Based on the empirical results of the European Values Study 2017 and on discussion
with our authors and experts, the article highlights four thematical areas that raise
critical questions and require practical consequences in society, politics, education,
and research as well as within religious communities. The selected topics aim at stimulating
values debates and focus on a broader audience of disseminators who are concerned
about promoting a qualified values discourse in Europe in the context of contemporary
multifold global crises. First, the results document a severe crisis of liberal democracy,
which is fuelled by the ambivalent power of values and requires, for example, more
attention being paid to subsidiarity in values communication, the struggle between
universal and particular values, and the values division between Western and Eastern
Europe. Second, the role of religion as a problem or a component for solving the crises
of liberal democracy is discussed. The extent to which religion can be a resource
for promoting universal and normative values is shown, with consideration of the challenges
that religious communities and actors face in this regard. Third, the need for values
education is highlighted, including the strengthening of the role of religion and
religious values, which is considered to be of social, and political concern. Fourth,
challenges for inter- and transdisciplinary research are identified. These include
revising the concepts of the European Values Study, the need to think beyond the ‘secularisation
box’, and the necessity for increased communication between values research, society,
and politics.
