Secular Ideas Research Articles

Recent Developments in the Japanese Debate on Secularization

Secularization theory was introduced to Japan in the 1970s but initial attempts to apply it to Japanese religions have not created a lasting trend. A skeptical attitude toward secularization is still dominant in Japan, based on the claim that the secularization thesis is ultimately centered on western representations of Christianity. This does not mean, however, that discussions revolving around secularization have disappeared from the scholarly scene. In fact, the idea of secularization is used as a negative point of reference by several scholars, while others have attempted to apply it more positively to the Japanese context. Discussions on secularization in Japan since the 1980s are still in need of a critical examination, and this article aims to partially address this gap by focusing on the contributions by Japanese scholars in the last decade, in order to illustrate some of the major trends and issues in the current debate.

Technicians of the Secular: Yoruba Poets and their Nigeria Publics

This essay focuses on the work of two Yoruba-language poet-performers, Lanrewaju Adepoju and Olatubosun Oladapo, as an example of artistic treatment of secularism. Both are accomplished poets with several poetry volumes, scores of audio LPs and cassettes, and studio broadcasts to their credit. They work in the genre of ewì, Yoruba poetry composed in print and recited over an orchestra of percussive music, with or without sung sequences. Though they compose and perform exclusively in Yoruba, the social impulse of their work is to an inclusive Nigerian public that is imagined to be differentiated and representative of the world at large. It is from this conception that I shall explore the idea of secularism, a worldly practice of political critique emerging out of the simultaneity of socioeconomic-artistic spheres that is flexible, incorporative, and open to change. The essay analyzes the changing political critiques in these poets' works as discourses of the secular.

At the Crossroads between Catholicism and Modernist Art

The French Dominican monk and artist, Marie-Alain Couturier (1897–1954) was initially trained as a painter. He went on to become a friar at Le Saulchoir in Belgium, receiving his ordination in 1930. Largely recognized as the figure at the centre of the debate on the role of apostolic art in the 1940s and 1950s in France, he was a friend of many pioneers of modernist art, such as Braque, Matisse, and Picasso. Through this, he was an interlocutor between the secular domain of modernist aesthetics and the clergy’s religious world. Drawing on an unknown work of Couturier’s, the central thesis of the paper is that his thought was defined by heterogeneity and contradiction. In this manner, his thoughts on art and religion problematize and reconfigure any straightforward causal narrative which announces the unilateral victory of secular ideas.

A secular acceleration: Theological foundations of the sociological concept “social acceleration”

The term “shortening of time” is related to the Judeo-Christian tradition that announces the end of time as the moment when God, for the sake of the elect, shortens the duration of days and hours, because without this shortening no one would survive (This means that only a God's will could ended Time. The Christian perspective believes that the last days will be chaotic, and God will preclude History, ending time, to save a few men of goodwill.). While in this sense salvation is associated with divine intervention, the thesis of acceleration would reverse the above formula, making human beings responsible for the narrowing of time. But if the shortening of time in the Apocalypse is aimed at the salvation of the World: Where does acceleration, a secular idea of the shortening of time, aim? What is it that justifies the increase in the speed of completing tasks that previously took considerable time, which are today performed in just a few hours? How can we justify the frenzy to obtain what we want in the shortest time possible? In this paper we propose to address this and other questions, in order to show the relationship between a sociological understanding of acceleration with a theological-Christian view of time. In other words, the main claim exposes the transfer of teleology from a religious conception to a historical-worldly conception of time.

Secular faith: how culture has trumped religion in American politics

When Pope Francis recently answered Who am I to judge? when asked about homosexuality, he ushered in a new era for the Catholic church. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable for a pope to express tolerance for homosexuality. Yet shifts of this kind are actually common in the history of Christian groups. Within the United States, Christian leaders have regularly revised their teachings to match the beliefs and opinions gaining support among their members and larger society. Mark A. Smith provocatively argues that religion is not nearly the unchanging conservative influence in American politics that we have come to think it is. In fact, in the long run, religion is best understood as responding to changing political and cultural values rather than shaping them. Smith makes his case by charting five contentious issues in America's history: slavery, divorce, homosexuality, abortion, and women's rights. For each, he shows how the political views of even the most conservative Christians evolved in the same direction as the rest of society-perhaps not as swiftly, but always on the same arc. During periods of cultural transition, Christian leaders do resist prevailing values and behaviors, but those same leaders inevitably acquiesce-often by reinterpreting the Bible-if their positions become no longer tenable. Secular ideas and influences thereby shape the ways Christians read and interpret their scriptures. So powerful are the cultural and societal norms surrounding us that Christians in America today hold more in common morally and politically with their atheist neighbors than with the Christians of earlier centuries. In fact, the strongest predictors of people's moral beliefs are not their religious commitments or lack thereof but rather when and where they were born. A thoroughly researched and ultimately hopeful book on the prospects for political harmony, Secular Faith demonstrates how, over the long run, boundaries of secular and religious cultures converge.

Does the Christian worldview provide a place for the law of attraction? (Part 1): An apologetic evaluation of the roots of this doctrine

This article investigates the roots of the so-called spiritual law of attraction that some Christian preachers today describe as an important biblical law. One of the proponents of this idea, Pastor At Boshoff of the Christian Revival Church (CRC), refers in his sermons to the law of attraction as a powerful principle derived from the Word of God. This idea bears striking similarities to the positive confession doctrine as taught by popular Word of Faith preachers. The basic claim of this spiritual �law� is that human beings create their own future through their thoughts and words. The article shows the idea of a spiritual law of attraction as a New Age doctrine that flows from a New Age worldview. Preaching prosperity through the law of attraction is not in accordance with orthodox, historical Christianity or the Christian worldview.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article challenges the secular view that intangible thoughts and words can take on tangible reality. This is important since this secular idea is infiltrating the Christian church. It is already being preached as biblical although the roots thereof are clearly shown to originate from the New Age movement.

Does the Christian worldview provide a place for the law of attraction? (Part 2): An apologetic evaluation of the way the Bible is used in promoting this idea

This article investigates the biblical motivation that is given for the secular idea of the so-called spiritual law of attraction to become part of Christian doctrine. In 2010 Pastor At Boshoff of the Christian Revival Church (CRC) preached two sermons on the law of attraction in which he claimed it as a powerful principle in the Word of God. According to him this biblical �law� provides human beings with physical manifestations of their thoughts and words. The idea to create one�s own favourable future through the law of attraction flows from a New Age worldview and is similar to the positive confession doctrine taught by popular Word of Faith teachers. Boshoff�s claim regarding the law of attraction cannot be deduced from the key Scripture passages he uses, which reflects an unfounded use of Scripture to promote this idea.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article challenges the secular infiltration of the Law of Attraction in the church. This is important since the so-called Law of Attraction was preached by Pastor A. Boshoff of the CRC. Many of his listeners embrace his teaching although it reflects a poor exposition and application of Scripture.

The West and the Middle East: Liberal Nationalism, Instrumental Nationalism

This paper argues that there is no real nationalism in the Middle East and if is, then it is an instrumental. The historical process of the region which relates to nationalism has had three stages: (1) the European conquest that forced the indigenous people to battle both for freedom and confront a secular idea such as nationalism; (2) arbitrarily marked borders by the West disregarding ethnic religious and tribal lines and affinity; (3) the creation of Arab nation states with no solid infrastructure of shared national values. This perspective can help understand current political developments in light of the Arab spring upheavals, in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

“An Age More Curious, Than Devout”: The Counter-Enlightenment Edward Young

This essay argues for Edward Young’s central position as a Counter-Enlightenment figure. It rejects a critical tradition that has aligned his popular poem, Night Thoughts (1742–45), with Newtonian physico-theology and Enlightenment forms of religiosity. Through a detailed reading of Night Thoughts, its reception history, and other of Young’s neglected writings, the essay explores Young’s critique of emerging secular ideas of reason. It shows Young’s engagement with metaphysical debates over the knowledge of God’s nature that were at the root of early fissures between Newtonians and Lockeans.

Regulating Religion in Italy: The Constitution Does (Not) Matter

Regulating religion in Italy has always been a crucial issue, starting from the outset of the national history. It is not necessary to have a deep knowledge of the history of the Italian state to be aware of this exceptionalism: geography is telling enough. The Italian state – a relatively weak state that always had to deal with a strong religion – is the only example of a state that contains another independent ecclesiastical (or sacerdotal-monarchical) state entity in the middle of its territory. In this paper, I focus on a specific aspect of this “constitutional” exceptionalism. I particularly focus on state-Church relations and on the peculiar implementation of the “idea of secularism” in Italy. The paper shows that the constitutional regulation of religion does not tell so much about the regulation of religion in the Italian constitutional experience. This is not due to a lack of constitutional provisions regulating religion and religious freedom. On the contrary, both the pre-republican constitutional charter and the republican Constitution accorded a very prominent role to the regulation of the religious phenomenon. Nonetheless, I will show that an investigation of the “living constitution” reveals that constitutional provisions have been implemented in diverging directions throughout the history of Italian secularism. To this end, in this paper I firstly provide an outline of the formal constitutional provisions of the 1848 Constitution followed by a brief overview of legislative and jurisdictional developments of the 19th and of the first half of the 20th century. Secondly, I address the constitutional provisions adopted in 1947, focusing on the constitutional “compromise” reached by the Constituent Assembly. Thirdly, I investigate briefly how the actors under the living constitution (the legislator, the government, common judges and the constitutional court in particular) tried to balance and develop the potentially conflicting principles included in the 1947 Constitution in the field of religious freedom, equality and state-Church relations. In particular, I focus on three particularly controversial examples: the teaching of religion in state schools; the display of the crucifix in classrooms and mechanisms for state funding of religious denominations. Finally, I argue that insofar as the regulation of religion in Italy is concerned, the actual shift in paradigm did not occur within the formal Constitution, but rather in the living Constitution.

Dissonant Notes on the Post‐Secular: Unthinking Secularization in Global Historical Sociology

AbstractThe article criticizes the assumption that modernity is a rupture in time and space conceivable in terms of the coming of a secular age. It tackles Habermas concept of ‘post‐secular’ and denotes it as an attempt to provide new foundations to modernization narratives, in postmodern terms; it discusses Blumenberg's idea of secularization and questions the historical ontogenesis of what Blumenberg thinks of in terms of the transition to the modern age; it further elaborates on Wang Hui analysis of the relation between Western science and the role of China in global modernity. Secularization and the post‐secular, it is argued, re‐frame narratives of the disenchantment within a western geocultural ideology of western superiority.

Aristotle's Views on Religion and his Idea of Secularism

Abstrakt: The purpose of this article to tackle the current real danger of cultural vandalism, posed by radical Islam and the overall resurgence of the Religious in the modern notionally secular societies. The method of analysis used is Aristotle’s semiotic theory, his classification of signs (false, belief-causing and knowledge-producing ones), and his idea of secularism as a prerequisite of civilized society.

COMPARATIVE LAW: In Search of a Muslim Identity Between the Two Extremes of Secularism and Religious Law

This paper analyses the development of the Indian Muslim identity with respect to the coexistence of Shariat and sovereign laws. The period of analysis is postcolonial India. The paper analyses the different conflicts of legal philosophy and practice that exist between the judiciary of India and that of the parallel Islamic system. The conflict is such that private citizens suffer from wrongful interpretation of religious law and there is an infringement of the fundamental right to justice as guaranteed by the sovereign laws to every Indian citizen. The analysis begins with a brief discussion of a case that involved a conflict of laws and, vicariously, a conflict of legal ideology between the two systems. The paper mentions other similar cases in corroboration of the primary claim—conflict of legal philosophy. The views of the Indian State are considered with special reference to the idea of secularism in the Indian context. The Constitution of India is analysed to establish as to what the word 'secular' means under the Supreme Law of the Indian State. The analyses reveal that the parallel system, although impractical serves the cause of meeting the Indian idea of secularism. The paper concludes that the secular ethos of Indian democracy allow for infringement of certain Common Law values to make space for certain religious laws, even though they are more conflictive than complimentary

Research Approaches in the Study of Religion

Abstract Despite development of secular ideas and concepts in the Western world, we can observe increasing interest in the study of religion. However, this popularity of the study of religion and different research approaches has caused that in some sense scholars that were studying religion came to a dead point. Here I show that the most optimal research approach in the study of religion is pluralistic, integral paradigm which connects old traditional methods with naturalistic, cognitive and sometimes experimental approach.

Polemics of Arsenii Matseevich

Arsenii Matseevich, an important ecclesiastical figure, defended the doctrine of Orthodox Church from schismatics, in particular, from attacks of Ioasif, who, among others, wanted to abolish the Orthodox priesthood. Matseevich was also involved in polemics with Lutherans who criticized Iavorskii’s monumental The Rock of faith . The article discusses arguments Matseevich used against schismatics and Lutherans. Matseevich was an isolated vocal voice that opposed the idea of secularization of the Church. The article describes arguments he used to retain the dignity of the Church and even to restore it to the former glory. For all his efforts Catherine II put him in prison where he died.

Reflections on discrimination and health in India.

This is a speculative paper on the structure of caste-based discrimination in India. It sketches the field by a) proposing four empirical and historical examples of discrimination in different medical situations; b) suggesting an analytical framework composed of domain, register, temporality and intensity of discrimination; c) proposing that in the Indian historical context, discrimination masks itself, hiding its character behind the veneer of secular ideas; d) arguing that discrimination is not some unfortunate residue of backwardness in modern society that will go away, but is the force of social hierarchy transforming itself into a fully modern capitalist culture. The paper then arrives at the understanding that discrimination is pandemic across India. The conclusion suggests that in India today, we need proposals, hypotheses and arguments that help us establish the ethical framework for meaningful empirical research that sociological studies of medical ethics and the epidemiology of discrimination can pursue. Its method is that of logical and speculative argument based on experience, with examples of different forms of discrimination to clarify the point being made. No specific research was undertaken for this purpose since the paper is not empirically based.

Interreligiösa gruppers samarbete med kommuner i Sverige

In Swedish contemporary society we nd ongoing processes of secularization and the idea of secularism be- ing challenged by a growing religious plurality in society. e overall purpose of this article is to highlight what happens when religion in a secularized and secular society enter into the public sphere as a result of inter-religious groups’ collaboration with local authorities. is is done through interviews and observations of three inter-religious groups meetings during 2010 and 2011. e collaboration between the inter-religious groups and the local authorities were initiated as a result of perceived problems of integration in the society and aims to include religious communities in society which may change the ongoing processes of seculariza- tion. One of the major problems with the collaborations was related to which religious community could be included by reasons of economic resources, access to personnel and premises and the acceptance and establishment in society.

Lessons in Secular Criticism by Stathis Gourgouris (review)

Gourgouris, Stathis. 2013. Lessons in Criticism. New York: Fordham University Press. $65.00 hc. $24.00 sc. xxiv + 186 pp.The vexed intersections of religion, secularism, and literature have recently moved to the forefront of debates within critique. With Lessons in Stathis Gourgouris presents six essays that productively reshape these debates by tacking between the traditional formations of the and the religious. While many of these writings have appeared elsewhere in earlier forms, this volume significantly expands and revises them. Readers who have followed Gourgouris's debates about with Saba Mahmood or who want to see his engagement with versions of the from Charles Taylor or Talal Asad will be especially interested in this collection.Based on Gourgouris's 2012 Sydney Lectures in Philosophy and Society, the essays are inspired by Edward Said's 1983 collection World, the Text, and the Critic. Said opened with Secular Criticism and ended with a call to return critical discourse to the endeavor he imagined. Taking up this last task, Gourgouris not only challenges the metaphysical commitments he sees in traditional formations of and religion, but he also significantly expands the potential meaning of the term criticism, which remained elusive in Said's original presentation. For Gourgouris, is a that directly engages the problem of authority. It demands putting into question the means by which knowledge is presented as sovereign, unmarked by whatever social-historical institution actually possesses (xiv). That critical task relentlessly resists heteronomy, or the ascription of to an other or Other outside real human conditions and agency (xiv). For Gourgouris, is authorized by immanence and self-critique, not by transcendence or religion. He argues that his ultimate point is to take away from the religious the agency of determining what is (62). If has indeed unconsciously modeled itself in the image and likeness of religious concepts of authority, then can strip away the metaphysics of secularism (28), the set of principles that could posit themselves independent of historical reality (30). Against this temptation of transcendence, Gourgouris posits the finitude, groundlessness, and inherent incompleteness of criticism. thus resists the prime model of foundationalism, the external, ahistorical, heteronomous authorization that Gourgouris sees in divine power (50).Following Said, Gourgouris declares to be political. His essays consistently link theory with democratic politics (xvii), culminating in his final lecture, Responding to the Deregulation of the Political, which deftly covers radical movements ranging from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street. To frame these political interventions, Gourgouris nimbly draws from literary and theoretical antecedents. His first lecture, The Poiein of Criticism, challenges definitions of secular and criticism derived from critics like Talal Asad and instead delimits the ancient concept poiesis to a making, an immanent and human with the world (11). enduring flux and change of that encounter means that cannot be defined (12), that it exists not as theoria but as praxis, alert to contingencies and skeptical toward whatever pretends to escape the worldly (13).In his second and most critically effective essay, Detranscendentalizing the Secular, Gourgouris brings his conception of to bear on elements of Charles Taylor's work, challenging the idea of secularization as possessed of a telos or end goal. …

The Muslim veil in the USA and France: a comparative analysis of law and policy

The USA and France are often perceived as having different, if not antipodal, legal and political systems. At first sight the treatment of the Muslim veil at school confirms this impression, for this piece of clothing is seen in the USA as a private symbol of religious devotion and benefits from the protection of the First Amendment, whereas the same item is regarded in France, after March 2004, as a threat to the idea of French secularism (‘laicite’) and is prohibited in all public schools. While much has been written about the French statute on religious signs at school, this article takes a different angle. By adopting a comparative perspective, it looks at the treatment of the Muslim veil in France and the USA before 2004 and finds that the two legal systems offered a similar constitutional protection to this religious symbol. In particular, both systems saw the fact of wearing the veil as a private right not to be tampered with by the State except in exceptional cases – mainly associated with public order – and so both countries adopted a case-by-case approach that regarded any general prohibition of wearing the veil as a violation of well-established principles of constitutional law. The article comes to the conclusion that Statute 228 departs from the tolerant spirit shown by French law until 2004.

PANDANGAN ISLAM TENTANG HAKASASI MANUSIA

This. article discusses the Islamic veiw on human rights. The idea of human rights is generally viewed as a secular idea of West. This opinion seems incorrect. Doctrines of human rights, as a matter of fact, has existed in the tradition of world religions since more than a thousand years ago and has left moral foot-steps that could not be eliminated from the recent thoughts. The idea of human rights is also noted in the holy texts of Islam. In Islam, the idea of human rights is an important part of Islamic doctrines in which Islam guarantees and provides legitimation not only on political rights, but also on socio-economic rights of individuals. A lot of verses of Qur'an show how Islam appreciate and respect human rights and raise the position of humans among other creations.
 Key Words: Islam, West, Human Rights, Islamic Doctrines