A Political Sociology of Religious Moderation in 21st-Century Europe is the title of a five-year research project (2026-2031) hosted at Luiss Guido Carli and funded by an FIS3 Advanced Grant of the Italian Science Foundation (PI: Kristina Stoeckl). The project addresses a major gap in current scholarship on religion and politics in Europe by shifting attention away from radicalization and reactionary Christian mobilization toward a largely overlooked group: religious moderates. This Author-Meets-Critic Panel discusses the role of religious moderates as actors ambiguously placed in between the presence of religion in public life and the rejection of its politicization with José Casanova, Gionathan Lo Mascolo, Sigrid Rettenbacher, Regina Elsner, and Richard Wood. While existing research has extensively analyzed the role of conservative and far-right religious actors in contemporary "culture wars," POLISMOD focuses on believers, clergy, and activists who reject the instrumentalization of Christianity for illiberal political ends, yet do not fully align with secular progressive positions on contested moral issues. Positioned between reactionary Christianity and secular liberalism, religious moderates face increasing pressure in polarized political and religious environments. The panel introduces the project's theoretical framework and mixed-methods comparative research design, spanning Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox contexts in Italy, Germany, Finland, and Romania. It invites discussion on how religious moderation is socially constructed and theologically legitimated as well as politically and institutionally enacted. This panel kick-starts the POLISMOD project for future debates on how religious moderation operates within and beyond the dynamics of contemporary culture wars in Europe.

Sociology, Christian Studies, Politics