Global Religions Research Articles

全体会議III「普遍主義的宗教と地域文化」報告(第19回国際宗教学宗教史会議世界大会, 宗教-相克と平和)

全体会議III「普遍主義的宗教と地域文化」報告(第19回国際宗教学宗教史会議世界大会, 宗教-相克と平和)

Diaspora by Design? Multiple Allegiances and Belonging in Contemporary Global Catholicism

The article explores the semantic and experiential meanings of diaspora within the context of global Catholicism. Drawing from research conducted in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Turkey with the reformist movement known as the Neocatechumenal Way (NCW), the analysis delves into the broader question of how the refashioning of global religions is transforming the relation between people, places, and belonging and is contributing to the emotional, practical, and organizational dimensions of diaspora. The discussion first delves into the role of new missionary subjects in cementing a new proximity between the world Catholic population and Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern holy centers of Catholicism. Second, it draws from current definitions of diaspora to consider how a diasporic identity is constructed by dispersed NCW communities in daily lives and rituals. The analysis goes beyond the dimensions of ethnicity and migration, and claims the need to reassert the importance of religious case studies in our understanding of contemporary diaspora. The case of the NCW holds relevance here, insofar as it unravels how a reformist movement, by gaining progressive institutionalization within the Catholic Church, is also undermining some of its consolidated features by creating renewed cartographies of religious belonging. The article argues that the traditional semantics of diaspora—those developed in religious paradigms—deserve renewed attention in the social sciences in order to map ongoing transformations in world religions, and the attendant shifting identifications that characterize even more institutionalized religions like Catholicism.

Global Souvenirs: Bridging East and West in the Malay Alexander Romance

AbstractAttention to Arabic translations that went eastward can uncover neglected connections and exchanges of stories. One such instance is the Malay Alexander Romance, Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, translated from the Arabic version of Pseudo‐Callisthenes' Greek Alexander Romance. This Islamicization of the Alexander Romance also incorporates elements of Greek culture found elsewhere, such as Homer, suggesting a cultural bridging of east and west through traveling textual elements and stories that could be seen as accretionary globalism. These elements are global souvenirs, with varied origins, incorporated into a different Islamic and Southeast Asian mosaic. Such global souvenirs also come in the form of references to global religions, including, aside from Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Buddhism. The wide‐ranging travels of the hero Iskandar bridges east and west, as he travels to the edges of the world, the Maghrib and Andalusia in the west and China in the east. In these travels, foreign elements are akin to global souvenirs collected and then assimilated into a larger frame that also is adapted to its new Southeast Asian context. The accretionary globalism of Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, which assimilates narrative elements cross‐culturally, takes as its perspective the world itself, promiscuously crossing boundaries of nation, language, and faith.

Nations Versus Religions: Which Has a Stronger Effect on Societal Values?

The World Values Survey allows a comparison of the relative contribution of nations versus global religions on the cultural values of nations and in-country religious groups. We analyzed the answers to 16 questions from 2005–2008 about personal values and values for children at the level of 121 in-country religious groups from 56 nations. We found that the national influence is much stronger than the influence of global religions. This results in nationally homogeneous and statistically distinguishable clusters of nominally different in-country religious groups. Global religions do not have a similar effect: their in-country variants do not group together to form homogeneous and statistically distinguishable religious clusters that cut across nations. Our study shows that, with respect to values, a shared national history is a potent cultural factor, whereas a globally shared religion is not. This is true even in recently formed nations such as those of sub-Saharan Africa.

Reviving the Reconquista in Southeast Asia: Moros and the Making of the Philippines, 1565–1662

In medieval times, Christians on the Iberian peninsula fought wars to expel Muslim rulers from Europe. This protracted conflict, known as the Reconquista, was concluded in 1492 when the last of the Muslim rulers surrendered. Less than a hundred years later, in 1565, the Spanish Empire’s conquering impulse had carried it across two oceans into Southeast Asia, where Christian Spaniards, once again, confronted and fought against Islam. Though there are distinct differences between these two Christian-Muslim conflicts, there are also important similarities. As the Reconquista had done in Spain, Christian-Muslim conflicts in the Philippines—known as the Moro Wars—shaped local perceptions of Islam, established political and cultural boundaries, and attached personal loyalties to one or the other of these two global religions. This paper analyzes this process by focusing on two Christian conquests of Moros. The first of these was the conquest of Manila. When the Spanish arrived, Manila was a developing Moro settlement with ties to Islamic rulers on Borneo, Mindanao, and Jolo. Over several decades the Spanish gradually coopted Moro authority in Manila, and then finally expelled it through the prosecution of several conspirators involved in the Tondo conspiracy. This conquest established the political and cultural center of the colony and its emerging multiethnic colonial community. The second conquest happened on Min danao. Unlike the conquest of Manila, the conquest of Mindanao was never completed. Though the Spanish colony won several battles, Moro authority continued to thrive in the region. By focusing on the triumphal entry of a Spanish army following one of these victories, this paper shows how the constant Christian-Muslim conflict reaffirmed and gave personal meaning to the boundaries separating the Moros and the Christians in the archipelago. Together these two different conquests demonstrate how the revival of the Reconquista contributed to the creation of the Philippine colony.

Biodiversity priority areas and religions—a global analysis of spatial overlap

AbstractNumerous solutions have been proposed to slow the accelerating loss of biodiversity. Thinking about biodiversity conservation has not, however, been incorporated into the everyday activities of most individuals and nations. Conservation scientists need to refocus on strategies that reshape ethical attitudes to nature and encourage pro-environmental thinking and lifestyles. Religions are central to basic beliefs and ethics that influence people's behaviour and should be considered more seriously in biodiversity discourse. Using data from the World Religion Database we conducted an analysis of the spatial overlap between major global religions and seven templates for prioritizing biodiversity action. Our analysis indicated that the majority of these focal areas are situated in countries dominated by Christianity, and particularly the Roman Catholic denomination. Moreover, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches appear to have the greatest per capita opportunity to influence discourse on biodiversity, notwithstanding the role of other religious communities in some key biodiversity areas.

Special Issue on Religion, Disability and the Environment, Fall 2014—Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology

Special Issue on Religion, Disability and the Environment, Fall 2014—Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology

Religious Mobility in the Roman Empire

AbstractThe spread of religions throughout the Roman world may be explained partly as a consequence of the movements of peoples, partly in terms of the emergence of new elective cults. Understanding these processes entails exploring the kinds of contacts and exchanges established between individual worshippers, and the contexts — local and imperial — within which they took place. These developments culminated in the emergence of new cults that spilled over the boundaries of the Roman Empire to create the first global religions.

Can Missiology Incorporate More of the Social Sciences?

This article advocates improving the use of the social sciences in the field of missiology in the two main branches of American Protestantism, evangelical and mainline Christianity. The former branch needs to add sociology to the anthropology already being used in missiology and to stay in communication with these social scientific professional fields. The latter branch needs to add both sociology and anthropology to the theological-historical discipline already being used in missiology, especially in its theological seminaries. The reasons for the different approaches of the two branches are discussed. This is followed by recommendations to each branch for meeting the challenge of making a more effective use of the social sciences in aiding missiology to analyze the major shifts taking place in global religions, including Christianity. Notes on the potential contributions of the sociology of religion to missiology are added before concluding comments.

Western Healing Churches

In addition to well-known old and new healing churches, such as Christian Science and the French movement Invitation to Life, many small local healing churches exist in contemporary society. In past research, I have demonstrated that the healing churches constitute a well-delimited subfield in global religions, and constructed an ideal-type of them. However, on consideration of so-called “traditional” or “primitive” societies, and consideration of healing practices in modern societies, we find spiritual healing is common to both. Thus, we may ask the question: Are the recent healing churches a resurgence of archaic healing practices? The answered depends on the application of a comparative perspective. It is concluded that the two social phenomena, healing conducted by medicine men and shamans I traditional societies and healing conducted within contemporary Wester healing churches, are cannot be equated because they are governed by two different underlying rationales. t Ease with Modernity/ Hypermodernity

Localized neoliberalism, multiculturalism and global religion: exploring the agency of migrants and city boosters

This paper examines the discourse on citizenship and cultural values in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA, a city that has received many immigrants. The author examines how multiculturalism was endorsed by political and economic city leaders in their initial efforts to reinvent their city within an agenda of neoliberal restructuring, but rejected generally by the very migrants deemed to embody cultural difference. The migrants in the case study – from a wide array of countries – countered the push towards cultural politics with public non-ethnic identification with a global religion, Christianity, Buddhism or Islam. I suggest that in certain localities the universalistic claims of global religions have facilitated the local and transnational incorporation of migrants in ways that reject aspects of both multiculturalism and neoliberalism.

African-derived religions on the Web: Cyber “terreiros” (places where Afro-Brazilian fetichism is practiced) and Global African Diaspora

Through websites, mailing lists, social networking and blogs, which discuss issues associated with African-based religiosity, I evaluate the contribution of the Internet for the creation of a new social network that is being built, once the real terreiro is being replaced by the virtual terreiro. Also evaluate its contribution for the transformation of traditionally oral-centered religions into hypertext religions, as they are being reconfigured virtually, in an image-text space, hypertext space. Such facts show that there is a new reality: the democratization of knowledge (even the secret knowledge, liturgics), and the new path to establish the diasporal African-derived religious field as a space to globally forecast African-derived religions, with magic-religious services available or as a self resource − when the Internet transforms the so-called minority religions in global religions, and they become, therefore, socially inclusive religions.

Religiões afro-derivadas na web: cyberterreiros e afrodiáspora global

Through websites, mailing lists, social networking and blogs, which discuss issues associated with African-based religiosity, I evaluate the contribution of the Internet for the creation of a new social network that is being built, once the real terreiro is being replaced by the virtual terreiro. Also evaluate its contribution for the transformation of traditionally oral-centered religions into hypertext religions, as they are being reconfigured virtually, in an image-text space, hypertext space. Such facts show that there is a new reality: the democratization of knowledge (even the secret knowledge, liturgics), and the new path to establish the diasporal African-derived religious field as a space to globally forecast African-derived religions, with magic-religious services available or as a self resource ? when the Internet transforms the so-called minority religions in global religions, and they become, therefore, socially inclusive religions.

Religiões afro-derivadas na web: cyberterreiros e afrodiáspora global

Through websites, mailing lists, social networking and blogs, which discuss issues associated with African-based religiosity, I evaluate the contribution of the Internet for the creation of a new social network that is being built, once the real terreiro is being replaced by the virtual terreiro. Also evaluate its contribution for the transformation of traditionally oral-centered religions into hypertext religions, as they are being reconfigured virtually, in an image-text space, hypertext space. Such facts show that there is a new reality: the democratization of knowledge (even the secret knowledge, liturgics), and the new path to establish the diasporal African-derived religious field as a space to globally forecast African-derived religions, with magic-religious services available or as a self resource ? when the Internet transforms the so-called minority religions in global religions, and they become, therefore, socially inclusive religions.

“My House is Protected by a Dragon”

Until the end of apartheid, White South Africans were solely presented as Christians, with other religious practices all but forbidden to them. Since the negotiated revolution of 1994, the new liberal constitution has guaranteed religious freedom to all, with the global New Religious Movements gaining popularity. Tens of thousands of White South Africans have seized the opportunity to explore charismatic churches, New Age-practices as well as traditional African religions, while the popularity of traditional Christianity has dropped. The informants of this research are White South Africans from Cape Town, neopagans who practice Wiccan witchcraft and sangomas who practice traditional African religion. In South Africa, Whites are seldom regarded as practitioners of witchcraft or magic. Yet there are thousands of Whites who believe in and practice both, and create their own sacred spaces within the urban spaces which were previously subjected to rules and regulations of racialised social engineering. This article examines how witchcraft, magic and new global religions meet in the conjunctions of global and local, where new concerns arise and where new heterotopias and spatial practices are established as answers to White neopagans’ anxieties about spiritual insecurity and racial boundaries. The places where these sacred urban spaces are created are at homes, in public spaces, and on the Internet.
 Keywords: African religion, Cape Town, magic, sacred spaces, post-apartheid urban space, White South Africans, Wicca, witchcraft

Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Institutional Character of Transnational Religious Life

Global religious institutions shape the transnational migration experience while migrants chip away at and recreate global religions by making them local and starting the process anew. Migrants’ religious institutions are also sites where globally diffused models of social organization and individuals’ local responses converge to produce new mixes of religious beliefs and practices. Transnational institutional connections transformed immigrant community religious life and the political and religious life of the home country and enabled immigrant religious communities to exert power within their global religious systems. Global culture and institutions also clearly shape migrants’ transnational religious practices. From the mid 1800s to the present, the Catholic Church has worked diligently to create and reinforce its role as a transnational, publicly influential institution. The institutional connections that migration engenders, and that reinforces and is reinforced by already-global aspects of religious life, transform religion into a powerful, underexplored site of transnational belonging.

Pop Goes the Spiritual

Pop Goes the Spiritual

Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism in South Africa: an annotated bibliography

Preface Global Religions, Local Communities Islam General Overviews Islam in the Cape Islam in Natal Islam in the Transvaal Islamic Education and Jurisprudence Islam and Politics Muslim-Christian Relations Hinduism General Overviews Sanatanist Hinduism Neo-Hinduism Gandhi in South Africa Judaism General Overviews Judaism in the Cape Judaism in Natal Judaism in the Transvaal Jewish Education and Jurisprudence Judaism and Politics Zionism Anti-Semitism Index

Religion in Third World Politics

Religion, politics and analysis of Third World development Islam and Christianity - the historical expansion and political significance of the global religions the political resurgence of Islam in the Third World Third World Christianity and politics links between religion and foreign policy in the Third World politics and religion in the Third World - continuity and change.