Secularisations and their debates : perspectives on the return of religion in the contemporary West This volume explores timely topics in contemporary political and social debates including: the new atheisms the debate between Habermas and the Pope on the fate of modernity and the impact of new scientific developments on traditional religions. This book collects articles first presented at the Deakin University World in Crisis workshop held November 2010 by leading Australasian philosophers and theologians. It addresses questions raised by the recent much touted return to religion including possible reasons for the return and its practical political and intellectual prospects. This book is not afraid to provide answers to such questions as: * Is religion only ever a force of political reaction in modernity or are there resources in it which progressive even secular social movements could engage with or adopt * Are the new atheisms or on the opposite side the new fundamentalisms really novel phenomena or has religion only ever been artificially sidelined in the modern Western states * Has modern liberalism only really been kidding itself about its non doctrinal neutrality between different faiths and if so what should follow This book will appeal to researchers in the philosophy of religion social sciences political philosophy and anthropology