Author(s): Peter Kurti; John Howard (Foreword by)

Australian Studies

It was a confident expectation for more than a century that religion — its beliefs, doctrines and institutions — would atrophy in the face of growing secularisation. But not only has traditional Christianity survived in liberal western societies; other faiths, most conspicuously Islam, have increasingly become a perceptible presence. This evolution gives rise to many questions about the place of religion in liberal democratic society. These questions include the increasing difficulty in giving public expression to moral positions informed by faith; the interaction of faith-inspired practices and the rule of law; and implications of the shift from ‘soft’ to ‘hard’ multiculturalism, marked by a fear that — unless carefully managed — diversity would cause intolerance and prejudice to flourish. The essays in this book examine these matters in the context of such current debates as those about same-sex marriage, assisted suicide and wearing the burqa and niqab. Upholding the principle of individual freedom under the rule of law is the only acceptable basis for a healthy, descriptively multicultural society.