Exploring the Non-Religious
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Locating Religion and Secularity in East Asia Through Global Processes: Early Modern Jesuit Religious Encounters
religions Article Locating Religion and Secularity in East Asia Through Global Processes: Early Modern Jesuit Religious Encounters Jose Casanova Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University, 3007 M St, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20007, USA; [email protected] Received: 25 September 2018; Accepted: 23 October 2018; Published: 7 November 2018 Abstract: The central premise of this paper is that in order to understand the social construction of religion and secularity in East Asia today we need to take a long durée historical approach, which takes into account the colonial encounters between the Christian West and East Asia during three different and distinct phases of globalization. While most of the recent scholarly work on the globalization of the categories of religion and secularity focuses on the second Western hegemonic phase of globalization, this essay focuses on the early modern phase of globalization before Western hegemony. Keywords: globalization; East Asia; Western hegemony; Jesuits; religion; religiosity; secularity The central premise of this paper is that in order to understand the social construction of religion and secularity in East Asia today we need to take a long durée historical approach, which takes into account the colonial encounters between the Christian West and East Asia during three different and distinct phases of globalization.1 The first phase of globalization, before Western hegemony, which in East Asia lasted from the mid-sixteenth-century to the late eighteenth-century, was shaped primarily by the encounters between the Jesuits and other Catholic religious orders and the religions and cultures of East Asia. Although the categories of religion and secularity had not yet acquired a stable and identifiable form during this early modern phase, those early modern colonial encounters, which are the main focus of this paper, played a significant role in the emergence of the categories in the West in the transition from the first to the second phase of globalization. -
Religion–State Relations
Religion–State Relations International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 8 Religion–State Relations International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 8 Dawood Ahmed © 2017 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) Second edition First published in 2014 by International IDEA International IDEA publications are independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members. The electronic version of this publication is available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication as well as to remix and adapt it, provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication, and that you distribute it under an identical licence. For more information on this licence visit the Creative Commons website: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/> International IDEA Strömsborg SE–103 34 Stockholm Sweden Telephone: +46 8 698 37 00 Email: [email protected] Website: <http://www.idea.int> Cover design: International IDEA Cover illustration: © 123RF, <http://www.123rf.com> Produced using Booktype: <https://booktype.pro> ISBN: 978-91-7671-113-2 Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3 Advantages and risks ............................................................................................... -
Religion in China BKGA 85 Religion Inchina and Bernhard Scheid Edited by Max Deeg Major Concepts and Minority Positions MAX DEEG, BERNHARD SCHEID (EDS.)
Religions of foreign origin have shaped Chinese cultural history much stronger than generally assumed and continue to have impact on Chinese society in varying regional degrees. The essays collected in the present volume put a special emphasis on these “foreign” and less familiar aspects of Chinese religion. Apart from an introductory article on Daoism (the BKGA 85 BKGA Religion in China prototypical autochthonous religion of China), the volume reflects China’s encounter with religions of the so-called Western Regions, starting from the adoption of Indian Buddhism to early settlements of religious minorities from the Near East (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) and the early modern debates between Confucians and Christian missionaries. Contemporary Major Concepts and religious minorities, their specific social problems, and their regional diversities are discussed in the cases of Abrahamitic traditions in China. The volume therefore contributes to our understanding of most recent and Minority Positions potentially violent religio-political phenomena such as, for instance, Islamist movements in the People’s Republic of China. Religion in China Religion ∙ Max DEEG is Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Cardiff. His research interests include in particular Buddhist narratives and their roles for the construction of identity in premodern Buddhist communities. Bernhard SCHEID is a senior research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the history of Japanese religions and the interaction of Buddhism with local religions, in particular with Japanese Shintō. Max Deeg, Bernhard Scheid (eds.) Deeg, Max Bernhard ISBN 978-3-7001-7759-3 Edited by Max Deeg and Bernhard Scheid Printed and bound in the EU SBph 862 MAX DEEG, BERNHARD SCHEID (EDS.) RELIGION IN CHINA: MAJOR CONCEPTS AND MINORITY POSITIONS ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE SITZUNGSBERICHTE, 862. -
Explaining Global Secularity: Existential Security Or Education?
Explaining Global Secularity: Existential Security or Education? Claude M. J. Braun1 Université du Québec à Montréal ABSTRACT: At the time of data analysis for this report there were 193 countries in the world. Various institutions – the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the CIA, the World Values Survey, Gallup, and many others – have performed sophisticated statistical analyses on cross-national data. The present investigation demonstrates that valid and reliable data concerning religiosity and secularity exist for most countries and that these data are comparable. Cross-national data relating to social, political, economic and cultural aspects of life were tested for correlation with religiosity/secularity. In contrast to the most widely accepted general account of secularity, the Existential Security Framework (ESF; Norris & Inglehart, 2004), secularity was not most highly related to material security, though these were highly related. Rather, secularity was most strongly related to the degree of formal education attained. Material security explained no significant variance beyond education. Thus, religion’s primary function in the world today is being replaced, not so much by the pseudo-materialistic supplication for better living conditions as posited by the ESF, but by contemporary education – extensive knowledge of contemporary cultures, philosophy, modes of thought or processes of reasoning. KEYWORDS: RELIGIOSITY, SECULARITY, MODERNITY, CROSS-NATIONAL, EDUCATION, EXISTENTIAL SECURITY 1 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Claude M. J. Braun, Université du Québec à Montréal, Department of Psychology, C.P. 8888 succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal (Québec), H3C 3P8, Canada, email: [email protected]. Secularism and Nonreligion, 1, 68-93 (2012). © Claude M. J. -
Innovation and the Resilience of Religion1
1 Innovation and the Resilience of Religion Sriya Iyer2 Chander Velu3 Jun Xue4 Tirthankar Chakravarty5 21 December 2010 1 This work has been funded by the Spiritual Capital Research Program, sponsored by the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation. Iyer is also grateful for research grant support to the Isaac Newton Trust, University of Cambridge. We are especially indebted to Indicus Analytics, Laveesh Bhandari, Siddartha Dutta, Shaheen Ansari, Gaurav Munjal, Suryakant Yadav, and the Indicus team who assisted us in helping collect the data for the India religion survey. For excellent research assistance we thank Rachana Shanbhogue, Abdul Mumit, Paul Sweeny and Nitika Khaitan. For helpful discussions we thank Robert Barro, Eli Berman, Partha Dasgupta, Sanjeev Goyal, Larry Iannaccone, Ben Jann, Timur Kuran, Rachel McCleary, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Melvyn Weeks, and the other participants of the Spiritual Capital Research Program. For helpful comments we thank lecture series participants at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. 2 Corresponding author: Faculty of Economics and St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DD, United Kingdom. Tel: 44 1223 335257. Email: [email protected] 3 Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. [email protected] 4 [email protected] 5 University of California, San Diego. [email protected] 1 Abstract This paper examines innovations to religious and non-religious service provision by religious organizations in India. We present a stylized Hotelling-style model in which two religious organizations position themselves at opposite locations to differentiate themselves on the religious spectrum in order to compete to attract adherents. -
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN SECULARITY ? the First Thing to Be Said About This Paper Is That It Does Not Propose to Answer the Question Placed in Its Title
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN SECULARITY ? The first thing to be said about this paper is that it does not propose to answer the question placed in its title. It will seek in- stead to formulate, and to explore somewhat, a series of other ques- tions which must be asked before we can say not only what Christian secularity is but what the question about Christian secularity means. There are at least four such preliminary questions which may be asked: First: how is the contemporary issue of Christian secularity related, historically and systematically, to other cognate issues? Secondly: how may the pair, "secular-sacred" be related to other similar pairs? Thirdly: what are some possible working notions of such key terms as secular, sacred, secularism, secularization, secularity? Fourthly: may Christological terminology be fruitfully employed to categorize different positions or tendencies on the issue of Chris- tian secularity? Finally, while this paper does not offer any theory of Christian secularity, it will conclude with a few statements which could pos- sibly form part of such a theory.1 1 The following are some books and articles dealing with our theme: C. Armstrong, "Christianity Without Religion," New Theology No. 2, New York, 196S, pp. 17-27; A. Auer, "The Changing Character of the Christian Under- standing of the World," in: The Christian and the World: Readings in Theol- ogy, New York, 1965, pp. 3-44; idem, "Kirche und Welt," in Mysterium Kirche in der Sicht der theologischen Disziplinen (ed. F. Holböch & T. Sartory), Salzburg, 1962 vol. 2, pp. 479-S70; idem, art. "Säkularisierung," Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 9, 253-254; J. -
Religious Fundamentalism in Eight Muslim‐
JOURNAL for the SCIENTIFIC STUDY of RELIGION Religious Fundamentalism in Eight Muslim-Majority Countries: Reconceptualization and Assessment MANSOOR MOADDEL STUART A. KARABENICK Department of Sociology Combined Program in Education and Psychology University of Maryland University of Michigan To capture the common features of diverse fundamentalist movements, overcome etymological variability, and assess predictors, religious fundamentalism is conceptualized as a set of beliefs about and attitudes toward religion, expressed in a disciplinarian deity, literalism, exclusivity, and intolerance. Evidence from representative samples of over 23,000 adults in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey supports the conclusion that fundamentalism is stronger in countries where religious liberty is lower, religion less fractionalized, state structure less fragmented, regulation of religion greater, and the national context less globalized. Among individuals within countries, fundamentalism is linked to religiosity, confidence in religious institutions, belief in religious modernity, belief in conspiracies, xenophobia, fatalism, weaker liberal values, trust in family and friends, reliance on less diverse information sources, lower socioeconomic status, and membership in an ethnic majority or dominant religion/sect. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding fundamentalism and the need for further research. Keywords: fundamentalism, Islam, Christianity, Sunni, Shia, Muslim-majority countries. INTRODUCTION -
Confucianism As a World Religion | Princeton University Press
Confucianism as a World Religion | Princeton University Press https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691155579/confu... Religion Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities Anna Sun Announcing the launch of the Princeton University Press Ideas Podcast. Listen to the latest episodes. 1 of 10 12/20/20, 6:18 PM Confucianism as a World Religion | Princeton University Press https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691155579/confu... Hardcover Price: $55.00 / £46.00 ISBN: 9780691155579 Published: Apr 21, 2013 Copyright: 2013 Pages: 272 Size: 6 x 9.25 in. More Paperback ebook Buy This Download Cover Share Overview Author(s) Praise 9 "[T]his admirable book presents a fascinating, well-researched, historical account of the establishment of Confucianism as a world religion in tandem with the emergence of comparative religion as a discipline. Sun's keen sense of history serves her equally well as she turns to contemporary issues. This well written book is strongly recommended not only for China specialists, but also for anyone seeking to understand the world's creeds and rituals. An outstanding book." —Choice "Confucianism as a World Religion is destined to become a classic, especially in Confucian studies and comparative religion. [T]his text is likely to be very popular in graduate seminars on comparative religion, Confucianism, and the sociology of religion. More of an introduction to Confucianism may be necessary for a full understanding of what Sun is up to, but this book is certainly one of the most important English-language texts on Confucianism." —Andrew Stuart Abel, American Journal of Sociology Announcing the launch of the Princeton University Press Ideas Podcast. -
Secularity As a Tool for Religious Indoctrination and Identity Formation: a Case of Semi-Urban Community in Nepal
Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, 6: 80-93 (2018) Secularity as a tool for religious indoctrination and identity formation: a case of semi-urban community in Nepal Shurendra Ghimire, Tribhuvan University Abstract: This article presents the complexity of a secularization process that goes on in a state where Hinduism is culturally embedded and dominant. The term ‘secular’ is meant to indicate the state’s ‘dis-involvemet’ in religious issues. However, Nepal faces a complex and ambivalent process of secularization. On the one hand, the state itself has encouraged diverse cultural communities to bring religious schools into practice. On the other, people of diverse communities are increasingly motivated to seek their identities via religious practices. Amid this confrontation, this ethnographic study, conducted in a single territory with diverse religious communities, organizations and schools, challenges the very dis-involvement of the state, community and individual in religious matters. In the process of practicing religious rights and constructing religious identities, religious communities have come into a competition for public support and resources. This competition not only divides the communities into indigenous versus non-indigenous forms but also compels the indigenous religions to go into redefinition and revival in order to resist the non-indigenous religions. Keywords: Secularity, religious indoctrination, religious identity, Nepal. 1. Introduction From pre-historic time Hinduism has been the dominant religion in Nepal. Hindu texts suggest that a state is impossible without a king, and therefore Hinduism not only became royal religion but also got protection from the state and thus achieved a dominant position. Under the dominance of Hinduism as the state religion, practicing non-indigenous religion was almost impossible because practicing non-traditional religion was considered religious conversion and was later banned. -
Parochialism in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: a Response to Cornwall
Parochialism in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: A Response to Cornwall STEPHEN C. POULSON Department of Sociology James Madison University In the September edition of JSSR, Cornwall (2010) commented on a study that Poulson and Campbell (2010) recently published in The American Sociologist. In this study, we characterized institutional parochialism as “the degree to which people in an academic field tend to study their own societies” (2010:32). We found that scholars in the sociology of religion—as represented by content in JSSR and the Sociology of Religion—were preoccupied with parochial concerns. Notably, a study conducted concurrently by Smilde and May (2010) reported similar findings. Still, the primary purpose of Poulson and Campbell (2010) was to expand DiMaggio and Powell’s (1982) typography to include “parochialism” as a form of “normative isomorphic pres- sure.” In the article, we characterized institutional parochialism as a condition likely evident in both Western and non-Western academic fields. We believed that parochialism was a normative pressure that compels all academic fields—not just sociology of religion—toward “sameness” in terms of topics studied. An important “hook” in the paper was our assertion that: “if the sociology of religion can be characterized as parochial, we contend that the broader field of American sociology is likely far more so” (2010:31). In this regard, we hoped scholars might investigate parochialism in other subdisciplines. I believed most of these disciplines would be more parochial than sociology of religion in comparison. So far, this expectation has been wrong. For example, I am currently investigating parochial- ism in the “social movements” field using the same approach as the Poulson and Campbell (2010) study. -
The New Sociology of Religion
Entry The New Sociology of Religion Roberto Cipriani Department of Education Sciences, Roma Tre University, via del Castro Pretorio 20, 00185 Rome, Italy; [email protected] Definition: The new sociology of religion differs from the classical and mainstream sociology, which was in force until the end of the last century, in that it no longer considers religion only as an independent variable, but places it together with other dependent variables, so that it becomes possible to investigate new themes, especially those that do not consider religious involvement— from atheism to the phenomenon of ‘nones’ (non-believers and non-practicing), from spirituality to forms of para-religions and quasi-religions and the varied set of multiple religions. Keywords: sociology; religion; secularization 1. Introduction: From Secularisation to Nones After the start given by the classical authors (in particular Durkheim and Weber, but also Simmel and W. James) to the scientific approach aimed at the knowledge of the religious fact, subsequent scholars have ventured, firstly, into the examination of religious practice (in the 1950s and 1960s) and then into the vexata quaestio of secularisation [1,2], a topic that has held sway for several decades, until the end of the last century and the Citation: Cipriani, R. The New beginning of the new millennium (the peak of interest was recorded between the second Sociology of Religion. Encyclopedia part of the sixties and the first part of the seventies). Subsequently, but particularly since 2021, 1, 822–830. https://doi.org/ the 1980s, the discourse on the post-secular or post-secularisation has developed [3–5]. -
Secularity and Irreligion in Europe
Issue 38 – May 2021 EDITORIAL: An uncomfortable truth As Christian missiologists, we are convinced of the truth of the Christian gospel. Yet we are equally convinced that reaching Europe requires us to face up to an uncomfortable truth: Europe is still being secularised. Understanding the processes of secularisation is a vital part of discerning how Europe might be re- evangelised. One of the tools at our disposal are large- scale sociological surveys like the European Values Study. A pre-release of SECULARITY AND IRRELIGION IN EUROPE the 2017-2020 EVS dataset gives us the opportunity to provide what we think is the first missiological analysis of this data. Jim Memory My lead article revisits our previous attempt in 2010 to synthesise six Europe was the first continent to be Christianised and it was the first continent measures of belief and practice to provide to be de-Christianised. In today’s Europe, most public discourse pushes religious a global measure of secularity and thus matters to the margins or confines it entirely to the private sphere of personal identify where secularisation is taking beliefs. And at an individual level, increasing numbers of Europeans say they no place most rapidly at present. longer believe, no longer attend church, and no longer practice their faith in meaningful ways. Jo Appleton interviews Professor David Voas, an authority on both the EVS and This process of secularisation has been a subject of study and debate among secularisation in Europe who highlights sociologists for many years. Some considered it as the inevitable consequence some fascinating insights on the data.