This article takes up the problematic of the ‘new normal’ and its necessary twin, the ‘will to religion’. The notion of the ‘new normal’ describes the shift to the persistent presence, indeed requirement, for religious assessment in all manner of public and institutional life. The idea of the will to religion reflects a broadly Foucauldian perspective on the care of the self and the requirement to confess—in this instance to confess one’s belonging to a religious category. The article calls for a robust attention to the discursive construction of a normal in which we are all religious, and to which values are constituted as ‘universal’ or that we owe our moral and intellectual condition to religion. The article points to four consequences of this shift to a ‘new normal’ in which we are all religious, including the essentialization of religious identities, the overemphasis on religion, the infiltration of particular measures of religiosity, and the spread of religious freedom protectionism.

This paper argues for a reconsideration of social cohesion as an analytical concept and a policy goal in response to increasing levels of religious diversity in contemporary Australia. In recent decades, Australian has seen a revitalization of religion, increasing numbers of those who do not identify with a religion (the “nones”), and the growth of religious minorities, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. These changes are often understood as problematic for social cohesion. In this paper, we review some conceptualizations of social cohesion and religious diversity in Australia, arguing that the concept of social cohesion, despite its initial promise, is ultimately problematic, particularly when it is used to defend privilege. We survey Australian policy responses to religious diversity, noting that these are varied, often piecemeal, and that the hyperdiverse state of Victoria generally has the most sophisticated set of public policies. We conclude with a call for more nuanced and contextualized analyses of religious diversity and social cohesion in Australia. Religious diversity presents both opportunities as well as challenges to social cohesion. Both these aspects need to be considered in the formation of policy responses.

The article assesses the complexity of religious diversity through a presentation of results from the Religion and Diversity Project, a seven-year project conducted between 2010 and 2017 and centred at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Analyzing five dimensions of diversity—the religions, lived, strength, institutional and forms dimensions—it demonstrates how results from the project support the thesis that religious diversity itself is changing in all these regards, becoming more complex, and relating in complex intersectionality with other categories of diversity such as sex and gender. The article concludes by pointing to the need to expand research into religious diversity to also include the growing nonreligious diversity in Canadian and other societies.

This article examines the role of legal frameworks and everyday interaction in the negotiation of religious diversity in Victoria, Australia. We argue that both formal legal frameworks and everyday interactions are significant in encouraging the respectful negotiation of religious difference. Experiences of historical privilege and visibility impact how religious people and groups experience and understand these processes. Or, put another way, the social position of various faith groups in Australian society shapes how people engage with both legal frameworks such as anti-discrimination legislation, and with other people in everyday interaction. Further, people’s everyday interactions shape their responses towards legal frameworks. Anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws also shape everyday interactions through an effect that can be described as the ‘shadow of the law’, in which legal decisions communicate information about normative expectations that particular forms of behaviour are acceptable or unacceptable.

Anti-discrimination laws around the world have explicitly protected LGBTQ+ people from discrimination with various levels of exceptions for religion. Some conservative religious organisations in Australia are advocating to be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in certain organisations they manage. The political debate in Australia has focused on religiously affiliated organisations that provide services in education, social welfare, health care, and aged care. We argue that religious exceptions allowing discrimination should be narrow because they cause considerable harm, reinforce, disadvantage and because LGBTQ+ people are deserving of respect and rights. We draw on a national representative survey to demonstrate that the views of some conservative religious lobby groups do not represent the views of the majority of religious people in Australia or the views of the majority of Christian people.

This paper analyzes the contours of religious and nonreligious diversity in the Canadian public sphere. The ever-changing (non)religious landscape offers an opportunity to consider the flow of ideas from this new diversity to responses and choices at the individual, group, and state levels to inclusion and exclusion. The paper first begins with a descriptive approach to religious diversity, identifying the normatively-charged nature inherent to measures of religion. It then turns to the notion of choices, considering the somewhat uniquely Canadian contributions of multiculturalism, reasonable accommodation, and the recent complication of nonreligion as a category of religious identity. The paper then considers three case studies which reveal the tensions embedded in the new diversity and responses to it in Canada, including (1) the Saint-Sacrement Hospital crucifix incident; (2) Zunera Ishaq’s challenge to the citizenship ceremony niqab ban; and (3) school controversies in Ontario’s Peel Region.