Modernity and Its Discontents: Religion, Social Life, and the Politics of Diversity Culture Wars in a Global Perspective

Dear Colleagues,

Background and Rationale

Far from heralding an “end of history”, the current global landscape is marked by the intensification and multiplication of “culture wars”—profound struggles over identity, legitimacy, and social order in which religion acts both as a driver and as a contested backdrop. The notion that modernity could neutralize religious and cultural conflict has proven to be profoundly mistaken. Today, the “discontents of modernity” re-emerge in diverse, often unpredictable forms across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania (Norris & Inglehart, 2019; Aguiluz Ibargüen & Capdequi, 2025).

Moreover, the complexity of contemporary culture wars is illuminated through distinct regional configurations, some of which are listed below:

• In Western Europe (e.g., Spain, France, the UK), anxieties frequently crystallize around Islam as an “exogenous” threat, while deeper tensions—such as the Protestant/Catholic divide—shape intra-European debates on diversity and belonging.
• In North America, the dynamics of “civic religion” and “majority pluralism” underpin both the expansion and limits of inclusion, surfacing in contests over migration, ethnicity, and the fear of “replacement.”
• In Latin America, culture wars increasingly centre on sexual and reproductive rights (notably in Argentina and Chile), with religious actors intervening both as guardians of tradition and agents of change.
• In China, civilizational narratives juxtapose technological modernity and moral order against Western liberal pluralism, producing unique religious and ideological contestations.
• In Australia and other peripheral “Western” contexts, culture wars often manifest as proxy battles over global belonging and civilizational alignment.

This Special Issue is centred on how religion operates as both object and instrument in these conflicts, shaping and being shaped by struggles over gender, sexuality, race, migration, environmental justice, and the boundaries of pluralism.

Grounded in the analytic frameworks of multiple modernities (Eisenstadt, 2000), multiple secularisms (Modood & Sealy, 2024), and the most recent debates on religious diversity and post-secularisation (Sajir & Ruiz Andrés, 2025), we reject monolithic or Eurocentric conceptions of social transformation. Instead, we recognize that modernity follows divergent paths, each generating specific patterns of religious diversity, secular authority, and governance. Likewise, the governance of diversity must be understood in light of “multiple secularisms”—distinct histories, contestations, and political settlements that underpin the contemporary global order.

Aims and Scope

In this Special Issue, we seek to catalyse a critical, comparative, and conceptually sophisticated examination of global culture wars, placing the religious dimension at the centre as both context and catalyst. We invite contributions that go beyond description, prioritising theoretical innovation, empirical depth, and comparative insight. Central questions include the following:

• How do conflicts around migration, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and national identity become refracted as culture wars with religious undertones?
• In what ways do these struggles reflect modernity’s unresolved contradictions—and how are these shaped by the governance of diversity under divergent secular and post-secular regimes?

We explicitly seek to overcome Eurocentric or North Atlantic biases by highlighting manifestations of culture wars in underexplored or marginalized regions. We welcome both macro-level analyses (e.g., global governance, transnational networks) and grounded, localized studies (e.g., comparative cases from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East). The aim is to assemble interventions that, taken together, offer a genuinely global and theoretically generative account of modernity’s discontents.

Themes and Possible Topics

We particularly encourage submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following:

• Comparative or transnational analyses of culture wars and religious diversity in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
• Theoretical interventions on multiple modernities, multiple secularisms, and the governance of diversity.
• Empirical studies of the intersections between religion, migration, race, gender, sexuality, and contested national narratives.
• Analyses of the instrumentalisation of religion in political projects, populist mobilisations, or as part of “civilizational” discourses.
• Critical perspectives on the impact of culture wars on religious and ethno-religious minorities (Muslims, Jews, Christians, Indigenous people, non-religious actors, etc.).
• Investigations of the role of law, state policy, and global governance institutions in managing or intensifying cultural conflicts.

Impact and Invitation

The aim of this Special Issue is to set a new agenda for the critical study of religion, diversity, and social conflict in the 21st century. By placing the conceptual utility of multiple modernities and secularisms at its core, and by emphasizing comparative and global breadth, we seek to attract leading scholars as well as emerging voices from across disciplines—sociology, political science, anthropology, religious studies, and allied fields.

We especially encourage submissions from scholars based in, or working on, underrepresented regions or themes. The editorial team welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions that make substantive, interventionist claims and help to define the next phase of research on religion and the politics of diversity.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors or to the Assistant Editor Sandee Pan (sandee.pan@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring their proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue, and full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

References:

Aguiluz Ibargüen, M., & Capdequi, C. S. (2025). Las guerras culturales globales. Catarata.

Eisenstadt, S. N. (2000). Multiple Modernities. Daedalus, 129(1), 1–29.

Modood, T., & Sealy, T. (2024). The New Governance of Religious Diversity. Polity Press.

Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge University Press.

Sajir, Z., & Ruiz Andrés, R. (Eds.). (2025). Religious Diversity in Post-Secular Societies: Conceptual Foundations, Public Governance and Upcoming Prospects. Springer. (Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies series).

Prof. Dr. Celso Sánchez Capdequí
Dr. Zakaria Sajir
Dr. Pablo Echeverría-Esparza
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• culture wars
• multiple modernities
• multiple secularisms
• religion and diversity
• global governance
• identity politics
• secularism
• pluralism
• intersectionality
• conflict