This book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms, potentially to the point of undergoing processes of 'internal secularisation' within secular and secularist cultures.

'Ben' Pink Dandelion directs the work of the Centre for Research in Quaker Studies, and is Professor of Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham and Research Fellow at Lancaster University, UK. He has published widely in Quakerism and the sociology of religion. He is the author of A Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers; The Liturgies of Quakerism; An Introduction to Quakerism; The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction; and Making Our Connections: The Spirituality of Travel, and co-author of Heaven on Earth: Quakers and the Second Coming; and Towards Tragedy/Reclaiming Hope. He is the editor of The Creation of Quaker Theory: Insider Perspectives, and the co-editor of The Historical Dictionary of Friends (Quakers); The A-Z of Friends (Quakers); Good and Evil: Quaker Perspectives; The Quaker Condition: The Sociology of a Liberal Religion; Religion and Youth; The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies; and Early Quakers and their Theological Thought 1647-1723.

Introduction

Part I: Theoretical context: the conundrum facing religious groups

1. Organisational types and the inclination to conform

2. Secularisation, secularism, rights and recruitment

Part II: Theoretical complexities: religion and 'the world'

3. The history of the hedge

4. Quakers as citizens and outlaws

5. Modelling turbulence

Part III: New theory: a future of religiosity

6. Quaker culture and non-doctrinal assimilation

7. Internal secularisation: elements and agency

References