Who? Faiths, Diversity and Localism

Abstract

It would be convenient, to say the least, if faiths were all the same. For a start, I would not need to have written this book, or at least it would have taken fewer pages. More importantly, governments and policy-makers would have a much easier time engaging with faiths because they would quickly be able to work out where they are coming from and what they are about. But actually, like most things in the social, faiths are far more complex than that. Understanding this is a difficult business, because, since they are so diversely active and motivated, it is hard to get a handle on which faiths are doing what, where and why. Yet it is precisely their diversity that makes them valuable in civil society and in the making of public policy because, at their best, they respond to and reflect the widely variated views, hopes and needs of people in communities in the everyday and in all their colourful differences.