Issues Of Religion Research Articles

ON THE REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS: ALL-RUSSIAN TRENDS AND REGIONAL ASPECTS (late 20th – beginning of 21st century)

On the basis of the latest research and data of sociological sources, the article examines the revival of religious institutions in Russia in the late 20th – early 21th century. The relevance of scientific research is due to the important role of religious institutions in the process of development of civilization, culture, ideological education and social consciousness. Religion has been and remains the basis of an ideological instrument in any state since its inception. The evolvement and development of a rule-of-law state largely depends on the level of civil society development and on the ideological orientation of the population, which, in turn, is an objective social basis of a democratic state. In the last few decades, the issues of religion have been very actively covered in the media, religious programs have been appearing on TV, clerics are invited to talk shows, and the internet is filled with religious sites. The relationship between the existence of religious associations and changes in the socio-political situation in the country in individual confessions, including by changing the dynamics of their number is shown. Like any social institution, religion has its own special cultural symbols, which in an extremely concentrated form create a religious picture of the world in public consciousness. The level of civil society development is largely determined by the existence of autonomous public associations that unite the society and ensure its effective interaction with the state. The conclusion about the development of a certain system of institutional norms in the change of ideological standards in the modern Russian Federation is formed. Special attention is paid to the regional aspect of the problem on the materials of the Mari El Republic.

Religious Trend in Contemporary Indonesia: Conservatism Domination on Social Media

Religion is predicted to dissipate from social significance through the processes of development or economic modernization. Classical secularization theory forecasted religion in the modern era will face some circumstances such as 1) the decline of personal faith, religious beliefs and practices; and (2) the retreat of religion from public space (Cassanova: 1994, 2010). However, the supporters of secularization and modernization theories failed to notice that religion did not disappear from the public sphere. The opposite occurs in Southeast Asia. Economic development program and modernization could work hand-in-hand with religion in the region (Feener and Fountain: 2018).In the context of Indonesia, the issue of religion has gone through ups and downs. The story of Indonesia’s revival of Islam had been begun when the country experienced anti-communist campaigns of 1965-66 (McVey: 2006). Since then, the government obliged all of its societies to profess one of Indonesia’s recognized religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Hinduism (now Confucianism has been added to the list) (Qurtuby: 2013). The pressure for all citizens to embrace one particular recognized religion resulted in great conversion from local religions/faiths—Hindu, Buddha, abangan, etc.—to Islam (Hefner: 1987a, 1987b, 1989; cf. Beatty: 1999). It then witnesses rapid growth of the grassroots Islam and the spread of Islamization (Houben: 2003).

Non-Dutch Petitions in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Atlantic

This article argues for the centrality of petitions for colonial administration in the Dutch Atlantic. Moreover, through a study of non-Dutch petitioners, it demonstrates the diversity of individuals that exercised influence on colonial decision-making. This adds an important understanding of political exchanges to the well-established understanding of the Atlantic world as based on inter-imperial, cross-cultural, and multi-ethnic economic exchanges. The colonial inhabitants did not stand idly by as decisions in and from the European metropole or West India Company (WIC) administrators invaded their lives, but instead actively attempted to influence the rules and regulations that governed them. The space that allowed for this on-the-spot negotiation between the colonial government and those individuals it governed was open to virtually everybody and the topics covered were equally as varied, ranging from local decentralized authority to regulations for colonial commodities and issues of religion.

INFORMATION THREATS TO THE STABILITY OF POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS

In the Northern Caucasus, political elites traditionally play a key role in managing political processes, prevent and resolve conflicts, counter sociocultural threats, terrorism, and political extremism. The stability of the political system depends on the degree of political elites’ responsibility and their ability to negotiate with the federal political and administrative elite and to relay the interests of society. New threats to the normal functioning of state authorities are currently emerging, indicating the inefficiency of Russia’s policy aimed at preventing information security threats. In recent years, active social strata (mainly young people) have been mobilized with the aim of overthrowing legitimate authorities and objectionable politicians, changing regimes, etc., using modern network technologies, disinformation and fake news. Due to its historical and socio-cultural characteristics, as well as poly-confessional structure, the population of the Northern Caucasus is highly sensitive to territorial issues, as well as issues of religion, culture, ethnic relations, etc. In many respects, information technologies determine the position and power of high-status actors, primarily political elites, within the political system.

Seeing Ourselves in Books: A Children's Book about Transracial Adoption and the Common Sense of Jewish Family and Identity in the United States

AbstractIn the children's book Rebecca's Journey Home, an American family's experience adopting a baby from Vietnam and navigating issues of race, religion, and nationality illuminates each of those modes of identity, as well as Jewish identity's distinctive relationship to them. Highlighting the parent-child dialogues within the book and among its readers, this article foregrounds the social processes involved in identity construction that are obscured by the view of identity as simply inhering in bodies. Although the book's portrayal of Jewish identity remains within the confines of American racial logic, it also points to the potential of Jewish tradition as a basis for reimagining belonging in ways that transcend the limitations of that approach to communal identity so that any body can be seen, without qualification, as a Jewish body.

Wailing More than the Bereaved: Afrocentric Reflections on Gender Issues in Shona Traditional Religion and Culture

Wailing More than the Bereaved: Afrocentric Reflections on Gender Issues in Shona Traditional Religion and Culture

Shifting Silences

In Poland between 1970s and 2010s, the discursive landscape involving issues of religion and homosexuality radically changed, which influenced the possibilities for combining religiosity with non-normative sexuality at a personal level. This paper draws on biographical interviews with Polish Roman Catholics who experience homoerotic desire. It shows that the shift of homosexuality from being a phenomenon surrounded by silence to becoming a ‘gay’ identity has produced new silences and new problems in integrating the religious and the sexual spheres of life. The paper is concerned with the integration at both the cognitive level and in the context of social interactions, highlighting possibilities and limitations specific for the past and the present, respectively. However, it tells a non-linear story of gay and lesbian experience that complicates a clear division between the communist past, customarily seen as totally restricting sexually non-normative individuals, and today’s democratic conditions, seen as decidedly beneficial for their self-expression.

‘Malaysia belongs to the Malays’ (Malaysia ni Melayu Punya!): Categorising ‘us’ and ‘them’ in Malaysia’s mainstream Malay-language newspapers

ABSTRACT Malaysia’s 13th general election (henceforth, GE13) in 2013 was the final election where the longest-serving elected government in the world, Barisan Nasional (BN), regained power, before it was ousted after over six decades of authoritarian rule in 2018. In a country that practises parliamentary democracy but simultaneously observed close cooperation between the then ruling coalition and the mainstream press, this paper shows the micro-politics of the driving force of the coalition, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) – specifically, how anxiety regarding the maintenance of their privileged and empowered Malay position dominated the national narrative during the GE13 campaign. Focusing on editorial journalistic genres in four paid-for Malay-language newspapers, I illustrate the typical politics of fear that characterises much of Malaysian right-wing rhetoric – the ways in which racial and religion issues are provoked. The in-depth representational analysis, via the Discourse-historical Approach’s (DHA) nomination and predication strategies, also suggests the normalisation of nationalistic and racist rhetoric, which primarily works with ‘fear’: fear of change, of loss of privilege, of the future, of other races; in principle, almost anything can be constructed as a threat to ‘Us’, an imagined homogenous people inside a well-protected territory through the discursive construction of such in-groups and out-groups.

Afterword

It is not possible to read the excellent articles that are contained in this Special Issue of Religions without reflecting on the development of the study of British Muslim religious life over the past 30 years [...]

Policy on Religion in the European Union

The main idea of article is that, even if EU has no competence in religious matters, what we can observe now is a creation of a very specific policy on religion. (1) Herein, I explain why the EU is interested in religion and how it is improving its competence with respect to it. Mostly, this is achieved by a transformation of religious matters into secular ones, falling under EU competences. I consider how the EU is treating religious matters in its primary and secondary law. Then, migration and accession policy are analyzed from the point of view of results for the religious structure of the European societies. Next, the issue of religion in the EU external policy is shortly studied as well as the impact of ECtHR and the European Court of Justice—ECJ jurisprudence on religious communities. Finally, we have a description of res novae in the EU approach to religion. The article adopts the Catholic perspective. This applies both to anthropology and to the institutional aspect. (2) The main methods used in the paper are analytical-synthetic and the analysis of legal texts. (3) We can justly talk about the EU policy on religion in statu nascendi. This policy is organized differently than at the nation-states level. (4) EU politicians need churches and religious communities to legitimize their political decisions and the integration process in general. They are tempted to “domesticate” religions and religious leaders and change religions from within. In this way, the political world subjugates the world of religion and takes control of it, which may result in a new kind of politics and legal resacralization.

Music and Spirituality: A Journey into Porosity

Serving as an introduction to this special issue of Religion entitled “Music and Spirituality: A Journey into Porosity,” this introduction frames the following eight essays by considering the ambiguity not only of the meaning of music itself, but also of spirituality, liturgical-sacred music and other frames that attempt to examine and sometimes delimit the power of music. While taxonomies and theoretical boundaries are still useful, they need to be employed with some caution in view of the musical and spiritual realities they are attempting to describe or analyze.

10Religion and Representation

Abstract This review is divided into three sections: 1. Jeffrey T. Zalar, Reading and Rebellion in Catholic Germany, 1770–1914; 2. Edward Baring, Converts to the Real: Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy; 3. ‘Translation and Religion: Crafting Regimes of Identity’, a thematic issue of Religion edited by Hephzibah Israel and Matthias Frenz. Taken together, these works provide an overview of approaches that demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary research into religion and representation. Drawing on the disciplines of social, political, and cultural history, literary studies, book history, theology, religious studies, translation studies, and postcolonial studies, they highlight the importance of research that contextualizes the relationship between religion and representation, bringing attention to its historically overlooked aspects.

Photographing the Aspiration of the Hindu-Islam as Interfaith Dialogue Policy

Managing plural and multicultural diversity of citizens is an obligation mandated by the constitution and the third precept of Pancasila. One of the efforts to care for diversity within the framework of Indonesian unity is through interfaith dialogue which is packaged in fostering religious harmony. With the issuance of Village law 16 of 2014 has provided space for aspirations to manage the diversity of citizens through the deleberative democracy process in the village budget policy mechanism in Village Development Conference. This research has found grassroots aspirations that are included in the Village Fund policy in Klinting Village, Banyumas district. Although it is not the main aspiration in the village budget policy priorities, it is at least a quality aspiration that is included in the village fund policy. The issue of religion in the form of interreligious dialogue between Hindu-Islamic religions is still a common thread in the realities of policy and the aspirations of people's lives, that is the aspiration demonstration that can be achieved from this research.

Three Religious-Cultural Worldviews inNoah(2014)—Hedonism, Fundamentalism, and Ecofeminism

The article proposes an interpretative study of Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah. The film draws inspiration from various spiritual traditions ranging from shamanism to Buddhism, whilst relying heavily on Jewish midrash, and adds a layer of innovation. Our main assertion is that the film attempts to present three viewpoints on issues of religion, humanity, nature, and God—while negating two of them and preferring one. Each of the various characters and groups in the film represents one of the three stances, as the film’s protagonist must cope with the problematic nature of his worldview and revisit it. The film engages with current pivotal issues: climate change, the depletion of natural resources, materialism and hedonism, fundamentalism in both religious and environmental trends, suspicion of religious institutionalized interpretations, and gendered spiritual religious beliefs. Thus, the film Noah is a cultural product that disseminates spiritual ideas and values within mainstream culture.

The framing of the Chinese ambassador’s visit to Malaysia’s Chinatown: A gesture of goodwill or interference in domestic politics?

The implications of media representations of ethnicity, religion and related issues are significant because they have the potential to fuel nationalism, spreading fear and tensions instead of promoting tolerance and compassion. This study examined the aspects Malaysian newspapers have created for readers’ understanding of the then Chinese ambassador’s visit to Petaling Street (Malaysia’s Chinatown) on September 25, 2015. The then Chinese ambassador’s visit took place a day before the red shirts rally, which was reported as an ‘anti-Chinese demonstration’ by some overseas Chinese-language media. Through framing analysis, this study found that the mainstream and alternative newspapers in Malaysia reported the then Chinese ambassador’s visit with different intensity and prominence. They also employed different news sources and carried dissimilar valence in their coverage. Utusan, a Malay-language daily and a mouthpiece of the United Malay National Organization (UMNO), concentrated on criticisms of the then Chinese ambassador in its coverage. The Star, an English-language daily and also a messenger for the Malaysia Chinese Association (MCA), reported the consequences of the then Chinese ambassador’s visit. Significantly, the more independent and vocal newspapers in the country – Sin Chew (Chinese-language) and Malaysiakini (alternative) – focused on condemning the racist remarks of an UMNO politician.

The Muslim Council of Britain: Progressive Interlocutor or Redundant Gatekeeper?

Since its inception in 1997, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has evolved to become one of the most enduring British Muslim organisations. It is a representative body for over 500 member bodies (‘affiliates’) including mosques, schools and charities. During the course of the last two decades, it has been subject to external comment and sometimes critique by academics, media commentators, policy-makers, and others. This special issue of the journal Religions has provided a welcome opportunity for the current leadership of the MCB to write about the organisation from ‘within’, based on their long-standing time volunteering with it. This paper is based on an oral history methodology involving extended interviews with the oversight of a research director, supplemented by reference to existing academic and other sources. Therefore this paper is essentially a type of ‘edited transcript’ aggregated wholly from a series of first person interviews undertaken with the current senior elected leaders of MCB; reorganised for clarity and drafted out with added ‘prose’ allowing for it to be presented in essay form. The result is the first documented ‘insider’ perspective on the ways in which the MCB has tackled issues such as internal governance, the challenge of ‘representation’ in view of the diversity of British Muslim communities, changing relationships with government, and policy work. It becomes apparent through the paper that the MCB has matured into a constructively self-critical, pro-active, and more strategically professional body, that contributes to the flourishing of Muslim communities and the place of Islam in British society. The production of the paper is itself an indicator of the growing confidence and capacity of the MCB, and its ability to contribute positively to academic discourse and debate about Muslims in Britain.

Between the Times – and Sometimes Beyond: An Essay in Dialectical Theology and its Critique of Religion and “Religion”

AbstractThis paper gives a systematic account of Dialectical Theology (DT) and its surprisingly ramified usage of the concept of religion on the backdrop of recent debates about the “return of religion.” First, the positional context between Schleiermacher and Barth is sketched. Second, the highly divergent positions of Bultmann, Barth, Brunner as well as Gogarten and Tillich are presented – always in regard to their sometimes programmatic, sometimes rather hidden references to “religion” between its facticity and normativity. Third and by way of conclusion, it is suggested to restrict “religion” as a concept to non-theological disciplines, i.e., to treat “religion” as a strictly empirical and sociological term, whereas theology is concerned with faith that belongs to a very different game than religion, as DT helps to clarify.

Constitution and Building of Nation-State in Malaysia

The building of a nation-state is very relevant to Malaysia in facing various challenges that take place especially in terms of the diverse cultures, languages, ethnic groups and religions. khususnya dari perspektif kepelbagaian culture, language, etnik dan religion. The building of nation-state stems from the existence of the nation and the nation produces a country. Nation-state is the formation of a country based on the process of national unity and consolidated by the bordering of certain territories as its identity. Malaysia comprising of the community of various ethnic groups has faced many challenges in the process of the building of the nation-state involving language, religion, globalisation and constitutional issues. In the context of Malaysia, the building of a nation-state refers to the people of various ethnicity who need to identify themselves with this country, speak in the national language, and support the constitution which is the highest law of the country containing the 'social contract' that needs to be understood in the effort to unite Malaysians. Thus, this article will analyse the role of the constitution as one of the main elements in the building of a nation-state in Malaysia.

Religion, Science, and Space Exploration from a Non-Western Perspective

Religion and science are often set up as polar opposites in Western philosophical and religious discourse and seen as representing different epistemological perspectives that juxtapose rationality with faith. Space exploration is largely viewed as a scientific and engineering problem and, thus, has tended to set aside the issue of religion as it relates to human movement off-planet. However, as we have moved increasingly toward the idea of colonization of the Moon and Mars, social scientists and philosophers have increasingly come to recognize that human movement into space also needs to be understood as a social phenomenon. As a social phenomenon, there is an inherent necessity to consider how religion may play a role in or influence the process of human exploration and settlement of space. However, what do we mean when we say “religion?” One of the fundamental problems of thinking about the relationship between religion, science, and space exploration is that the meaning of the word religion is rarely well-defined. Do we mean faith-based religions such as Christianity or Islam? Or do we mean practice-based religions such as Shinto and some forms of Buddhism? This paper will explore the question of religion and science from the perspective of Japanese religions as a way of problematizing the manner in which we think about and define religion as it relates to the practice of space exploration.

The return of religion or the end of religion?

The return of religion or the end of religion?