Development Of Religious Studies Research Articles

PERKEMBANGAN AGAMA SIKH DI KOTA MEDAN SUMATERA UTARA

<em><span>Freedom of religion in Indonesia is a right that must be owned by the Indonesian nation. Apart from the six recognized religions in Indonesia, the Sikh religion is one of them. The Punjabi people who follow the Sikh religion are part of the ethnic diversity found in Indonesia, especially in the city of Medan. Although the Sikh religion is not an official religion, it is still accepted and growing in Indonesia, especially in the city of Medan, North Sumatra. In the development of religious studies, the Sikh religion is included in the top ten religions in the world. However, the importance of this study is studied, seeing that its development is still able to maintain its existence among the Muslim minority. This type of research is field research using a religious history approach, trying to see the process of development that occurred in the Sikh religion. The results of these findings show that the spread of the Sikh religion in Indonesia can be said to be growing with an increasing number of adherents. evidenced by several buildings of houses of worship for the Sikh religion, namely Gurdwara Shree at several points in Medan City including, Gurdwara Perbhandak on Jalan Teuku Umar, Gurdwara Shree Guru Tegh Bahadur area on Jalan Polonia and Gurdwara Shree Guru Nanak Dev Ji on Jalan Karya Murni. Factors causing the Sikh religion to continue to grow are because the Sikh religion does not recognize caste which results in social inequality for its adherents. Moreover, the Sikh religion is able to live side by side in the midst of the majority.</span></em>

Genealogy of Religious Study Program of Uin Ar-Raniry Aceh in Developing the Values of Religious Moderation

This study aimed to describe the genealogy of the Religious Studies Program of UIN Ar-Raniry Aceh in developing the value of religious moderation. Religious moderation is an attitude, perspective, mindset, and way of behaving in carrying out religion with the nature of tawassuth (middle), tawazun (balanced), and tolerance. In principle, the purpose of religious moderation is harmony. In Indonesia, the development of religious studies in other higher education institutions is encouraging news so that the search for religious conventions can provide more alternatives. This study was conducted using a qualitative method that produces descriptive data with a phenomenological approach. Data collection techniques used were observation, interviews, and documentation with inductive data analysis. The results showed that the Indonesian government’s efforts to ground the values of religious moderation through the mouthpiece of the Ministry of Religious Affairs have strategic values, but it is not as easy as turning the palm, it will solve the intolerance problem.

Study of Religion as a Strict Science

The present article by Andrey Pavlovich Zabiyako, the Doctor of Philosophy, professor, the head of the department of religious studies and history, the head of the laboratory of archeology and anthropology of Amur state university, professor of department of philosophy and religious studies of School of arts and the humanities of Far Eastern Federal University, the editor-in-chief of the “Religious studies”, brings up and discusses the main questions and problems of modern religious studies as a science. According to him, religious studies arose already more than a hundred years ago, but the process of its isolation from other types of scientific and unscientific knowledge is still incomplete; therefore there is a need of an accurate boundary demarcation of religious studies as a science. First of all these lines should be drawn on the fields of contact of religious studies with philosophy and theology. Such a boundary demarcation is a guarantee of successful interaction between different types of knowledge. The development of religious studies is caused first of all by the progress of humanitarian and natural sciences. Since the beginning of the 21st century the latest discoveries in the field of anthropogenesis and culture genesis has had a particular importance for the science of religion. Huge successes of archeology and anthropology led actually to scientific revolution in understanding of the problems of origin and evolution of mankind, its culture, religion. Religious studies is a science which comprises, on the one hand, the level of knowledge of fundamental type, on the other hand, the level of applied knowledge. Religion is closely twisted in surrounding reality of social, political, ethnic life. Therefore examination problem is one of the most important issues of religious studies as a strict science. The procedure for the materials’ scientific expertise, methods of interpretation of empirical data, and outputs should be based on a uniform, strictly scientific basis within the expert community. Developing fundamental and applied components, the religious studies approves itself not only as a strict, but also as a necessary science.

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ И СОВРЕМЕННОЕ СОСТОЯНИЕ КИТАЙСКОГО РЕЛИГИОВЕДЕНИЯ (В ОЦЕНКАХ ИЗВНЕ И ИЗНУТРИ)

The present article focuses on the general description and analysis of the present state of Religious Studies in contemporary China. On October 1, 1949, the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed. This was not only the beginning of a new period of the political and social history of the country but also a new stage in the history of Chinese Humanities and Social Studies. The changed political environment cardinally changed the structure and the character of Chinese Humanities. Methodology of philosophical and social studies underwent significant changes. The country changed and the Chinese Religious Studies changed with the country. The way that PRC has passed over the period in almost 70 years has not been easy and simple but it has brought China to impressing results. The same can be said about the Religious Studies in contemporary China. The article presents an analysis of the opinions and assessments of Chinese scholars on the development of Religious Studies in present-day People’s Republic of China, as well as a description of it’s organizational infrastructure...

RELIGIOUS STUDIES IN CHINESE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC AT THE END OF XX – AT THE BEGINNING OF XXI CENTURIES: PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT

Purpose. The article is concerned with the problems of investigations in religious studies’ sphere in China at the end of XX – at the beginning of XXI centuries, it uncovers positive trends in religion’s explorations and the condition of religious studies in a whole for deeper understanding of the analogical processes of the transformations of theoretical methods in other scientific areas. Methodology. The work is fulfilled in the base of dialectical, phenomenological, hermeneutic, anthropological, historical-materialistic, and critical-ideological methods of investigations. Results. The article shows the results of the religious studies and their range, gives the short analysis of the effects of western ideas to the development of Chinese religious studies and the correlation of the rapid development of religious studies in China and the attitude of the government and Communistic Party of China to the religious studies and the existence of religious phenomena in socialistic society. It’s pointed out that after policy of reforms and openness at the end of XX – at the beginning of XXI centuries in China the dynamic of society’s development opens the widest perspectives for religion’s investigations, the government of Chinese People’s Republic undertakes the measures for the support of Chinese religious studies. Nowadays in Chinese academic field religious studies have become freer and more active, religious investigations constantly increase. Practical implications. The investigation of the transformation theoretical and methodological bases in humanities after policy of reforms and openness at the end of XX – at the beginning of XXI centuries in China.

The Emergence of “Religious Studies” (zongjiaoxue) in Late Imperial and Republican China, 1890–1949

This article contextualizes the rise of “early religious studies in China” with its apex in the 1920s within the heated debates on the role of religion in a modern Chinese society. While the most recent development of religious studies (zongjiaoxue) in China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) is well known, its early emergence in the late Qing and Republican periods (ca. 1890–1949) has been a neglected topic. The author demonstrates first how antagonistic anti-religious and affirmative positions, received from Western modernization discourse and informed by the contested character of the concept of religion itself, led to the emergence of this new discipline in Republican China as a product of broader discourses on modernization. Secondly, the article evaluates the limited institutionalization of religious studies as a distinct “full” discipline in relation to the broader interdisciplinary “field” of research and public debates on religion. While the interdisciplinary character is typical of the field in general (also in the West), the limited degree of “full disciplinarity” depended on specific, local discursive and political factors of its time. As “religion” appears as an important modern discourse in East Asia, the early emergence of religious studies in China thereby reflects social, political, and intellectual transitions from Imperial to Republican China, and offers a unique perspective on Asian discourses on religious and secular modernities.

Contextualization of Religious Studies and of religious phenomena

The present paper provides a case study from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, describing the changes in the Religious Studies program as a response to institutional pressures, and emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration in the context of Cultural Studies as a perspective for the future development of Religious Studies as a discipline and as a field of studies.

The nature and role of religious studies at the University of Zambia: 1985–2005

The place of religion in higher education has been and remains a complex issue internationally. This article aims to outline the nature and development of Religious Studies at the University of Zambia in Lusaka (UNZA) as an instance of how religion entered higher education in an African setting. In doing so, it will also provide perspectives on the method that has been adopted in the study of religion and religious education and will highlight elements of the role which these disciplines strive to play at UNZA.

Of Religion, Nationalism and Ideology: Analysing the Development of Religious Studies in Japan

Of Religion, Nationalism and Ideology: Analysing the Development of Religious Studies in Japan

Tempê en la demeure : Réflexions sur l'état des sciences des religions

This article first sketches the historical development of religious studies in order to question the actual situation of our discipline. The main objective is not to offer an exhaustive representation of the discipline, but rather to present some general observations and to introduce some questions that are crucial for determining our discipline's identity. I will then attempt to establish a connection between the ideas put forth in the articles in this issue of SR and my own professional experience in the field of religious studies.

Re-Visioning Religious Studies: A Call to Come Home

AbstractThis is a look at the rise and development of religious studies in the United States, at the terms and implications of its “charter,” and then at current models and perennial phobias (theologizing being an example of the latter). There follows a plea for people working in religious studies to complete the hermeneutical circle, to return to the essence, to explore and act out the religious wager. The paper closes with a glimpse at two possible roles for such a revisioned venture: symbol repository for the university, seminary for an expanded and critical civil religion.

The Engaged Observer: Portrait of a Professor of Religion

The faculty committee which issued in 1935 document which subsequently led to establishment of Department of Religion at Princeton thought it crucial to distinguish between study and practice of religion., A generation later Professor Robert N. Bellah openly confessed that he was not afraid of blurring boundary line between and teaching of religion and that he considered teaching to be itself a kind of religious discipline.2 These disparate positions suggest much about development of religious studies in recent years and pinpoint peculiarly perplexed and potent position in which professor of finds himself. The Princeton faculty committee position characterizes age of what I shall call the professorial problem and Professor Bellah's position that of age of the guru problem.