This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores alternative ways of conceptualizing the place of religion within contemporary societies. It addresses contemporary claims about the paradox of sovereignty becoming stark in late modernity. The book highlights contemporary religious environmentalism and examines the blurring of the boundaries between the secular and the religious when observed in the context of people's quests for holistic unity between spiritual and worldly dimensions of reality. It provides the concept of the post-secular, its potentials, and limitations. The book also explores the effects of media and understanding changing power relations and also examines further the relevance of neoliberal politics and culture. It proposes the different ways and degrees to which media and popular culture may become formative and determinative of the religious life and practice of different individuals and groups.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music is the first comprehensive analysis of the most important themes and concepts in this field. Drawing on contemporary research from religious studies, theology, sociology, ethnography, and cultural studies, the volume comprises thirty-one specifically commissioned essays from a team of international experts. The chapters explore the principal areas of inquiry and point to new directions for scholarship. Featuring chapters on methodology, key genres, religious traditions and popular music subcultures, this volume provides the essential reference point for anyone with an interest in religion and popular music as well as popular culture more broadly. Religious traditions covered include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Paganism and occultism. Coverage of genres and religion ranges from heavy metal, rap and hip hop to country music and film and television music. Edited by Christopher Partridge and Marcus Moberg, this Handbook defines the research field and provides an accessible entry point for new researchers in the field.

Previous research has pointed to the central role of media for the current young adult generation when it comes to finding information about religion, exploring beliefs, and developing a religious identity. This article explores how young adult university students in three different contexts – Ghana, Turkey, and Peru – report using digital media for religious purposes. The article builds on previous research on the role of media in religious socialization and explores the usefulness of the notion of self-socialization in a transnational study. The studied contexts are all shown to differ when it comes to levels of self-reported religiosity and use of media for religious purposes. The article illustrates the independent use of digital media in all contexts and self-socialization taking place on a general level, but also highlights the continuous importance of traditional socialization agents, thus questioning simplistic understandings of the role of media in religious socialization.

The highly conspicuous interest in “dark” religious themes and ideas found throughout metal music and culture has received increased scholarly attention in recent years. This article offers a critical review and evaluation of scholarly writing on the place of religion in metal music and culture produced thus far. The article highlights how this scholarship has interpreted metal music and culture principally as either providing its followers with important resources for religious/spiritual inspiration or, in quite different terms, as constituting a religion in itself.

This article explores changing discursive practices on the implications of the continuous development of the Internet and information and communications technology (ICTs) within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The article argues that the development of the Internet and new media technologies has been accompanied by the proliferation of a set of influential and widespread discursive formations on the character of institutional communication and practice in a digital era. These developments have motivated an increasing technologization of discourse within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland that has chiefly involved a conscious redesign of its discursive practices vis-à-vis the Internet and ICTs in accordance with new criteria of communication effectivity and a notable new emphasis on training in these new practices.