Micro Public Spheres and the Sociology of Religion: An Evangelical Illustration

Jürgen Habermas's seminal work on the public sphere has been much quoted and much criticised, not least for its failure to take religion into account. This article briefly examines the development of the notion of the public sphere in the sociological literature and in particular Hauser's concept of ‘micro public spheres’ as part of a ‘montage of publics’. Using Evangelical Christian reactions to Islam as an illustration, the article proposes the existence of religious micro public spheres which contribute to the formation of public opinion in plural societies and concludes by discussing the utility of this concept as an analytical framework for both the sociology of religion and the faith communities.