Conclusions, Consequences, Challenges

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.