Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society
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Negotiating the Sacred Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society Negotiating the Sacred Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society ELIZABETH BURns COLEMAN AND KEVIN WHITE (EDITORS) Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] Web: http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Negotiating the sacred : blasphemy and sacrilege in a multicultural society. ISBN 1 920942 47 5. 1. Religion and sociology. 2. Offenses against religion. 3. Blasphemy. 4. Sacrilege. I. Coleman, Elizabeth Burns, 1961- . II. White, Kevin. 306.6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Indexed by John Owen. Cover design by Teresa Prowse. Art work by Elizabeth Burns Coleman. This edition © 2006 ANU E Press Table of Contents Contributors vii Acknowledgements xi Chapter 1. Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White, Negotiating the sacred in multicultural societies 1 Section I. Religion, Sacrilege and Blasphemy in Australia Chapter 2. Suzanne Rutland, Negotiating religious dialogue: A response to the recent increase of anti-Semitism in Australia 17 Chapter 3. Helen Pringle, Are we capable of offending God? Taking blasphemy seriously 31 Chapter 4. Veronica Brady, A flaw in the nation-building process: Negotiating the sacred in our multicultural society 43 Chapter 5. Kuranda Seyit, The paradox of Islam and the challenges of modernity 51 Section II. Sacrilege and the Sacred Chapter 6. Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White, Stretching the sacred 65 Chapter 7. Colin Tatz, Sacralising the profane, profaning the sacred 79 Chapter 8. Dianne McGowan, Is that a human skull? All in the name of art! 89 Chapter 9. Liam Dee, The bourgeois sacred: Unveiling the ‘secular society’ 99 Section III. The State, Religion and Tolerance Chapter 10. Ian Hunter, Sacrilege: From public crime to personal offence 109 Chapter 11. Riaz Hassan, Expressions of religiosity and blasphemy in modern societies 119 Chapter 12. Pauline Ridge, Negotiating the sacred in law: Regulation of gifts motivated by religious faith 133 Chapter 13. Colin Noble, Negotiating a religious identity in modern Japan: The Christian experience 147 Section IV. The Future: Openness and Dogmatism Chapter 14. Winifred Wing Han Lamb, ‘We already know what is good and just…’: Idolatry and the scalpel of suspicion 169 Chapter 15. Eilidh St John, The sacred and sacrilege—ethics not metaphysics 179 Chapter 16. Hal Wootten, Resolving disputes over Aboriginal sacred sites: Some experiences in the 1990s 191 Bibliography 205 Index 227 iv Negotiating the Sacred List of Tables 11.1. Suppose a person publicly admitted that he/she did not believe in Allah, would you agree or disagree that the following actions should be taken against him/her (per cent agreeing with the statement) 125 11.2. Blasphemous Attitudes, Religiosity, and Human Development in Selected Countries 127 Contributors Dr Veronica Brady Veronica Brady is Honorary Senior Research Fellow (previously an Associate Professor) in the Department of English, University of Western Australia. She is also a Roman Catholic nun, and a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Loreto Sisters). Her research interests include Australian literature, and social and theological issues. She has a strong commitment to social justice, especially to reconciliation with Aboriginal Australians. Her most recent books are Shall these Bones Live?, Caught in the Draught, and South of My Days. She is currently writing on issues to do with ecology and the sacred. Dr Elizabeth Burns Coleman Elizabeth Coleman is Lecturer in Philosophy, La Trobe University. She has held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University, and lectured in the Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, The Australian National University. Her most recent publication is Aboriginal Art, Identity and Appropriation (Ashgate Publishing, 2005). Professor Riaz Hassan Riaz Hassan is ARC Australian Professorial Fellow and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Sociology, Flinders University. He has published extensively on the sociology of religion, including Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society (Oxford University Press, 2002), `On being Religious: A Study of Christian and Muslim Piety in Australia', Australian Religious Studies Review, 2002, and `Imagining Religion: Self-Images of Islam', Asian Studies Review, 2002. Professor Ian Hunter Ian Hunter is a Research Professor in the Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland. He specialises in the history of early modern religious, political and philosophical thought. His most recent monograph is Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge 2001). Together with Thomas Ahnert and Frank Grunert he has just finished the first English translation of works by the early German enlightenment thinker, Christian Thomasius, and he is currently completing a book on Thomasius. Mr Liam Dee Liam Dee is a PhD student at the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University. Mr Dee's current research is an examination of the aesthetic, from its origins as an ancient Greek epistemological concept to vii contemporary trends in the design of lifestyle commodities. Other research interests include the imagination as social critique and the `culture industry'. Dr Winifred Wing Han Lamb Winifred Lamb teaches at Narrabundah College in the Australian Capital Territory and is a visiting fellow in Philosophy at The Australian National University. She has published in philosophy of education and religion. Her most recent book Living Truth and Truthful Living: Christian Faith and the Scalpel of Suspicion, 2004 is published by ATF Press. Ms Dianne McGowan Dianne McGowan is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, The Australian National University. Ms McGowan's research project is tracing the historical production, by the West, of the category `Tibetan Art'. Mr Colin Noble Colin Noble is Chaplain and teaches Studies of Religion at William Clarke College. Prior to that he taught Japanese Studies at the University of Sydney for 14 years, after studying and working in Japan for a number of years. He has postgraduate qualifications in Japanese Studies, education and Christian Studies. His areas of publication include church-state conflict in Japan, Japanese Christian thought, and Buddhist-Christian parallels. Dr Helen Pringle Helen Pringle is a Senior Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, University of New South Wales. Her research is in the areas of the history of political thought, political and social theory, politics and literature, questions of sex, gender and public policy, and in particular pornography and hate speech. Ms Pauline Ridge Pauline Ridge is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at The Australian National University. Her research interests are in equity and trusts, restitution, and law and religion. In 2001 and 2002 she conducted an empirical study on the receipt of financial benefits by Ministers within the NSW Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia. She has written on the equitable and probate doctrines of undue influence generally, and in the context of religious faith. Associate Professor Suzanne D. Rutland Suzanne Rutland is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney and Associate Professor in Jewish Civilisation. Her major publications include Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia, Collins, 1988 (1997), and Pages of History: A Century of the Australian Jewish Press, 1995. She has held numerous leadership positions within the Jewish and academic communities, including viii Negotiating the Sacred being current president of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, Sydney, and immediate past president of the Australian Association for Jewish Studies. Mr Kuranda Seyit Mr Seyit is currently Executive Director of the Forum on Islamic Relations and chief editor of Australia FAIR, and is a former editor of Australian Muslim News. He is also undertaking postgraduate research at the University of Sydney in Peace and Conflict Studies. Revd. Eilidh Campbell St John Eilidh St John is the Unitarian Chaplain at the University of Tasmania. She trained at Manchester College, Oxford, majoring in comparative religion and community development. She served as a minister in England and Northern Ireland where she was active in peace and reconciliation work. She teaches courses on Ideas and Faiths and the Politics of Democratisation ± East and West ± at the University of Tasmania. Her doctoral thesis on the epistemology of the sacred and its political ramifications in a multifaith society is nearing completion. She is Director of the International Institute for Social Change and Non-Violent Action and is a Global Advisor to Generation Next, a UK Charity working to educate disadvantaged South African children. Professor Colin Tatz Colin Tatz is a Visiting Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University, Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and Director of the Australian Institute