish identity that includes belonging to the Danish Folk Church? Growing religious pluralism and an interplay between religious belonging and immigrant / non-immigrant background is to be considered when trying to answer that question (Mogensen & Damsager, 2007).

4 New Theologies

First, a note on our use of the term theology. A strict understanding reserves it for writings addressing how adherents are to understand the transcendent reality assumed by their beliefs. Yet today, the term is also used as an umbrella concept covering the devout ideas held in a religious discourse by the adherents – sometimes reserved for the religious specialists, sometimes applied more liberally to include all believers’ beliefs. Of course, the word also labels an academic discipline. Below, we connect to the broader use of the word. We do not reserve the concept for Christianity.

In most places, theology as a discipline is a product that is strategically cultivated through meticulously crafted educational career paths and monitored by religious authorities. The most dominant theologies tend to have the institutional and legal support of states and their influence may be reflected in a broad range of phenomena such as religious education in schools, the ordering of time (the working week, which days are holidays) and what is allowed to be said or done in public (blasphemy laws).

The theologies of European minorities, formed through recent migration, are not powerfully monitored, as their institutions are rarely as developed as those of established groups. Does migration then generate opportunities for unbridled thinking in theology? Yes, potentially, but not automatically. When migrants end up in a place where the religion of birth or choice is not as monitored and disciplined, there are, potentially, opportunities to develop new impulses or expand on previously curbed ideas. At the least, these attempts are harder to control. Social media has further created a situation where it is much easier to reach out and find people sympathetic to novel ideas or to find new interpretations in the first place. There is no shortage of examples of innovative thinking after migration (e.g., Hashas, 2019; Hoover & Clark, 2002) but also of cases of migrants who form tightknit groups in new environments and have rather increased compliance within the group, although there is a lack of studies focusing on sectarianism or isolationist strategies among religious migrations to Europe. Below, we address four main forms of new theologies: liberal, revivalist, conservative and theologies of migration.

4.1 Liberal Theologies

When new, so-called liberal or progressive theologies are being formulated by immigrants to Europe, typically, the big questions of the day are addressed: ecology and the environment, pluralism in faiths or co-existence with other faiths, social and gender equality or equity if called for, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism or veganism and sexual and gender pluralism. Individual empowerment and ethics tend to be at the heart of solutions. Often, inspiration – openly, with literature references – is found in the work of European and North American philosophers, social critics and theologians from other religions or among co-religionists who have already become part of global discourses on empowerment and ethics. Books are regularly published by European and North American university presses or established publishers and marketed in the same way as other books of the same genre. For example, when looking for LBGTQIA+-friendly theology within Islam, regardless of language, you tend to find the most progressive, affirmative books, internet sites and organisations in Europe and North America, where, admittedly, some of the main actors are converts, not migrants. Regardless, most of these work closely with migrants and draw from their experiences (e.g., Shah, 2018; Kugle, 2014). It is an open question how this plays out in different religious environments, but researchers can be rather certain that there are reactions brewing.

By framing new liberal theologies as individual empowerment and ethics we are highlighting crucial structures if not the full picture. The individual empowerment discourse is a key development in the history of ideas, covering the empowerment and legal protection (and creating the ideal) of the citizen and the vote, followed by empowerment of women, children, ethnic, ‘racial’ and religious minorities and sexual minorities. Just as these empowerment ideas have affected laws in many states (to various degrees), they have affected religious thought too. Does migration play a role in this?

The ideal of human rights, and international agreements supporting such ideals, has put formidable pressure on religious traditions to address norms and values that are perceived to conflict with them; in effect, human rights ideals compete with other ethical codes like religious traditions (Ferrari, 2021), and rights to divorce, equal rights in marriage and the right to change religion, among others, may provoke reactions. At the same time, human rights promote both individual and collective religious freedom, within limits, and may secure the chance for religious migrants to practice and preach in their new home countries. Still, in many cases, the same discourses also allow for new interpretations in former home countries. There are global flows of theological trends that affect interpretations and practices worldwide, not only among migrants (Otterbeck, 2000). One can also observe how transnational connections contribute to the exchange of ideas.

4.2 Revivalist Theologies

The typical trait of revivalist theology is the bypassing of history and a so-called return to the sources. Generally, revivalist theologies overlap with liberal theology, but also with conservatism. They tend to be in tension with late modernity, while paralleling certain traits from modernist social movements and often nurturing a millennial or messianic spirit. Some revivalist theology gets enmeshed in sectarian environments; other versions are personal projects (e.g., Marty & Scott Appleby, 1995).

In migration, the turn to revivalist theology may be facilitated by the lack of institutional plausibility structures disciplining interpretation and insisting on continuity with tradition; new structures and authorities may emerge. When Muslim immigration to Europe increased from the mid-1980s, for example, a combination of Arabic Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistani Jamaat-i Islami and Saudi Wahhabi theology circulated in immigrant circles. Preachers were often engineers, teachers and medical doctors – people with higher education but not in religious studies – who laid the foundation of Islamic organisations all over Europe, pushing a revivalist agenda that alienated many Muslims (e.g., Roy, 2004; Otterbeck, 2000; Kepel, 1987). The theology clearly challenged traditional authority, blaming it for obstructing the expansion of Islam; however, it also resulted in some of the most profiled thinkers of this type moving to live and develop their thoughts in Europe and North America. Organisations like the Islamic Foundation in the UK (e.g., Janson, 2002) or the International Institute for Islamic Thought in the USA (e.g., Stenberg, 1996) thrived in the diaspora, free from the repression of state apparatuses fearing their message.

Another common phenomenon is that revivalist movements in the home country are supported from the diaspora. When the Hindutva movements grew in India it had both intellectual and economic support from Hindus in Europe and, interestingly, while the religio-political agenda in relation to India is strong, the main feature and function in Europe is a strong religio-cultural chauvinism. Pride and rigorous Hindu lifestyles are promoted in both soft and hard neo-Hindutva forms, which range from focusing on a Hindu religio-cultural alternative to promoting and attempting to monitor Hindu practice and faith of a particular kind (e.g., Sengupta & Swamy, 2020).

Thus, when researching migration and religion, revivalist theology may be a very crucial aspect of phenomena as different as economic and political activities, and ethnic and cultural identities and meaning making. Simply put, the investment in a particular theology may explain migrants’ priorities.

4.3 Conservative Theologies

In western European, conservative theologies are frequently portrayed as the antithesis of post/late modernity and, thus, undesirable. Conservatism in religion may in fact be one of the major reasons why many citizens consider religion something alien because those attracted to conservative theologies are the most distanced from the ideals of post/late-modern society (e.g., Aydemir, 2012; Bracke, 2012). The prevalence of conservative theologies suggests negotiations that did not lead to change, or possibly that changes included codifying or seeking to explore earlier manifestations of a religion, which aligns conservatism with revivalism. Conservative theologies seek to legitimise religion – practices, theologies, morals and ethics – in a new setting, often by claiming a particular form to be historically authentic. Generally, compared to modernism that looks at how to improve things in future, conservative theologies look back to periods understood to have better morals, ethics and religious discipline.

But let us challenge the seemingly static appearance of conservative theologies. When a religion is brought to another place by migrants, it tends to lead to negotiations over practices and reflections about theology. There is ongoing interplay among migrants between merely living the religion, relating to religious scriptures and perceptions that the authority of religious specialists and institutions legitimises religious interpretations. Conservative theologies appeal to many migrants as they suggest continuity in faith. Rituals and morals, but also aesthetics in decoration, language and clothing – to give a few examples – may acquire symbolic value, proof of the survival of the religious community in times of change. The alternative – innovation and modification – may be conceived of as a riskier course forced upon a community in a new setting (e.g., Mayer, 2014; Dessing, 2001). Thus, upholding conservatism, the culture and traditions, as well as religious traditions linked to the country of origin, requires continuous work and choices, and often it is impossible or meaningless to try to separate culture from religious ideas, although theologies are of another order as they are verbalised and very often have institutional backing (Röder, 2014). It is therefore crucial to understand conservative theologies, how they are voiced in a group (in the family, by religious specialists and peers) and their importance to life choices regarding more mundane aspects like careers, gender roles, education and finances.

4.4 Theologies of Migration

Another reaction to migration is to create further theology on the topic or clarify the theology about it, causing intellectuals and religious specialists to revisit the importance of migration, relations with the stranger and the implications of pluralism in their respective traditions. Such discussions are highly important in European churches in connection with ideals about the ethical duty to protect the stranger – or in many cases the refugee – from unfair treatment, resulting in cases of Christian parishes, pastors or priests hiding asylum seekers (regardless of religion) from the authorities and the police when they consider deportation unfair. The ethics of giving shelter to the stranger has a long history in Abrahamic religions as well as Hinduism and Buddhism and this has been brought to the fore by important voices, often in conflict with states and at times their own religious organisations (Collier & Strain, 2014).

Reflections on the migrant and migration tend to connect to philosophical and psychological writing on the role of the stranger in our mental categories, discussion about human rights and the central myths, foundation texts and theological explications of various traditions (Collier & Strain, 2014). Organisations formed by migrants and individuals with a recent migration history may conform with these ethics and many go out of their way to help, while religious world leaders from the Dalai Lama to the Catholic Pope address the issue in widely disseminated public speeches. While hate speech is carefully studied, less attention has been paid to discourses among the religious of ethical responsibility, subsuming charity (see Sect. 5.4) and interfaith dialogue (see Sect. 4.3) in relation to migration to Europe.

A theology of migration of a less liberal kind can be found in the reformulation of migration as da’wa, the calling to people to engage in Islam. Classically, it was not recommended in Muslim theology to settle in lands dominated by non-Muslims. Travelling, visiting, even residing for periods was accepted if one could perform the basics of one’s religion, but not permanent settlement. Because of the numerically large migration to countries dominated by non-Muslims after World War II, theologians, especially Pakistanis from Jamaat-i Islam, tried to legitimise it by creating a new understanding of da’wa. The legitimacy of settling in Europe was conditional on migrants setting good examples by living Islamically moral lives and showing kindness and patience to others – the equivalent of calling to Islam through words, which is the expected activity of someone doing da’wa. This notion of da’wa by example was spread in numerous speeches and pamphlets in Urdu, English and other languages from the 1980s and onwards (e.g., Janson, 2002; Poston, 1992).

A final theology of migration is the idea of missionary migration, the merit of participating in missionary work, prominently nurtured by the Mormon Church but also several Pentecostal churches (see Sect. 5.6). Ultimately, the decision to migrate may actually be based on an understanding of what God requires from you.

5 Charity

Economic and material aid is needed by troubled people all over the world, but to migrants who have secured a job and a home in a new country sharing is often not only seen as a decent thing to do but a religious duty. People engage in what Peggy Levitt (2008: 772) calls ‘theologies of change about how to make the world a better place’. An abundance of charity organisations are motivated by a religious ethos, many of which are initiated by migrants.

5.1 Migrants’ NGO Religious Charities

Apart from a few studies, research on charity organisations set up by migrants and the reasoning behind their engagement is scarce (e.g., Erdal & Borgchgrevink, 2016; Juul Petersen, 2015), yet migrants involved in religious charity work organise charity concerts, aid giving, soup kitchens, women’s shelters and poverty relief initiatives. These religious initiative-takers make space in Europe, advertising their activities and asking for donations on the streets, and contributions of food, clothes, books and other goods for redistribution at collection points labelled with their names and logos.

The world’s second largest Muslim NGO, Islamic Relief, was founded in the UK in 1984 by migrants, along with Human Appeal (formed 1991), Muslim Hands (1993), Muslim Charity (1999), Islamic Aid (2000), Penny Appeal (2009) and many more. In the stories of their respective origins, there are two recurring components: personal migration narratives and being awoken to global crises by events like the genocide in Bosnia. Several, likely all, large Muslim organisations, such as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association UK, also participate in charity work, while many mosques gather or channel gifts. Typical activities include sponsoring the building of welfare institutions like schools and hospitals or donating to religious causes by building mosques or providing religious education. At times, donations are made to catastrophe areas and religio-political movements (Juul Petersen, 2015).

Immigrants to Europe and North America also engage in charity projects in former home regions. Today, researchers in medical anthropology are sensitive to the need to decolonialise the expectations of aid provision to make it more efficient and less intrusive, something Aneel Singh Brar et al. (2021) reflect upon when analysing a maternal health initiative taken by Canadian Sikh health science professionals in a North Indian Sikh context. They note that charity from emigrants – who are aware of cultural habits and values and are sensitised to development in former home countries or regions – is generally less intertwined with politics or missionary ambitions than the charity supplied by states and some charity organisations. On the other hand, emigrants may come from families that are privileged in the former home countries and their projects may cement social hierarchies. They may even be framed by saviour narratives in which the emigrant brings the culture, values and medical knowledge of ‘the West’ to the ‘underdeveloped’ country of origin. To be successful, the balance between different cultural understandings of health must be considered, as not all help may be welcome (Brar et al., 2021). Ethnicity, class, gender and politics, as well as religious affiliation or type of faith, might all be reasons not to accept charity.

5.2 The Importance of Economic Remittances

Not only organisations act, individuals also contribute, giving to church collections for the aid of victims of earthquakes, famines and the like. Other migrants remain close to a religious organisation in the former home country, donating, paying membership fees or even different forms of tithe or khums, depending on religion. This again emphasises the importance of transnational religious ties in the world of migrants. Religious convictions and group belonging have the potential to form tremendously resilient bonds (e.g., Werbner, 2003; Levitt, 2001).

Giving, supporting and making a difference are important ways to accentuate notions of both individual and collective (religious) ethics and good citizenship. As a female Muslim informant in Levitt’s study on civic engagement (2008: 782) says, ‘When we help anyone, besides just our own, we set an example of how to change the world.’ The ability to provide economic remittances after migration is not only a possibility but, to many, a moral obligation often informed by a complex web of moral orders, religion being one of them. Fulfilling the role of male breadwinner and provider, for example, is deeply ingrained in gendered expectations partly informed by religion. Obviously, women migrants, individually or as part of a family, also provide economic remittances to family, relatives or aid projects but men who adhere to strongly patriarchal traditions seem to feel a special pressure to provide and feelings of failure if unable to do so (e.g., Stevanovic, 2012; Thai, 2006).

Migrants among the super-rich can act with impressive impact and donate whole buildings or infrastructural projects, and set up funds, endowments or stipends to help others develop. While there is little or no research on this, the information below is taken from widespread reports in the mass media. For example, FC Barcelona Femení’s striker, Asisat Oshoala, is a Nigerian, Yoruba Muslim, open about believing in God and praying. In 2019, she set up the Asisat Oshoala Foundation with the specific aim of empowering women’s football in Nigeria, including the hijab project, launched in March 2022,Footnote 1 that aims to enable Muslim girls to take part. A specially designed hijab was provided, allowing teenage Muslim girls to acknowledge religious moral guidelines while playing. Likewise, several migrants among English Premier League’s male footballers give generously to regions where they grew up, sometimes mentioning religious obligations as the main motivator. Among them is Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha, who has given 10 percent of his salary to Ivory Coast charities and an orphanage throughout his career. Giving a tithe is a well-established Christian tradition and Zaha, who is public about his Christian beliefs, states in interviews that it is a chance to help given by God.

The research on economic remittances sent by migrants is vast and so is the impact of these. Religiously motivated donors and religious charities are somewhat less studied. Often, religion is mentioned as a giver’s motivation, but it is rare to find detailed analysis of the religious component, its importance or the role played by religious organisations and celebrities as role models.

6 Creativity in the Arts

As migration is generally a life changing experience, whether travelling as a privileged migrant or an irregular migrant without the required papers, some migrants channel their emotions, thoughts and reactions through creative expression (Gonçalves & Majhanovich, 2016) and religion may play a part, directly or indirectly. It is an important field of research, if unpredictable, as individual experiences and motives become part of the art (Illman, 2014). Studies of such works have a rich, exciting, naturally occurring data source. Below, we describe four fields: art that is critical of religious expression in former or new homelands; art that is nostalgic or celebratory – in form and content – in relation to religious arts in former homelands; those that use popular art expressions in the new homelands to affirm religion; and finally art meant for dialogue. Evidently, at times, these trends overlap.

6.1 Art Critical of Religious Expressions in Former Homelands

Censorship, self-censorship and consideration of the feelings and safety of oneself and others is a common hindrance to expressing critique against religion. Severe censorship laws like those in Pakistan, supervising governmental censorship bodies as in Thailand or Iran or the power of organised religion over public spheres exemplified in Russia or Egypt are not to be taken lightly (Kirkegaard et al., 2017). In a migration setting, critique may flourish. Admittedly, prior to the growth of the Internet this was easier and less risky. Today, governments use search engines to pursue the transgressive history of individuals; indeed, artists might be held accountable for criticism expressed during a period when it was safer to do so (Kirkegaard, 2017).

Criticism of religion often targets gender inequalities and the corruption of religious leaders but may also be specifically directed at religious dogma. Using symbols and narratives normally treated piously, artists take swings against religions with different degrees of sophistication. In a social scientific analysis of migration and religion, it is rarely enough only to interpret the artwork itself, more nuance is gained if researchers also interview the creator(s) and investigate its reception, as many migrants have emotionally scarring experiences of injustice and a political drive to work against those they hold responsible.

The impact of the art produced by diasporic communities is sometimes huge. Reactions to sections of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses (1988), for example, changed things on a personal level for the author – a migrant from India to the UK– forcing him into hiding, exposing him to violence, but also on a much larger scale. The novel contained direct criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini and the credulity of Indian popular religiosity but, most importantly, it featured a drastic reimagining of the foundational history of Islam (with the aim to criticise historical negative attitudes towards Islam, as well as racism in the UK in 1980s). Political relations between Iran and the UK deteriorated and the populist political imagination in Europe increasingly came to target Muslims, positioning them as cultural others incompatible with European civilisation and norms (e.g., Nielsen & Otterbeck, 2016). The novel caused Muslim citizens in Britain to participate in protests in the public sphere as Muslims, a trend that has continued to grow, and also divided them. While Rushdie had not respected traditional sensibilities, no one could have foreseen the events that followed; reactions to his novel became a game changer.

6.2 Art that Is Nostalgic or Celebratory in Relation to Religious Arts in Former Homelands

A less controversial style is religious art aiming to reproduce established religious form and content. Heritage and nostalgia play an important part in this, not least when decorating rooms and buildings where migrants gather for prayer and other religious practices. Decorations, calligraphy, images and at least some architectural features should preferably be crafted in distinct ways, often requiring skills well beyond the amateur. Music might be necessary, which may require special instruments, musical technique or architectural features to reproduce the preferred sound texture. Is a music file an option or is a live performance preferred or required, even if on a basic skills level? Further, art carries connotations, some easy to decipher, others more esoteric and less known. Some take a stand against traditional mysticism that tends to be interlaced with traditional arts, to the level that many believers hardly perceive mysticism as separate but, rather, as an integrated and necessary part of artistic expression. This is as clear in Christian psalms as in Sufi poetry. People tend to be passionate about art and studying conflict over artistic expression in a religious environment formed by migrants may provide valuable illustration of different religious trends (Otterbeck, 2021).

Some migrants spend both time and money learning traditional skills, not least on an amateur level. Courses are arranged on how to make a mandala, perform a sacred dance or paint an icon, and people travel far to hone their skills with masters of a tradition, some of whom are themselves migrants, bringing their skills as musicians, poets and calligraphists with them to make a living in the new context, both performing and guiding others. Such cultural capital may prove very important both for the individual’s finances and also for migrants sharing an aesthetic tradition (DiMaggio & Fernández-Kelly, 2010).

6.3 Arts that Use Popular Art Expressions in the New Homelands to Affirm Religion

Increasing numbers of migrants affirm their religions through the dominant and popular forms of creative expression in new homelands, especially migrants who arrived as children and have grown up listening to both the music from a prior homeland and the popular music of their generation. Lebanese-Swedish singer, songwriter, performer, and producer Maher Zain is deeply involved with his Muslim faith. Hugely popular worldwide among Muslims, his songs embrace different styles – pop-reggae, RnB, Arabic pop, ballads. The lyrics to his songs are deeply devout. Otterbeck (2021) has observed how important religious ethics are for such artists: the art, the artist’s persona and what is visible of the private person must resonate with religious norms to enable the artist to come across as authentic. For global artists like Maher Zain this becomes a particular challenge, as they cannot please everyone all the time. Yet, these artists, novelists and actors are claimed and cherished, often with ethno-religious pride.

Creative expressions are also used to address racism, discrimination and prejudice in new home countries. Narrative genres of the arts are used to debate, illustrate and target Islamophobia, antisemitism and Christophobia. Novels, films, lyrics, comics, graffiti and poetry all lend form to creative expressions countering stereotypes and calling for change (Martiniello, 2019).

Very successful artists and craftspeople are often mobile and travel the world, speaking from positions of influence, and those who are devout carry their religious beliefs and practices with them for all to see. Some studies focus on the artists and their art, but researchers would also do well to study the reception or the appropriation of it by the audience and consumers.

6.4 Arts for Dialogue

An interesting field of research is what Ruth Illman (2014) calls creative interreligious dialogue, meaning the contribution of creative artists to dialogue, some of them migrants. Illman has studied the efforts of six artists to create in-depth understanding in line with Martin Buber’s dialogue philosophy, which calls for acknowledgment of the ‘similarity-in-difference’ of the other, resulting in art that passionately pleas for recognition or challenges to normality.

Another field is so-called participatory projects where migrants from impoverished areas might participate in making art (often music or photography). Usually such projects are initiated by the established (municipalities, researchers, politicians) with the hope of creating inclusion and dialogue. Other top-down forums are museums that use religious art and artefacts to initiate cultural dialogue; however, while art engages, research has shown that results are difficult to control or evaluate. In fact, when approached in an instrumental way, ambitions often fail (e.g., Wilson, 2017; Johansson, 2015).