In Britain, you've got bishops in the House of Lords with votes on legislation. In France, there's this longstanding attempt to separate the church and the state. And yet it is the French who seem to have more difficulties with Islam within France than Britain does with Islam within Britain. How do you understand debates about multiculturalism given what you studied?
When it comes to the development of Western Europe there was religion and then there was science. That is how the story is generally told but Anna Gryzmala Busse believes that modern Europe owes more to the religious part of that than is generally appreciated. She has written Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton UP, 2023) and talks to Owen Bennett Jones about religion and the European state.
Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies