This was my first Socrel Conference and I have to say that I found it such a valuable and engaging experience that I joined the group straight away on my return. It certainly was an intensive programme with early starts and late finishes, and I must admit that I wondered beforehand whether I would find enough to interest me. However I actually found myself facing very hard decisions about which panel to miss.

The conference theme was ‘religion and crisis’ and we were straight into this debate with a keynote speech from Dr Marion Bowman about the sexual abuse of children and the Catholic Church in Newfoundland. Other topics included Islamophobia, religious violence, the Trojan Horse scandal in Birmingham, the decline of religious education in both schools and in higher education, as well as an account of the continuing discrimination of women in the discipline of Theology and Religious Studies. Despite this theme of crisis, however, there was much in the conference that demonstrated the positive importance of the role of religion in society and thus, the need to investigate them further. There were fascinating accounts of the increasing popularity of pilgrimages, the vital role of memorials and cemeteries, and the diversity of religious practices across the world, including the phenomenon of ‘Indigo Children’, whirling rituals in Turkey and Buddhism in the Czech Republic as well as sophisticated theoretical discussion precipitated by Manuel Vasquez’s keynote address on the second day. Moreover, at the conference, I found a diverse group with a warm solidarity, positive enthusiasm and a confident stride that suggests that this discipline is here to stay. My thanks go to Marion Bowman, Paul-Francois Tremlett, Tim Hutchings and the RelSoc team for making me such a welcomed new member.

Gavin Moorhead