Inter-religious Tensions Research Articles

Ethnic Conflict, War Crimes and Human Rights: Revisiting U.S Sponsored UNHRC Resolution against Sri Lanka in 2013

The civil war ended in 2009 but four years later the country has yet to find its path of reconciliation and to heal the wounds of war. At the present time it also appears that Sri Lanka is moving backwards, and not forwards, in terms of securing the rule of law and reconciliation. This has impacted negatively on the rule of law and by extension the protection of human rights and political accountability. There is also the rise of inter-religious tensions fanned by government allies. A new dimension of inter-communal unrest is the rise of Buddhist extremism in some quarters; it has targeted the Muslim community and taken on an open and frontal confrontational approach. One of the main elements of external intervention in the internal affairs of post-war Sri Lanka is the continuing pressure being brought to bear on the government to adopt a system of province-based devolution as one of the instrumentalities of ethnic reconciliation. It is, indeed, unfortunate that the LLRC itself has made a similar prescription. There is no evidence in the voluminous report produced by the Commission that it made any attempt to draw ‘lessons’ relevant to the subject of territorial devolution and sub-national inter-group conflict from our own experiences, leave alone the abundance of international experiences. Its recommendation, however, has had the effect of legitimizing the demand made by the global west which, in earlier times, was so obviously based on a nakedly superficial, local NGO-nurtured, understanding of Sri Lankan affairs.

The Use of Sacred Texts by Islamic Public Preachers in Mumias, Western Kenya

The public visibility of Islamic free preachers points to the development of religious leaders whose claim to authority is based on extensive knowledge of the Bible, not on traditional Islamic learning. Unlike traditional ulamā , these preachers specialize in inviting non-Muslims to embrace Islam. They claim that compared to Christianity, Islam is a more rational and biblical tradition. They call on Christians to debate with them, based mainly on biblical texts. They approach their activities as an exercise of Da’wah, a debate staged in the public square, where the truth of Islam against the Christian tradition is proclaimed by preachers who engage in discursive battles. Such discussions usually take on an essentialist character, reshaping religious boundaries between Muslims and Christians and between religious communities and the state. The nature of the engagement is largely polemic and tends to fuel interreligious tensions and challenge the political domain and the secular order.

Is the New Middle East Stuck in Its Sectarian Past? The Unspoken Dimension of the “Arab Spring”

This article focuses on the impact of the Arab Spring on pre-existing societal cleavages, specifically analyzing its impact on Sunni-Shiite relations. How have Sunni-Shiite relationships been reshaped by the ongoing social protests? Is there a rise in the inter-religious tensions among Sunni and Shiite communities across the region? And, if that is the case, what are the implications of this trend on both the region's potential for democratization, as well as on its overall stability and security?

How Funny Can Islam Controversies Be? Comedians Defending Their Faiths on YouTube

We analyze whether humor can release some of the tension in Islam controversies and open up new directions for dialogue. We do so in the context of Dahlgren’s civic cultures framework, asking whether humor can be a civic practice and how it is articulated with value conflicts. We examine the features of the humor performed in two comic vlogs on YouTube and the sentiments these vlogs evoked among their viewers. In one vlog, the comedy calls for interreligious acceptance, while in the other vlog comedy is used to “other” Muslims. The comments on both vlogs, however, comprise negative and positive sentiment in the same patterns, often expressed in an antagonistic style. These findings call for caution when contemplating the potential of humor to alleviate interreligious tensions and the prospect of the Internet to form a space for meaningful democratic deliberation, especially when dealing with topics as controversial as Islam.

Relational Constitutionalism and the Management of Religious Disputes: The Singapore 'Secularism with a Soul' Model

This article interrogates the question of how a secular state should manage religious disputes within the particular multi-religious context of Singapore, which practises ‘secularism with a soul’. Such situations may be addressed by law-based approaches, such as invoking justiciable entitlements or imposing deterrent penal sanctions. Approaches associated with relational constitutionalism, which is concerned with preserving durable relationships and cultivating tolerance and solidarity to preserve the quasi-constitutional norm of ‘racial and religious harmony’, are better suited to addressing inter-religious tensions where the government is not directly involved, to facilitate rapprochement and civil peace. This expands the vocabulary of constitutional discourse beyond rights to encompass other aspects of human relating such as duty, tolerance, sensitivity, common sense and forgiveness as civic virtues, in serving the public good. In religiously and racially divided societies, a commitment to a just relational political association based on ‘soft constitutional law’ norms such as those contained in the Declaration on Religious Harmony, operate against the background of legislative sanctions in the Sedition Act and Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. Nonetheless, a commitment towards maintaining racial and religious harmony, a form of ‘constitutional patriotism’, is best nurtured not through external regulation, but by dialogue and persuasion.

Teaching Islamic education in Finnish schools: A field of negotiations

The challenges of contemporary multicultural societies have resulted in changing aims for religious education and the necessity to adjust teacher education accordingly. The processes of negotiation related to the coexistence of different religious and cultural groups are intertwined in the Finnish curriculum for religious education. This case study examines three Islamic education teachers who negotiated intra- and inter-religious tensions as well as tensions between societal and religious orientations of education. Through their ideological, pedagogical and interpersonal negotiations teachers can mediate the contested practices of Islam as well as the ideals of liberal democracies and contribute to the emergence of Finnish Islam.

An Islamic Perspective of the Interfaith Dialogue amidst Current Inter-religious Tensions Worldwide

The call for interfaith dialogues is sine qua non with the diversity of world religions and multiethnicity. The world has witnessed unaccountable important and tragic historical events. The September 11 attacks, Arab-Israel conflict, invasion of Iraq, aggression against the Afghans, clashes between Muslims and Buddhists in Southern Thailand and other incidents have set a new pace on the socio-political development in the world. The objective of this paper is to identify how the Muslim’s contributions toward a civilized society and play a significant role in fostering good relationship among the world community. The Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other world religions have experienced by leaps and bounds the struggle for their religious destiny according to their own connotations and interpretations. This article highlighted and discussed the very pertinent issues concerning the call for interfaith dialogues among world religions. It also highlighted some of the important facts and its implications which surround the dialogue especially the socio-religious factor. As far as interrelationship with other faiths is concerned, Muslims are not left in the lurch without any divine guidance. The Muslims have certain unique approaches and methodologies based on the Quranic teachings and the prophet’s traditions in dealing with multi-ethnicity and multi-religious background.

Do Religious Factors Impact Armed Conflict? Empirical Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa

Theoretically, the “mobilization hypothesis” establishes a link between religion and conflict by arguing that particular religious structures are prone to mobilization; once politicized, escalation to violent conflict becomes more likely. Yet, despite the religious diversity in sub-Saharan Africa and the religious overtones in a number of African conflicts, this assumption has not yet been backed by systematic empirical research on the religion–conflict nexus in the region. The following questions thus remain: Do religious factors significantly impact the onset of (religious) armed conflict? If so, do they follow the logic of the mobilization hypothesis and, if so, in which way? To answer these questions, this article draws on a unique data inventory of all sub-Saharan countries for the period 1990–2008, particularly including data on mobilization-prone religious structures (e.g., demographic changes, parallel ethno-religious identities) as well as religious factors indicating actual politicization of religion (e.g., inter-religious tensions, religious discrimination, incitement by religious leaders). Logit regressions suggest that religion indeed plays a significant role in African armed conflicts. These findings are compatible with the mobilization hypothesis, and stress the impact of conflict-prone religious structures, and particularly, the fact that overlaps of religious and ethnic identities are conflict-prone. Future research should investigate the religion-ethnicity-nexus in more detail.

Communal Violence and Child Psychosocial Well-being: Qualitative Findings from Poso, Indonesia

This exploratory study examined the health care system in relation to communal violence-related psychosocial wellbeing in Poso, Indonesia, as preparation for conducting a cluster randomized trial of a psychosocial intervention. We employed focus groups with children (N = 9), parents (N = 11), and teachers (N = 8), as well as semi-structured interviews with families affected by communal violence (N = 42), and key informants (N = 33). An interrelated set of problems was found that included poverty, an indigenized trauma construct, morally inappropriate behavior, inter-religious tensions, and somatic problems. Participants emphasized social-ecological interactions between concerns at different systemic levels, although problems were mainly addressed through informal care by families. The programmatic and research implications of these findings are discussed.

Regulating Religious Noise: The Council of Vienne, the Mosque Call and Muslim Pilgrimage in the Late Medieval Mediterranean World

AbstractThis paper examines the issue of religious noise in the later middle ages, in those areas of the western Mediterranean, especially in the Crown of Aragón, where Muslims and Christians lived in close proximity. In particular, it considers the role of the Council of Vienne (1311) in shifting and reflecting contemporary Christian attitudes toward public and audible Muslim religious observance, including the call to prayer (adhān) and local pilgrimage (ziyāra). This article will place the Vienne rulings in a wider context, first discussing the regulation of religious noise until the end of the thirteenth century, then examining data from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As will become evident, although the Council of Vienne did mark a turning point in the Christian effort to control the religious acoustic environment, its legislation was neither as original nor as effective as is often believed. Nevertheless, the Council marked a shift in contemporary thinking about religious noise, signaling increased awareness of noise as a problem and adding authority to prohibitions on public Muslim religious expression. Parallel concerns expressed by both Muslims and Christians about the religious noise and public rituals of minority communities (whether the mosque call, the ringing of bells, or local pilgrimage) demonstrate inter-religious tensions in the Mediterranean World at the turn of the fourteenth century.

One True Ring or Many?: Religious Pluralism in Lessing's Nathan the Wise

One True Ring or Many?Religious Pluralism in Lessing's Nathan the Wise Christopher Adamo In the Central Scene of Nathan the Wise, Nathan responds to Saladin's pointed question pertaining to the "true religion" with the famous parable of the three rings.1 As John Pizer notes, Lessing deliberately crafts ambiguous fables to cultivate the reader's capacity for autonomous exercise of hermeneutic skill.2 That Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise evokes a wide variety of interpretations, therefore, should be no surprise.3 However, for Pizer, Lessing's use of fable additionally represents a "key to his Enlightenment ideals, the inculcation of the idea that individuals are responsible for their own actions and for their own maturation as social beings, as later articulated by Kant" (Pizer, p. 101). If the genre of fable itself, for Lessing, serves as a pedagogic tool to cultivate in his readers the rational autonomy as envisioned by Kant in the opening lines of "What is Enlightenment?," then might that suggest Lessing's ring-parable is best read as an Enlightenment-humanist response to the theological and political problem of the plurality of revealed religions? Several recent Lessing scholars have taken this line. In his study Lessing's Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment, Toshimasa Yasukata approvingly reads the parable of the rings as illustrative of Lessing's view of a "true religion" that "transcends all of the historical religions and yet underlies the truth of each. . . . [A] religion based on real and universal humanity."4 Astrid Oesmann, in her article "Nathan der Weise: Suffering Lessing's 'Erziehung,'" develops a similar interpretation but then, based upon it, turns a critical eye toward such a project as it requires Nathan to suppress his Judaic identity—not merely in his confrontation with Saladin but additionally by suppressing his suffering [End Page 139] at the hands of a Crusader pogrom that took the lives of his wife and seven children.5 For both these commentators, Lessing's Nathan the Wise champions a vision of a universal religion based on reason alone, for good or for ill. With this interpretation of Lessing's Nathan in the background, I intend to highlight moments in Lessing's Nathan that invite a more pluralistic reading. Both readings above interpret the ambiguous ending of the parable in light of the teleological history of revealed religion constructed by Lessing in "The Education of the Human Race" thus, implying there remains a singular, genuine, ring, i.e., a "true" religion that even may be identifiable with one of the three in question. The reading developed here interprets the ambiguous ending of the ring parable in light of the final scenes of Nathan, focusing on Recha's rich genealogical origins and her universal regard among persons of diverse faiths. The question as to which is the correct [recht] ring gives way to the question of which bearer(s) possesses a genuine [echt] ring, a significant shift in focus and reflective of Lessing's "primacy of ethics" over explanation in an approach to the plurality of revealed religions.6 Second, though both an Enlightenment reading and the present reading move the focus of religion away from orthodoxy towards a primacy of ethics, the present reading would be better equipped to respond to a charge like Oesmann's that defusing inter-religious tensions in a multicultural polity can come only by the sacrifice of one's cultural and historical particularity as Jewish, Muslim, Christian. I Nathan the Wise is set in Jerusalem during the close of the Third Crusade (1189–1192). A cease-fire has just been breached by the Knights Templar. Each side prepares to resume the hostilities. Previous acts of internecine violence reverberate throughout the play. Several of the play's characters suffer from (Nathan) and perpetrate (the Templar, the Sultan) sectarian violence. We discover in the first act that Saladin has just executed nineteen prisoners of war, sparing only one Templar. We discover in the fourth act that Nathan's entire family had been murdered by Crusaders roughly eighteen years previous. The political, pragmatic peace between rival parties is unraveling. The action begins when Nathan, a wealthy Jewish merchant, returns from his...

Turkish Views on Christians: Implications for Armenian-Turkish Relations

AbstractSamuel Huntington argues in The Clash of Civilizations that a principal cultural fault line is to be found between the Muslim world and the Western non-Muslim world. In this context it is not surprising that the Christian West often assumes Muslims to be suspicious or even hostile towards Christians. Periodic cases of anti-Christian public statements and actions support this impression and are indicative of profound inter-religious tensions. This notion also influences the relations between peoples and nations. In the South-Caucasian case, the Armenian-Turkish relations are affected most by this phenomenon. When conflicts arise, religion plays a role in the perception of the Other. What is needed, therefore, is more inter-religious understanding on all societal levels. Although politics play a key role in establishing friendly ties between nations, it is the grassroots of the population upon which fruitful relations stand and which secure a more consistent quality to the results of political efforts. When considering Turkish views on Christians, field research indicates that the average Turk harbours an overall benevolent view of Christians and, therefore, that there exists considerable potential for successful inter-religious dialogue. Christians are generally regarded with respect, and most Turkish participants showed little to no negative attitudes towards them. The Christians of Turkey, notably Armenians and Greeks, were, furthermore, perceived as part of Turkey's society. The reason for these predominantly positive attitudes may be sought in the institutional incorporation of Christians and Jews into the broader context of Islamic society or, more inherent to Turkish history, in the positive remembrance of the multi-religious and multi-ethnic face of the Ottoman Empire—and thus in the appreciation of religious diversity as an asset and historical obligation.

Science and Religion in the Twenty‐First Century

Abstract. To achieve peace on our planet we must bridge the gap not only between science and religion but also among faith traditions. Accepting the doctrine of multiple paths can reduce interreligious tensions. Every view of the Divine is partial, every faith system rests upon supreme spiritual experiences, and each one provides fulfillment in the yearning to connect with the Cosmic Mystery.

In the shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V.S. Azariah and the travails of Christianity in British India

SUSAN BILLINGTON HARPER. In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V.S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India. Grand Rapids, W. B. Eerdmans, 2000. Pp xxii + 461, introduction, bibliography, index. $45.00. Ecclesiastical biography is not a fashionable genre. Nowadays it is rare to encounter an example which is well-written, based on thorough and wide research, well-attuned to its subject's context, unafraid to dwell at length on complicated and seemingly abstruse matters, and ready to take controversial but carefully-argued positions. Susan Billington Harper's study of Samuel Azariah (1874-1945), the first Indian bishop of the Anglican church in India, succeeds triumphantly in all these ways. As a specimen of the genre, it surely ranks amongst the best to have been written in English within the last decade or so, and easily stands comparison with the only other example I would put in the same league, namely Keith Clements's study of Joseph Oldham (1999). Azariah's historical significance is considerable, though no longer widely known. Far from being a mere instrument of British policy in India, he was evidently a man of independent mind, prepared to stand up to his hierarchical superiors and to British officials when necessary, but by no means aligned with Gandhi's emergent Indian nationalism. Consecrated finally bishop of Dornakal in 1912 at the instigation of Henry Whitehead, bishop of Madras, after a three-year struggle within the Indian church over his appointment, he proved to be a vigorous, independent and far-seeing advocate of his faith. He was an unashamed apologist for Christian evangelism in a society in which inter-religious tensions were increasing. Critical of caste, his vision of Christian faith left no place for it, despite the caste-shaped form which so much Indian Christianity took. He was an early and strong advocate of the unification of the Indian churches, taking a central role in the proceedings which eventually led to the formation of the Church of South India. Yet, controversially, he was often supportive of the Raj, and critical of the Indian nationalist movement. For this last reason, it is hardly surprising that, within India generally, he has not been accorded the retrospective significance which Billington Harper claims for him. These points are all substantial reasons in their own right why a study of Azariah should be so welcome, not least because we have no less a person than Stephen Neill's testimony to his importance (p. 2), a testimony that encouraged Billington Harper to take up her work in the first place. The influence not only of Neill, hut of Tapan Raychaudhuri and Lesslie Newbigin, her doctoral supervisors, hovers over the book. Right at the beginning, a sharply focused yet (in the circumstances) controversial prospectus is laid out for the book: [This] is an attempt to rescue leaders who are rooted in religion and not focused on national politics from the arrogantly secular and narrowly political preoccupations of those who form public opinion. In the process, as she asserts, she found almost every cliche about Christian missionary activity in India to be incorrect (p. 2). Billington Harper lays out her account of Azariah's life and work in lour main stages. Three opening chapters trace his family background, his early ministry, and the formation of his approach to mission in India. These are superbly researched and supplement very well other accounts of Christianity in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century India. Though biographical material is indeed presented when appropriate, the main aim is to interpret and evaluate Azariah's life in the context of the history of Indian Christianity as a whole. It is his breadth of engagement at such a crucial period in India's modern history that makes this approach so productive. Here, for example, are thoughtful and informed accounts of the rise and influence of the YMCA in India as a precursor of ecumenical mission, and of Azariah's central role in the formation of indigenous missionary societies, the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly, and the National Missionary Society, among many other matters. …

What Private Effort Can Do in Intergroup Relations

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Future of Hull-House: Proceedings of a Board MeetingWhat Private Effort Can Do in Intergroup RelationsGeorge W. CulbersonGeorge W. Culberson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 36, Number 2Jun., 1962 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/641238 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1962 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.