Paul G WellerRegents Park College, University of Oxford · Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture
Paul G Weller
Cert Ed, MA, MPhil, PhD, DLitt
About
85
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Introduction
My own personal research focuses especially on the relationships between religion, state and society in the UK and in Europe, with special reference to discrimination and equality on the grounds of religion or belief. I also work on issues in inter-religious dialogue; on Baptist Christian theology and ecclesiology in relation to religion and belief plurality, state and society; and on the Hizmet movement inspired by the Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen.
Additional affiliations
September 2017 - August 2021
January 2017 - November 2021
Regents Park College, University of Oxford
Position
- Research Fellow in Religion and Society
January 2017 - January 2021
Publications
Publications (85)
The article explores aspects of the relationship between social capital and religious organizations with particular reference
to the United Kingdom and the European Union. It draws on guidance from the Local Government Association, a recent report
on the interface between government and faith communities from the Faith Communities Unit of the Home...
The article examines contemporary claims of Islamophobia and religious discrimination against Muslims in the United Kingdom in the context of the broader dynamics of religious discrimination in British history. How the ‘struggle for existence’ of religious groups who were initially concerned with ‘establishing an identity of their own’ became ‘ the...
The essay begins with a methodological exploration of aspects of the continuing contested relationship between modes of engaging in the study of religion, which are often described in English as “Theology” or “Religious Studies” and more sharply differentiated in the German language as Theologie and Religionswissenschaft. By reference to the exampl...
This volume of SOCIAL JUSTICE (Aug/Sept) 2003 discusses an important political phenomenon, Political populism which has become a prominent trend in recent times. Not restricted to a nation or a region, neither Rightwing nor Leftwing, not spared in their political discourses. This Magazine focuses on the North American and European populist manifest...
The chapter begins by identifying the specificity of the Turkish context in terms of particular balances of historical and contemporary forces in relation to which Gülen and Hizmet have had to position themselves. It shows how out of this, Gülen emerged as a distinctive scholar, teacher, and innovator, becoming differentiated from the inheritance o...
In this final chapter, Weller attempts a preliminary evaluation of Gülen’s inheritance in interaction with the potential futures of Hizmet. An important creative tension is identified between what Weller calls the “distinctive normativity” of Gülen’s approach and an increasing awareness of its relative “normality” found among many Hizmet participan...
Weller starts by discussing the evident historical and sociological insecurity of many contemporary Muslims. He also identifies a sense of theological insecurity, some of the roots of which he locates in an “Heroic” tradition of Islam that has shaped a combative and reactive hermeneutic. By contrast with such stories, Fethullah Gülen’s hermeneutics...
This is the first book of its kind about the Turkish Muslim scholar, Fethullah Gülen, since the July 2016 events in Turkey, the trauma experienced by Gülen, and the disruption to initiatives inspired by his teaching, known as Hizmet. Drawing on primary interviews with Gülen and Hizmet participants and a literature review, this Open Access book loca...
In this chapter, Weller sets out Fethullah Gülen’s early historical and contextual environments, an understanding of which he argues is necessary for understanding the book’s overall argument. While not a biography of Gülen, Weller advocates the importance of interactivity between his context and his person and teaching for understanding the change...
This chapter underlines the profoundly traumatic impact of the events of July 2016 in Turkey and their aftermath for Gülen and for Hizmet. It gives insight into Gülen’s current situation as being one that Weller describes as that of a “wounded exile,” who nevertheless has retained an eternal perspective in relation to the current Turkish powers-tha...
In this open-access monograph, Paul Weller explores how the movement known as Hizmet (meaning “service”) is undergoing a period of transitions in Europe. Inspired by the teaching and practice of the Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gülen, Hizmet has been active in Europe (and other continents) for several decades. It has always been subject to so...
This article aims to bring into comparative resonance and contrast, aspects of the of the “Dissenting Academies” of 17th-19th centuries of English history and aspects of the contemporary experience of Muslim educational institutions in the UK. The paper emerges out of thinking and reflection around the intersection between three principal sources,...
This chapter forms the descriptive core and foundation for how the book subsequently moves into a more critical and evaluative discussion of a range of key issues within Hizmet’s transitions in Europe from its first appearance until the traumatic impact of the events of July 2016 in Turkey. Together with a European overview, the chapter especially...
The concluding chapter traces the emerging recognition within Hizmet in Europe that, while Hizmet’s values to do with education, dialogue and the relief of poverty may continue into the future, they should not be replicated in a “copy-paste” manner. Rather, in Hizmet’s future trajectories, these values will need always to be contextually reconsider...
Weller locates Hizmet’s origins and development in Turkey, emerging interactively with Fethullah Gülen as a Muslim scholar and teacher of a dynamic expression of Islam which inspired businesspeople and students to realise their faith through initiatives of hizmet , or service. The chapter discusses how these initiatives developed from the opening o...
The extent and depth of trauma experienced by Hizmet consequent upon the events of July 2016 and their aftermath should not be underestimated. Their impact has brought a new “layer” of Hizmet people to Europe who often bring with them cultural assumptions different to Hizmet people who grew up in Europe. Hizmet in Europe’s financial resource base a...
The chapter traces how what some see as a previously close relationship between Turkey’s ruling AKP party and Hizmet deteriorated from that of conflict over corruption charges in relation to the government; through the Gezi Park protests; and down to the events of July 2016 and their aftermath. It takes the MV Mavi Marmara incident as illustrative...
Just over three and a half decades ago, as a young, white, Christian anti-racist activist challenged by Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s (1981), ‘White Man Listen!' and Salman Rushdie’s (1982) ‘The New Empire Within Britain' the author of this article wrote a booklet with the deliberately ‘inverted’ title of ‘The Problems of the White Ethnic Majority’. In...
Census data for 2011 suggested that around 14.1 million people in England and Wales state that they have no religion and recent survey evidence suggests that the number could be even higher. Drawing on evidence from focus group discussions with people who broadly self-identify with the descriptor ‘non-religious’, this article examines the diversity...
By particular reference to the polity of the UK, this article discusses issues and options for groups identified as "religious minorities" in relation to issues of "religious freedom". It does so by seeking to ensure that such contemporary socio-legal discussions are rooted empirically in the full diversity of the UK's contemporary religious landsc...
The framework for equality and the multiple aspects of identity that are protected in law, including on the basis of religion and belief, are continuously being redefined and reshaped through ongoing legal claims in England and Wales. In this article, we examine how religious organizations view equality and the extent to which different identity ri...
This volume considers the implementation difficulties of researching religion online and reflects on the ethical dilemmas faced by sociologists of religion when using digital research methods. Bringing together established and emerging scholars, global case studies draw on the use of social media as a method for researching religious oppression, re...
Muslims in the United Kingdom (UK) are diverse and heterogeneous and include different ethnicities, ‘races’, classes and identities. Britain’s colonial history (including in Muslim majority lands), years of migration, and the growth of indigenous white Muslim communities has meant that the British Muslim population is a mosaic of the global Muslim...
With the continuing evolution of the European Union by incorporation of new member states and the extension of its competence into ever-wider areas of social policy; the increasing ethnic and religious diversity of its populations; the debate over the accession of Turkey into the EU; and the emergent questioning of the previously held European mode...
I explore several case studies between the state, marriages, cohabitation and civil partnership as points of intersection between religious tradition, personal belief and commitment, familial and social belonging, the
conditions of modernity, and the structures and laws of modern bureaucratic states. The first example highlights the plurality of le...
Violent extremism undertaken in the name of religion threatens the basic
premises on which dialogue operates, as well as the conditions within which it can
grow. In understanding the causes of this phenomenon, with a view ultimately
to tackling them, we must first consider the ways that we communicate about
and around the subject. This influences h...
This chapter focuses mainly on England. This is partly because it is
in England that most of the initiatives and activities of the movement
have been concentrated even though, for some years the Hizmet has also
made specific contributions to confidence-building following the formal
conclusion of armed paramilitary and army conflict in Northern Irel...
Editorial introductio to this edition which focuses on dialogue ethics. The full text of this edition of the journal can be viewed on the journal's website at: http://www.dialoguesociety.org/publications/Journal-of-Dialogue-Studies_Volume-2_Number-2.pdf
This article seeks to make a specific contribution to the ecumenical development of a religiously faithful and contextually appropriate Christian theology, practice and ecclesiology of inter-religious relations by drawing on particular keynotes found in the Baptist tradition of Christianity. In most times and places the Baptist refraction of the Ch...
In recent years, controversial issues related to religion or belief, discrimination, equality and human rights have come to the fore, especially in the context of public debates around multiculturalism following the ‘social policy shock’ created by the impact of violent religious extremism. For example should there be restrictions on what people ca...
As a leading movement in contemporary Turkey with a universal educational and inter-faith agenda, the Gülen movement aims to promote creative and positive relations between the West and the Muslim world and to articulate a critically constructive position on such issues as democracy, multi-culturalism, globalisation, and interfaith dialogue in the...
The publication is a Policy Brief Document for which there is no category in Research Gate (although it has a category of Technical Report) so it is included as a book, although it is much shorter than most books
The past decade has seen considerable policy change in relation to matters of religion and belief, discrimination and equality in Brita...
Introduction to the first edition of the new Journal setting out the "territory" with which the Journal is concerned. The full text of the edition can be accessed from http://www.dialoguesociety.org/publications/Journal_of_Dialogue_Studies.pdf
This book aims to advance theoretical and practical engagement with dialogue by introducing the work of ten individuals who have made important and insightful contributions to thought in this area. The thinkers selected come from diverse fields, from religious studies and interfaith dialogue, through philosophy and social theory, to communication s...
In contemporary research both the categories of the “religious” and the "non-religious" raise contested issues concerning the way in which this can be understood by the individuals and groups among whom this terminology is used either in self- description or to whom it is ascribed. The issues arising can be substantive ones; theoretical ones about...
‘Interreligious cooperation’ is a form of interreligious relating and at times dialogue that implies a specifi c and distinctive set of characteristics and intentions. In particular, it is often focused either on the possibilities presented by action that can be undertaken together by people of various religions, and/or by shared consultation aroun...
This collection deals with challenges and opportunities faced by Muslims and the wider society in Europe following the Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the London Transport attacks of 2005. The contributors explore the challenges to the concept and practice of civility in public life within a European context, and demonstrate the contributions tha...
26th September 2008 marked the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of The Satanic Verses controversy - a controversy that in many ways became paradigmatic for the following two decades. Taking as its starting-point the opening two years of the controversy, the book uses the events and arguments of those years as a lens through which to view what...
In the past few years, the ‘religious landscape’ of the UK has undergone massive change including the approach of the government to religions. Particularly at the local and regional levels, government and other public bodies have become engaged with initiatives, structures and organisations that have the contribution of religions to public life and...
Widening circles of engagement: context, definitions and scope
In recent decades the ‘religious landscape’ of the UK has changed significantly, as has the approach of government to religions. Especially at local and regional levels, government and other public bodies have become engaged with inter-faith initiatives, organisations and structures tha...
The theme of the volume in which this chapter appears is the “governance of religion”, especially in the context of the management, by the state, of religious diversity occasioned particularly by the phenomenon of migration. In this chapter, I set out to explore the relationship between religion and governance in the United Kingdom as a complex “th...
At a time when issues of religious diversity are ever present in the media and in public debate in the UK, student and general interest in this topic is at a new high. This textbook provides an overview of the religious diversity of the UK. Informed by examples from the author's own research and professional practice, and referring to other key sou...
The 1993 edition of Religions in the UK was the first comprehensive directory of national and local religious organisations and places of worship covering the United Kingdom’s major faith communities. It was widely welcomed as a new resource for a multi-faith society and was followed by updated and extended editions in 1997 and 2001. Religious orga...
This article examines ethics in study, teaching and research in relation to religions. While some disciplines have explicit codes of research ethics, the study of religion in the UK has only the 2005 Framework for Professional Practice that was produced by the Association of University Departments of Theology and Religious Studies (AUDTRS). This Fr...
The 7/7 (2005) attack on London Transport by Muslims brought up in the UK shocked the Government, many Muslims, and the wider civil society. Subsequently, the UK’s ‘multi- culturalist’ policy consensus has been subject to intensive questioning. Politicians and some parts of civil society have challenged a perceived ‘separatism’ among Muslims; empha...
Discussions about the relationship between 'religion' and 'human rights' often focus on the problems that arise from 'religion'. Within a European historical perspective this is understandable since one of the most important aspects of the historical development of the 'human rights' tradition in the Europe has been the struggle for the right not t...
Time For a Change argues that continuation of the establishment of the Church of England is theologically and politically inadequate to the religious, social and political landscape of the twenty-first century. Theologically and ecclesiologically, he suggests that reluctance actively to consider alternatives is symptomatic of a lack of confidence t...
With the publication of the results of the United Kingdom's decennial Census questions on religion it is important to situate this data within the wider social and religious contexts that led to the inclusion of these questions in the Census. This includes engagement with some of the issues likely to affect both the data itself and the uses to whic...
Discrimination and unfair treatment on the grounds of religion takes a variety of forms in a range of different contexts throughout the world2. How it is experienced, analysed and understood has a significant bearing upon how it is addressed in terms of policy initiatives and legal instruments. This chapter therefore aims to explore the various dim...
The initial 1993 edition of Religions in the UK was the first comprehensive directory of national and local religious organisations and places of worship covering the United Kingdom’s major faith communities. It was widely welcomed as a new resource for a multi-faith society and was followed by an updated and extended 1997 edition. Religious organi...
The initial 1993 edition of Religions in the UK was the first comprehensive directory of national and local religious organisations and places of worship covering all the United Kingdom's major faith communities. It was widely welcomed as a new resource for living in a multi faith society. Religious community representatives, journalists, academics...
The presence, size and significance of religions in Britain
This directory is a resource which was designed to assist and encourage the further development of inter religious contacts and dialogue in the UK and to facilitate the wider participation in public life of the generally accepted world religious traditions which have established communities in the UK. It aimed to provide a "user friendly" tool that...
What is it that leads refugees and others under threat of deportation to go ‘underground’ or seek refuge in a religious building? Why do significant numbers of people take the risk of being fined up to £2000 or even of imprisonment for the criminal offence (Grant and Martin, 1982, pp. 216–17) of harbouring refugees and others who have been defined...
Explores the relationship between social context and theological development in relation to religious plurality in post-Second World War Britain
H ow religions relate to religious plurality is critical for the peace and stability of states and societies in the 21st century world. To engage positively with the challenges and opportunities of such a world, religious people need to draw not only on secular rhetoric and values concerning "toleration" and "human rights", but also resources roote...
The 7/7 (2005) attack on London Transport by Muslims brought up in the UK shocked the Government, many Muslims, and the wider civil society. Subsequently, the UK's 'multi-culturalist' policy consensus has been subject to intensive questioning. Politicians and some parts of civil society have challenged a perceived 'separatism' among Muslims; emphas...
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Leeds, 1996.