Linda Woodhead

Linda Jane Pauline Woodhead (born 15 February 1964) is a British sociologist of religion and scholar of religious studies at King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She is best known for her work on religious change since the 1980s, and for initiating public debates about faith. She has been described by Matthew Taylor, head of the Royal Society of Arts, as "one of the world's leading experts on religion".

Since 2022, Woodhead has been the FD Maurice Professor and Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London. Prior to this, she was Professor of Sociology of Religion in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University from 2006 to 2021. Furthermore, from 2007 to 2012, she was director of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme.

Life and career Woodhead was born in Taunton and grew up in rural Somerset.

In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).

Woodhead has been married to Alexander Mercer since 2007 and lives between Glasgow and Lancaster. and RadicalisationResearch.org.

Westminster faith debates Woodhead co-founded the Westminster Faith Debates with former Home Secretary Charles Clarke in 2011. The debates were originally created to publicise findings from the Religion and Society programme, but have since become an annual series. They bring researchers into conversation with prominent figures in public life and have included former Prime Minister Tony Blair, ethologist and atheist author Richard Dawkins, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The debates have been covered by BBC Radio, LBC, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, the Evening Standard and other UK and international media.

Research and writing Woodhead has carried out empirical research around the world. She has studied neo-Hinduism, Christianity, spirituality, and Islam in Europe. Her work examines the relationship between religions and social change, especially in modern times.

An Introduction to Christianity (Cambridge University Press 2004), Christianity: a very short introduction (Oxford University Press 2005), and Religions in the Modern World (Routledge 2nd ed. 2009) consider the development of religions over time by examining how they confirm or challenge power relations in wider society. Using this approach Woodhead explains why churches have declined in modern Europe but not elsewhere.

The Spiritual Revolution (co-written with Paul Heelas; Blackwell Publishing 2005) is based on the 'Kendal Project' and documented the growth of alternative spirituality and the relative decline of churches and chapels. In Religion and Change in Modern Britain (co-edited with Rebecca Catto, Routledge 2012) and Everyday Lived Islam in Europe (co-edited with Nadia Jeldtoft et al., Ashgate 2013) Woodhead expanded this approach by showing how new 'post-confessional' ways of being religious have eclipsed a traditional 'Reformation style' of religion in Britain and more widely since the late 1980s.

Woodhead's work on religion, identity, and power is developed in articles on religion and gender, Muslim veiling controversies, governance of religious diversity, religion and politics, religion and law. Her conceptual approach to religion is systematised in A Sociology of Religious Emotion (co-authored with Ole Riis, Oxford University Press 2011) in a schema which integrates religion's bodily, ritual, emotional and cognitive dimensions.

Policy and media Woodhead is a regular feature and comment writer on religion for The Tablet magazine and The Guardian and The Observer newspapers. She has appeared on BBC One's The Big Questions and BBC Radio 4 programmes including PM, Thought for the Day, Analysis and Thinking Allowed. She has written a major report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She was invited to the World Economic Forum summit in Davos in 2013.

Controversies Professor Woodhead has publicly expressed concern about the growing number of cuts and closures impacting Theology and Religions Studies departments.

Published works