Secular Development Research Articles

Negotiating the Eternal: The Paradox of Entrenching Secularism in Constitutions

This article seeks to study the eternal protection of the principle of secularism in national constitutions. It examines actual existing constitutional arrangement which prima facie provide secularism an absolute protection from change in the constitution, in an attempt to identify and explain the character of these existing constitutional arrangements. Part I of this Article discusses Secularism as an Eternal Constitutional Principle. It reviews various constitutions which entrench secularism as an implicit or explicit principle. Part II explains why constitutional eternity should not be regarded as if the protected constitutional principles are non-negotiable. This is demonstrated through three case studies which focus on Turkey, Tajikistan, Mali. Against the backdrop of these case studies, I argue that eternal principles should be regarded as negotiable on three main grounds. First, as long as eternity clauses are not self-entrenched, they can be formal amended. Second, what is protected by the eternity clauses is a constitutional principle – secularism rather than a rule. In light of it elastic meaning, the principle of secularism can therefore be reshaped and reinterpreted with time. Third, when the values protected by constitutional unamendability conflict with the community spirit or the Volksgeist, even the mechanism of constitutional eternity would not be able to hinder the true forces in society which demand change. Part III addresses what I term “the Circle of Eternity”. It demonstrates the central place of eternity in religious laws and natural law, an element which distinguishes them from secular law. It then describes the secular developments in the age of rationalization, in order to finally reveal the paradox of modern constitutional eternity; on the one hand, the basic fundamentals of modern constitutionalism are secular, from the standing point of popular sovereignty and people’s rational ability to decide their faith, destiny and consequently, to design their constitutional order. Yet, at the same time, this very presupposition rests as an unalterable pillar – an absolute truth which the constitutional eternity.

Rethinking development and peacebuilding in non-secular contexts: a postsecular alternative in Mindanao

This paper aims to positively engage with the religious character of many development contexts through an exploration of my own fieldwork in Mindanao. Through problematising a secular development industry and building on the momentum of the religious turn some scholars have identified, I share my initial explorations of how a postsecular framing might offer an alternative approach to development and peacebuilding. Through a deconstructive framing of the religious-secular binary I analyse the practices of one small non-governmental organisation (NGO) and suggest that a practice of ‘journeying with’ – Muslims and Christians on the shared philosophical/theological project to nourish each other’s faiths – can contribute to material and spiritual benefit, and the conditions to enable this.

“El enemigo llama a las puertas de la República…”: estrategias e iniciativas del clero contra la Revolución liberal en la Arquidiócesis de Quito (1895

Dentro del conflicto entre Iglesia y Estado o clero y liberales, suele ponerse atención al ámbito político antes que al religioso. El estudio del conflicto político de inicios de 1895 y la posterior guerra civil, en el contexto de la Revolución Liberal en Ecuador, no ha sido la excepción. Este artículo pretende abordar las estrategias e iniciativas del clero de la Arquidiócesis de Quito con el fin de detener el avance de las montoneras liberales que subían desde la Costa hacia la Capital. Para tal fin, se analizan fuentes impresas y manuscritas poco tratadas. En estas se abordan los discursos eclesiales para aproximarlos a las prácticas religiosas que se llevaron a cabo entre junio y agosto de 1895. Dentro del cruce entre política y religión, los discursos de las autoridades eclesiásticas y sacerdotes, sobre el liberalismo, dejan apreciar la preocupación del clero hacia el avance de la secularización y una posible pérdida de la hegemonía religiosa. De ese modo, se propone que el clero dispuso de recursos económicos, de su relación pastoral con los fieles, y de actos religiosos masivos, como la Visita de la Virgen del Quinche, para mantener su monopolio social y el orden que el liberalismo amenazaba.

Jak „Chiny” stworzyły Europę: narodziny oświeceniowego sekularyzmu z ducha konfucjanizmu

The aim of the article is to demonstrate that the contact between European philosophy and Chinese culture in the 17th and 18th centuries had an influence on the emergence and development of secularism, which became a distinctive feature of the Western Enlightenment. In the first part, I examine in what way knowledge of the history of China and the Confucian ethics contested the Biblical chronology and undermined faith as a prerequisite for morality. Subsequently, I analyze the attempts to refute these allegations, reinterpreting Confucianism as crypto-monotheism. In the third part, I will show how the debate on Chinese culture has contributed to the birth of the secular philosophy of history, which put an end to the Enlightenment Sinophilia. In conclusion, I will present the main limitations of the thesis about the influence of Chinese thought on the birth of secularism.

The Post-Enlightenment Moral Crisis and the Emergence of Secular Tyranny in the Middle East

This article explores humanity’s ethical transformation during Europe’s post-Enlightenment era and assesses its impact upon the originsand development of secularism. Thereafter, it investigates how secularism was introduced into the Middle East, isolating that importation as directed through western colonialism or spellbound indigenous elites. Eventually, introducing secularism into the region’s socio-cultural milieu achieved nothing resembling what Europe or North America had experienced, particularly as regards the purported aims of social reconciliation, industrialization, and modernization. Without the European context, secularism emerged in a radically offensive manner, one that uprooted the local axiology and thereby leading to unprecedented levels of secular tyranny as well as entailing the justification of socio-economic and political oppression.

The Post-Enlightenment Moral Crisis and the Emergence of Secular Tyranny in the Middle East

This article explores humanity’s ethical transformation during Europe’spost-Enlightenment era and assesses its impact upon the originsand development of secularism. Thereafter, it investigates howsecularism was introduced into the Middle East, isolating that importationas directed through western colonialism or spellboundindigenous elites. Eventually, introducing secularism into the region’ssocio-cultural milieu achieved nothing resembling what Europeor North America had experienced, particularly as regards thepurported aims of social reconciliation, industrialization, and modernization.Without the European context, secularism emerged ina radically offensive manner, one that uprooted the local axiologyand thereby leading to unprecedented levels of secular tyranny aswell as entailing the justification of socio-economic and politicaloppression.

Crises in the Modern Financial Ecosystem

We build a moral hazard model to study incentives of financial intermediaries (shortly, bankers) facing a leverage-insurance trade-off in their investment choice. We demonstrate that the choice is affected by two recent transformations of the financial ecosystem bankers inhabit: (i) the rise of institutional savers, such as treasurers of global corporations, which manage huge balances in need for parking space and (ii) the proliferation of balance sheets with asset-liability mismatch, like those of insurance companies and pension funds (ICPFs), which allocate capital to bankers to reach for yield and meet their liabilities offering guaranteed returns. Bankers supply parking space to institutional savers and deliver leverageenhanced returns to ICPFs. When the demand for parking space and the mismatch which ICPFs must bridge are large, the equilibrium allocation is characterized by high leverage and financial crises. We show that post-crisis regulatory reforms, while improving the resiliency of the regulated banking sector, create room for bank disintermediation and do not unambiguously limit systemic risks which can build up in the asset management complex. Both transformations indeed stem from real economy developments (e.g. population ageing, global imbalances, income and wealth inequality, increased sophistication of tax arbitrage). Fiscal and structural reforms that directly address the real economy roots of those secular developments are then essential to complement financial and banking regulations and promote financial stability and balanced growth.

Catholic Understandings of Female Sexuality in 1960s Britain.

Recent interpretations of religious change in modern Britain have stressed the importance of a sudden and abrupt 'sexual revolution' during the 1960s. The role the Churches played in bringing about their own demise remains a point of debate, particularly in the case of the Catholic Church. This article attempts to move beyond existing historical disputes over a 'religious crisis' and whether it was rooted in 'internal' causes (problems within the Church) or 'external', secular developments. It explores the way sexual knowledge was discussed and disseminated by Catholic authorities during this decade of perceived cultural transition, drawing on the previously unpublished papers of the Papal Commission for Birth Control 1963-5 and the training manuals of the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC). These sources offer a unique insight into the often problematic task of reconciling Catholic thought with the discourses of 'sexual liberation'. While the central hierarchy's continued opposition to women's contraceptive autonomy has understandably dominated historical attention, the material presented here suggests that Catholic understandings of female sexuality were not universally at odds with the intellectual infrastructure of a 'sexual revolution'. On the question of female sexual pleasure, progressive Catholic authorities in both the Papal Commission and the CMAC made fervent efforts to engage with contemporary scientific modes of understanding. Perversely, this approach served to neglect certain aspects of corporeal and emotional experience, thereby limiting the case for meaningful doctrinal change.

Islam e identidad nacional en el Senegal contemporáneo

En este artículo investigamos las relaciones entre la religión y la construcción de la identidad nacional. Para ello, combinamos diversas aportaciones de la antropología, la sociología y la historia. Se trata de una cuestión de una gran complejidad. En especial, supone adaptar un elemento tradicional, como lo es la religión, a los requerimientos de un proceso de modernización, caracterizado por el desarrollo de una mayor secularización e individuación. Nos centramos en el caso particular de Senegal, reinterpretando distintas aportaciones bibliográficas clásicas desde nuestro propio enfoque teórico y completándolo con materiales extraídos de nuestro propio trabajo de campo. En este país parece haberse dado una articulación bastante exitosa entre Islam y modernización, que lo vuelve muy interesante desde el punto de vista de las ciencias sociales. Exploramos los factores que parecen haber favorecido esta articulación, especialmente las características específicas del tipo de Islam predominante en el país, que son el resultado de un proceso histórico un tanto particular.

Coincidencias y disputas religiosas y políticas en torno al concepto de Educación (Provincia Oriental, Uruguay, 1816-1886)

From the perspective of the history of concepts, this article analyses the concept of education and the terms which were used, redefined and confronted between 1816 and 1886 in the Provincia Oriental and in Uruguay later, in its relation to politics – gradual interest of political actors in the subject, growing State intervention – and to religion – defence of the Christian faith and education facing the development of secularization and of the role of the State. In this exploration, significant continuities are detected. An always favourable valuation of the concept of education coexists with the sense of personal and social growth associated, since the Enlightenment, with the achievement of the progress of each individual, of social groups and nations. Ruptures or conceptual mutations also arise, showing significant cultural changes. Education designed to discipline and preserve the status quo will be replaced by education for change and personal and collective progress. In this context, the education of minorities would be replaced by the people’s education and Christian education would give room to secularized education, with all the nuances and weaknesses that these processes entail. Keywords: education, church, State.

Experience of geographical typology of secularization processes in the modern world

In the modern world, seven geographical types of development of secularization processes have been identified; the level of secularization is determined not only by the maturity of social space but also by the structure of geospace. The Latin type includes some countries of Southern and Western Europe, most of the population of which confess Catholicism. The countries of the Anglo-Scandinavian type are characterized by Protestant pluralism. The polarized type combines countries and territories in which Protestants and Catholics form stable, influential and competing blocs. The countries in which the secularization processes were unable to seriously shake the influence of religion in society, because it is the institute of church that was resisting the political and cultural infringement by neighboring states over centuries, refer to the type of religious infringement. The resettlement type is characteristic for the countries whose population was being formed as a result of migration of various confessional (primarily Protestant) groups. The post-socialist type includes the countries in which an active policy of not infrequently forced “political” secularization was pursued. The Confucianistic type combines the states, most of the population of which was pursuing various religious-cultural traditions, with Confucianism predominating in general, and with a widespread occurrence of polyconfessionalism. This geographical typology of secularization embraces the countries, the communities of which have gone through the stages of secular development. The spatial boundedness of the secularization processes in the world is determined by the fact that secularization itself is the product primarily of the entire Christian European civilization.

The Christian Monitors: The Church of England and the Age of Benevolence, 1680–1730 by Brent S. Sirota

Reviewed by: The Christian Monitors: The Church of England and the Age of Benevolence, 1680–1730 by Brent S. Sirota John A. Dussinger Brent S. Sirota. The Christian Monitors: The Church of England and the Age of Benevolence, 1680–1730. New Haven: Yale, 2014. Pp. ix + 376. $65. Given the formidable negative historical commentary on the alleged spiritual decay of the eighteenth-century Church of England, ranging all the way from Leslie Stephen and Lewis Namier to John H. Plumb and Roy Porter, perhaps it is inevitable that some scholars welcome the challenge of finding alternative historical perspectives toward this institution. In his introduction, Mr. Sirota spells out what he does not seek to do in his account. He does not want to join the ranks of church apologists, and above all he does not want to cope with the murky issues of religious experience: “Rather than passing judgment on the spiritual life of an age, this book shows how the opposition and interaction of these competing tropes comprised the framework of ecclesiastical politics in this period.” Taking his title from John Rawlet’s very popular devotional manual of 1686, The Christian Monitor, one among scores of moral kits designated specifically for the benefit of sailors, soldiers, debtors, prisoners, the sick and dying, whatever, Mr. Sirota argues that already during the turmoil from James II’s unflinching Roman Catholic policies, Anglicans were aroused to assert themselves by reaching out to the general public in the form of such associational programs as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and the Society for the Reformation of Manners. With such impeccable role models as William Wake, Thomas Bray, Robert Nelson, and Thomas Secker, Mr. Sirota’s narrative of a church energetically reviving the nation as a whole is a cheerful contrast [End Page 126] to Porter’s acerbic account of those feckless time-serving younger sons of aristocratic families who wore the collar simply because there was nothing better for them to do. Mr. Sirota wants to describe the Anglican revival in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as “an ecclesiastical program of moral and religious renewal, decidedly less oriented toward the procurement of spontaneous individual conversions than the broader refurbishing of the national confession.” As he amply demonstrates, at times the coalition of clergy and laity in this reform movement was uncomfortable for the bishops and other church dignitaries, who viewed the “men in the clouds” as a threat to their profession. The SPCK was the most dynamic instrument of reform, and by being free of government control it “effectively imported the entrepreneurialism and innovation of the ‘age of projects’ into the Church of England.” By “revival,” Mr. Sirota emphasizes, he does not refer to the evangelical movement begun by the Wesleys but rather the secular development of reforms for the amelioration of society as a whole. The “age of benevolence” in the middle of the eighteenth century is the terminus ad quem for this study, when presumably more compassionate and progressive attitudes toward human suffering surmounted the old doctrinal conflicts that had resulted in the civil wars early in the previous century. In the first chapter Mr. Sirota surveys the efforts of the Church to win the hearts and minds of the people while opposing the Stuart absolutist measures. Even after William and Mary were on the throne, the second chapter argues, failures of the court initiatives resulted in increased associational “projects” to bring about social change. The third chapter focuses on the early years of the SPCK, “its dual fidelity to Anglican hegemony and ‘Revolution principles”’ demonstrating that the antinomies at the heart of the organization transformed an ostensibly bipartisan entity into a pillar of “church Whiggery.” Chapters 4 and 5 recount developments after the Revolution of 1688–1689, especially the important roles played by nonjurors and high churchmen to preserve a “distinct society” in opposition to the inclusive whiggish voluntarism. In the end, as the final chapter concludes, “The efforts of Anglican activists and associations were not only essential to the exporting of the Church of England, but to importing, as it were, a benevolence of global scope into the domestic British public sphere.” Mr...

Formation of the Russian Federation as a secular state (XVII century - beginning of the XXI century): historical and theoretical aspects

Article peer reviewed SOMMARIO: 1. Introduction - 2. Pre-revolutionary period - 3. The Soviet period - 4. Modern stage - 5. Conclusion. Abstract: The article examines main stages of formation of the secular state in the Russian Federation. The author provides historical and legal overview of the development of secularism in Russia in the period starting from 1701 to the present days.

Islamist thinkers in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic

Modern Turkey AHMET CEYHUN, Islamist Thinkers in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2015). Pp. 184. $ 120.00 cloth.This is both a very useful book and a frustrating one. It is a welcome contribution to the literature on pre-contemporary Islamic (and Islamist) thought. Turkey is too much neglected in this field-both scholars of Islamic intellectual history and of Turkish intellectual history have simply assumed the narrative presented in works like Niazi Berkes's Development of Secularism in Turkey and Bernard Lewis's The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Following the recent successes of the AK party, however, Euro-American scholars have been compelled to rethink the secularist narrative formerly taken as a given.Contemporary Turkish scholarship on Islam-oriented intellectuals began as an act of resistance to the silencing of Islamic ideologies, but now it has evolved into recovering and documenting a salient trend in Turkey's intellectual history. The pioneer was the extraordinarily industrious Ismail Kara, who edited an anthology called Turkiye'de islâmcilik Ducuncesi; Metinler/Kiciler. (2nd printing ed., 3 vols., istanbul: 1986, 1987, 1994). Kara mainly transcribed, but occasionally translated, Ottoman Turkish into modern Turkish, and he annotated the works with comments and bibliography (not a trivial task since some of these figures had been ignored in standard reference works). His was a major work in the recovery of Turkish Islam-oriented intellectual history spanning the late Ottoman period, including figures as recent as ismet Ozel.Seyhun's Islamist Thinkers does not cover exactly the same period as Kara's volumes, though it is clearly derived from Kara's work. The last of Ceyhun's subjects to die was Mehmed Cemseddin Gunaltay (1961). Of the thirteen writers collected and translated here, five died before 1930; five died in the 1930s or 1940s, three died in the 1950s or 1960s. All are to be found in Kara's anthology. The texts §eyhun chooses to excerpt differ from Kara's, for the most part, and are less extensive, but the biographical introductions, when they cite sources, are often drawn straight from Kara's anthology. The introductions vary coverage, and some are only a couple of paragraphs long while others are much longer. For example, the introduction for Said Halim Paca runs to six pages. The passage §eyhun translates from Said Halim's French (152-160) begins with the same passage provided by Kara from the Turkish translation (at 1:79-80) then diverges. §eyhun also provides a translation from an unpublished work of Said Halim, provided to him by the author's family. His situating Said Halim Paca as an intellectual descendent of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Abdalwahhab (3), however, is very odd.The translations read well and will be of use to researchers but primarily to students; for that, it is a very valuable contribution. …

RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN GERMANY

AbstractDuring the last fifty years, the dialogue between science and religion in Germany has gained momentum. This essay briefly describes the academic setting in Germany with denominational theology at state universities and explains the development of secularization in reunified Germany. Twenty‐five years after reunification, East Germany is one of the most secular societies in the world, and religion is seen as a strange relic. This poses challenges to the interaction between science and religion in both parts of Germany. The essay then presents important institutions and contributors to the interaction between science and religion in Germany over the past fifty years, emphasizing the importance of private institutes at the intersection of the academy with society, churches, and ethical challenges.

«Gli italiani sanno morire»: una collana storica per le guerre del fascismo

The article focuses on The Iron Centuria, a historical book series published by Oberdan Zucchi in Milan between 1935 and 1942. A paradigm of the Fascist militarization of culture in the Thirties, this series aspired to be a quick and easy historical reference that contributes to the legitimization of Italy's Fascist wars. A hundred short biographies, exemplary for language and ideological contents, grouped in ten «squadrons», represented Fascism as the culmination of a secular development and affirmation of Italian patriotism. From the Risorgimento to the Great War, these one hundred «precursors» were described as archetypes of military virtue, sense of the State, heroism, vocation to the martyrdom, and ingeniousness in the field of the science, art and literature. Among various expressions of culture and popular propaganda, The Iron Centuria is notable as a useful tool for exploring lexical codes, themes, narratives and uses of the historical past during a crucial phase of the fascist regime

Multiple Modernities and Postsecular Societies

Edited collections notoriously raise the problem of coherence among the contributions; this one succeeds admirably in avoiding that problem. The structure is straightforward. Each contributor applies the theoretical framework of “multiple modernities” to a particular sociopolitical example as a means of examining the role(s) of religion in the processes of modernization that these societies are enacting. Turkey, Iran, Russia, Nepal, and Nigeria are the primary sites of this analysis, with others being touched upon along the way. Always present is the contrast, sometimes implicit but usually explicit, with the “standard, Western” account of modernization, understood as entailing the development of secularism at the expense of religion. A key theme of nearly all contributions is the way in which this standard framework fails to accommodate the realities of the plural processes of modernization occurring in different ways in different societies, especially in relation to the many varied, and sometimes contradictory, roles that religion (itself of various types) is playing in this process.

Adopting a human rights based approach to international Christian development

It is only in the past decade that religion has been recognised as critical to ensuring sustainable international development efforts. This is due in large part to the failure of the dominant development paradigm of Western secularism in the global South. This article focuses on the significant historical contribution of evangelical Christianity in international development and explores some of the ideological tensions that challenge partnership with secular organisations. The resulting separate and parallel efforts of evangelical Christianity and the international non-governmental organisations (INGO) sector are costly and counter-productive in serving the poor. Recently, many INGOs have adopted the human rights-based approach underpinned by its commitment to social justice and solidarity with the poor – values also central to the Bible. It will be argued that this shared approach could provide the necessary bridge to facilitate deeper engagement in the form of social action between secular development actors and evangelicals. The critical role of evangelical Christianity in addressing poverty as a human rights issue in South Africa is also dealt with briefly.

Religion and Development

AbstractChristian churches across the world have long engaged in humanitarian assistance and diaconal work. Diaconal action, understood as integral to the church’s mission in today’s world, is conditioned and challenged by concrete contexts. In order to be relevant,diakoniarequires a careful reading of the contexts. This article presents life histories of three individuals who live in Madagascar. The stories relate how living in a world of poverty and need, humiliation and lack of safety provides many challenges relating to the fulfillment of needs and creating decent living conditions. The stories also tell of lives where many have met Christian individuals and institutions that give priority to the task of upholding human dignity. My aim has been to shed light on the meaning of diaconal work has for these young people and how new opportunities and challenges are creating new life stories and changes in their experience of human dignity. The objective has also been to describe the added value that religion and Christian organizations provide to the secular development project.

10 years of HEPA Europe: what made it possible and what is the way into the future?

HEPA Europe, the European network for the promotion of health-enhancing physical activity, will have its 10th annual meeting in 2014. Membership of the network has grown to 129 institutions from 32 countries. Collaborations have been established with the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union (EU), Agita Mundo, the global network for physical activity promotion, other regional networks, and the International Society for Physical Activity and Health. Physical activity has moved up on the public agenda; in 2013 the EU Council adopted its first ever Council Recommendation in sport, notably on promoting health-enhancing physical activity, and in 2014 WHO has begun the development of a Physical Activity Strategy for the European region. HEPA Europe has had strong involvement in these developments despite the absence of a long-term funding mechanism, changing priorities within its supporting institutions and difficulties of earlier attempts to establish a European physical activity network. This article reflects on four groups of enabling factors for this development. 1) The time was right: favourable secular developments, products of previous work and the momentum of an international pioneer phase met with windows of opportunity in key institutions. 2) A combination of commitment and conceptual clarity: clearly defined objectives, structures and approaches provided opportunities for individual commitment to blossom. 3) Institutional support: structural attachment to WHO and steady support from a sequence of key institutions was provided. 4) The deliverance of high visibility products: HEPA Europe’s events, its working groups, as well as its tools met with great interest. In Europe, the HEPA network has found a role which is not filled by any other institution and which is increasingly in demand. To meet these growing and changing expectations, HEPA Europe will need to continue evolving. This will take dedicated individuals, supportive member institutions as well as sustainable funding mechanisms.