Immigration

The legal and illegal, forced and voluntary migration of individuals, families, and whole communities across national borders and indeed across hemispheres has had a dramatic influence on the current shape of religion in both sending and receiving countries. While humans have always been mobile, contemporary migration is uniquely marked by economic, social, cultural, and religious globalization as well as highly efficient and relatively inexpensive travel and communications technologies.

Immigration to settler or predominately immigrant-receiving countries such as Canada, the United States, and Australia was once based on racially and religiously discriminatory practices that guaranteed that these states would remain almost exclusively White and Christian. However, since the late 1960s, most of these societies have moved toward relatively liberal, market-driven, and rights-oriented policies. While the United States is still one of the most common destinations for the world's immigrants, it also attracts large numbers of illegal immigrants (mostly from Latin America), a reality that has spawned major political debates around civil and conventional religion in the United States. In western Europe, post–World War II labor shortages and economic expansion led to an influx of former colonial subjects who were familiar with the language, legal framework, and political culture of their colonial masters; the long-term ramifications of this form of immigration has become a fraught topic throughout the West.

In general, these changes in immigration policies and practices in the West are related to three main changes in the religious and social spheres. First, at the political and legal levels, there is de-Christianization, as many states move (unevenly) toward the increased differentiation of “church” and “state.” Second, de-Europeanization of Christianity occurs, as Christian immigration from Asia and Africa redefines Christianity in the West. Third, immigration increases the size and proportion of non-Christian communities in the West; as such, many scholars and policy makers now question whether Western institutions and laws are capable of adequately accommodating the religious diversity generated by post-1960s immigration patterns.

From the perspective of the source countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, immigration to the West/North is associated with new transnational forms of religious, economic, political, and cultural identification in which notions of home, self, and religiosity are subject to constant negotiation. Finally, while the post–September 11 “securitization” of non-European and non-Christian immigration to the West reminds us to pay attention to political turmoil and changing immigration patterns when we reflect critically on contemporary religion, scholars of religion are just beginning to come to terms with the complex implications of increased human mobility.