Minority Faiths Research Articles

Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Mainstream. Edited by Jonathan D. Sarna. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. xii + 377 pp. $46.50 cloth; $21.95 paper.

Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Mainstream. Edited by Jonathan D. Sarna. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. xii + 377 pp. $46.50 cloth; $21.95 paper.

Minority Religions and Social Justice in Russian Courts: An Analysis of Recent Cases

This paper presents a number of important recent cases from Russia involving new and minority faiths. The cases are examined to see how these unpopular groups are dealt within the context of a rapidly changing Russia. Conclusions are drawn about how the legal system in Russia operates concerning minority faiths, using the sociological variables discussed in this issue's introduction.

Social Justice and Religion in Prison: The Case of England and Wales

The policy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in the United States is to show equal respect for all religious faiths, but the Prison Service Chaplaincy of England and Wales employs only Christian chaplains and is effectively controlled by the “established” Church of England. Recent empirical research shows that prisoners who belong to minority faith communities and new religious movements in England and Wales do not enjoy equality of opportunity to practice their religion. For example, their religious and spiritual needs are met by volunteer Visiting Ministers, who in turn must rely on full-time Christian chaplains to facilitate their access to prisoners, meeting rooms, and religious artifacts. This dependency gives rise to feelings of resentment, unjust discrimination, and marginalization among members of minority faith communities.

Freedom of Religion and Minority Religions in Hungary

Religiosity in Hungary is not especially high; however, the vast majority of the population has a denominational identity. There has been a religious revival since the early 1980's, both in the mainstream churches and due to some religious groups newly active in the country. Religious claims are mostly accommodated on an individual basis. Legal entities called churches can be founded for the purpose of exercising religion, but the registration of a “church” is not a condition of the free exercise of religion. Religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. The Hungarian state regards itself neutral in matters concerning ideology and religion. Church and state operate separately. The state, however, appreciating religious phenomena, provides support for churches and is open for cooperation with them on a sophisticated legal basis. A new method of offering state support for religions using taxpayer choices is described, which shows some interesting patterns of support for minority faiths as well as traditional ones.

Law and Minority Religions: “Positive” and “Negative” Uses of the Legal System

ABSTRACT: This paper examines several instances in which the law has had a pronounced impact on minority religions, a term used herein to include both older and newer small religious faiths. It employs examples of practices and even beliefs that have been negatively impacted by legal action, as individuals or governments have attempted to exert social control on newer faithsa process referred to as “affirmative discrimination” by Thomas Robbins and James Beckford.1 In addition, the paper describes instances in which laws and legal protections have been used in “positive” manners by minority religious groups in attempts to accomplish the objectives of group leaders. The examples used demonstrate that minority faiths operate in a changeable legal environment, a fact that must be taken into account if we are to understand minority faiths in any modern society.2 Even in the U. S., with its constitutional protections for freedom of religion, governments are able to exert considerable managerial or regulatory controls over new faiths, especially if they become controversial in the eyes of societal power brokers and the public.3 In other societies without such enforced constitutional protections, minority faiths are even more vulnerable to management by governmental bureaucracies.

Minority faiths and the American Protestant mainstream

Minority faiths and the American Protestant mainstream

Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith

Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith

Media Coverage of Unconventional Religion: Any "Good News" for Minority Faiths?

With disturbing frequency, media coverage of new or nontraditional religions has been challenged by scholars as inflammatory, distorted, and infused with disparaging stereotypes. Though occasional abuses and excesses do occur in such groups, it appears that the assumption of misdeed is the norm among news reporters. The tendency to cast unconventional religions in an unfavorable light raises the unsettling question of bias. This paper examines the substance of these claims and suggests possible sources of news bias, both cultural and organizational. An overview of major issues and concerns is provided and directions for future dialogue between scholars and journalists are discussed.

Ukrainian nationalism in the 1990s: a minority faith

Andrew Wilson. Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xviii, 300 pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. $59.95, cloth. $23.95, paper. Andrew Wilson from the University of Cambridge is an expert on the post-Soviet era, specializing particularly in Ukraine. He has written extensively on various aspects of Ukrainian politics. His present volume's overriding argument is that the appeal of Ukrainian nationalism is severely limited by the country's inherited regional, ethnic, linguistic and religious differences. Before coming under Soviet rule, the regions of western Ukraine had been for many centuries part of various East-Central European states. Most notably Galicia, Transcarpathia, and northern Bukovyna had known neither Russian nor Soviet rule until World War II. During the interwar period Volhynia also remained outside Soviet borders. By contrast, other regions have been under very strong Russian influence. This is especially true of eastern and southern Ukraine, as well as the Crimea, which Russia acquired from the Tartars in the 18th century and which was settled by Ukrainians and Russians. As a result, there has developed a profound dichotomy between western Ukraine and the rest of the country. The dichotomy is clearly seen in the regional distribution of ethnic Russians. In no region of the western half of Ukraine, excluding Kyiv (i.e., Kiev), the Russian minority exceeds 10 percent of the population. By contrast, in southern and eastern Ukraine ethnic Russians make up respectively 24 and 36 percent of the population, while in Crimea they dominate numerically with 67 percent. Even more telling is the regional distribution of Russophones. While in no western region, excluding Kyiv, Russian speakers exceed roughly one quarter of the population, in the remaining regions they are either in the numerical majority or at about par with Ukrainophones. Across the country, the nationalist movement followed differing paths of historical development. Outside of the western regions the mainstream Ukrainian nationalist movement tended as a rule to be more cautious and moderate, seeking autonomy within the Russian and later Soviet state rather than outright independence. This approach was the corollary of a low level of national consciousness among the masses of local Ukrainians, and of the strong Russian control of, and influence in, the area. By contrast, Ukrainians of liberal Austrian Galicia achieved a high level of national consciousness and built the foundations of a bold and vigorous national movement. Subsequently, in interwar Poland, Galician and Volhynian Ukrainians developed two nationalist traditions. On the one hand, the Ukrainian national-- democratic party was strongly represented in parliament; on the other, a very influential underground terrorist network, the OUN, was created. The latter, along with its military wing, the UPA, led the nationalist movement in the region during World War II and its aftermath. Though eventually stifled by the Soviets, west Ukrainian nationalism was never completely uprooted, and many a dissident in Soviet Ukraine hailed from that region. Thus, various nationalist traditions were created in the country, resulting in a considerable diversity of Ukrainian nationalist political parties active in the 1990s. They can be divided into two groups: national-democratic and ultra-nationalist. The most popular nationalist party was Rukh, a national-democratic front. The other two important national-democratic parties were the Ukrainian Republican Party and the Democratic Party of Ukraine. Ultra-nationalist parties tended to be smaller but more numerous. Emigre veterans of the OUN were influential in establishing the most popular among them, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. The second in importance was the Ukrainian National Assembly with its paramilitary wing, the Ukrainian Self-Defence Force. …

Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith

1. Ukraine: historical roots of diversity 2. Ukrainian nationalism in the modern era 3. Channels of nationalist discourse: political parties, civil society 4. National communism 5. A minority faith: the limits to nationalist support 6. The nationalist agenda: domestic politics, Ukrainianisation and the state 7. The nationalist agenda: external affairs - untying the Russian knot 8. Conclusions: Nationalism and national consolidation.

Cultural Discrimination: The Reasonable Accommodation of Religion in the Workplace

Reasonable accommodation of religious practices continues to be a problem in the workplace. Recent Supreme Court decisions have enabled employers to exclude employees from the decision-making process of what constitutes a reasonable accommodation of their religious beliefs through the de minimis standard. In this article it is argued that, in most cases, the reason employers have been allowed to discriminate against these employees is the contentious nature of minority religious beliefs with the mainstream religious culture. Because judges view discrimination based on religious beliefs as distinct from the other reasons for discriminatory practices, such as race, sex, or national origin, it appears unlikely that adherents to minority faiths will face any abatement of discrimination in the workplace.

RELIGION AS A FACTOR IN CUSTODY AND ACCESS DISPUTES

Religion seldom features as a factor in custody and access disputes. When it does, courts are adamant they must be neutral in matters of religion. One religion or denomination is as good as another; likewise a parent having no religion stands on the same footing as a religious one. Cases were surveyed in five Common Law jurisdictions, all of which use the best interests or welfare of the child standard. The law's claim to neutrality in theory leaves something to be desired in practice. Parents belonging to 'minority' or 'unpopular' religions consistently struggle. In custody disputes, the conventional approach taken by the courts is to confine consideration to the social or temporal effects of the parent's religious beliefs and not to evaluate the beliefs themselves. But this approach can still count against parents where the restricted lifestyle dictated by the parent's faith yields a number of social consequences considered adverse to the welfare of the children. In access disputes, attempts by the non-custodial parent to transmit that parent's faith and include the children in his or her religious activities are prone to be viewed with suspicion and characterized as forms of indoctrination where the parent is an adherent of a minority faith. This article argues that an insistence on clear evidence of harm from the religious practice at issue is the best way to ensure that parents of minority faiths are not unfairly prejudiced by the best interests standard. Focusing on the particulars of the case (rather than an abstract assessment of the religion at issue) and requiring proof of prospective harm seem salutary steps along the road to ensuring the law's neutrality is as vindicated in practice as it is in sentiment.

The Muslim community and English law

This article addresses what are perceived as being the main areas of English law likely to present Muslims in Britain with problems or difficulties. Some English legal provisions relating to the family, education and religious freedom are inconsistent with Islamic beliefs and practices. While English law has to be obeyed by all those living in England, there are plenty of opportunities for Muslims to exploit its liberal principles and practical flexibility to suit their own needs. Furthermore, English law can be reformed to make it more consonant with the values and traditions of minority faiths, as the Sikhs have recently demonstrated. So far, Muslim pressure groups have failed to achieve similar reforms and some possible explanations for this are given. The future emphasis of the English legal system should lie in promoting cultural and religious pluralism, within a set of shared core values, and various concrete suggestions for change are offered. This article is based on a paper given at Cumberland Lo...

American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States by James Hennesey, S.J.

noo:K REVIEWS 157' American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States. By James Hennesey, S.J. New York: Oxford University Pxess, 1982. Pp. 397. $19.95. The preparation of a comprehensive history indicates a new self-consciousness on the part of the community it is written within and about and suggests that one era of that community's history is at an end and another beginning. John Gilmary Shea's History of the Catholic Church in the United States (1886-92) came at the time when it seemed that the great dream of a church that could be both Catholic and American was nearing fulfillment. John Tracy Ellis's .American Catholicism (1956) and Thomas McAvoy's A Histo1·y of the Catholic in the United States came when it seemed that the failure of American Catholics to be both Catholic and American might be ending. Father Hennesey's study suggests a whole new consciousness among American Catholics, a new maturity, a new sense of place in American culture and history. American Catholics is quite different from its predecessors in its historical methods and assumptions. Earlier historians emphasized the unity of the American church : American Catholics presented a solid front to the challenge of American Protestant anti-Catholicism; they were united by shared devotions and a common loyalty to the pope; and they participated in the shared task of creating and sustaining a church in the complicated world of the United States. The first noteworthy assumption of this new history is that the American church has always been a complex community in which diversity has frequently erupted into bitter conflict. Diversity has been rich indeed: American Catholics includes helpful sketches of the history of Afro-American Catholicism, of the values and practices of the Hispanic church of the west and southwest, and of the deep piety of Native American Catholics. But the tensions have been sharp as well. The many ethnic groups which contributed rich and ancient traditions to the shaping of American Catholicism usually resented and mistrusted each other; in some cases, long and debilitating rivalries developed. Clergy and laity have often competed for authority and power and have diverged in their understandings of what is best for a particular community. The trustee controversies of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are the best known examples of this tension, but there have been many others. Hispanic Catholics of the southwest suspected that the missionaries sent to them by the American hierarchy were there to impose a foreign culture on them. Catholics found themselves on both sides of the Civil War, when regional loyalties eclipsed their shared faith. White Catholics, as Hennesey unflinchingly shows, have not welcomed Black Catholics into their 158 BOOK REVIEWS churches. Nor has the intellectual life of American Catholics been homogeneous : Hennesey's complex picture of American Catholicism inc:udes the avant garde clergy who constituted a modernist school in New York City in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This complexity reveals the confidence of Hennesey's history : twenty years ago, these conflicts would not have been mentioned, let alone treated so seriously and calmly. This church took shape in an equally complicated society. Competition, hostility, and, much more rarely, cooperation characterized the relations between Catholics and Protestants in a nation which had established a Protestant social consensus in place of an established church. The United States is anti-Catholic in its deepest roots and American Catholic historians before Hennesey tended to construct their histories around this reality. Marked as foreign by the styles of its devotion and the national origins of its congTegations, American Catholicism struggled along as a minority faith in a Protestant land. Hennesey's second major historiographical assumption is his departure from this perspective. Hennesey's Catholics have a claim on the United States. American Catholics is not a statement from the ghetto, but a reflection of the central economic and social place that Catholics now occupy in the United States. This centrality is taken for granted. The consciousness that Hennesey describes as nascent in the church of the 1920s has come to fruition today: "The American Catholic community throughout its many layered being...

Autocracy and the Vatican on the Eve of the "Imperialist War": A Russian Foreign Ministry Document in Translation

Traditionally, the Russian tsars were anti-Catholic in their sentiments and policies. As a consequence of Russia's long struggle with Catholic states such as Poland and Lithuania, the animosity of Russian monarchs toward the Latin Heresy of Papal Catholicism intensified. During Nicholas I's reign (1825 1855) a reign of terror against all minority faiths was launched in Russia, but it was especially directed against the Catholic religion in conquered Poland.1 Believing that all his subjects must be faithful to Orthodoxy or their loyalties would gravitate to another state, Nicholas sent his gendarmes (the security police), accompanied by Orthodox priests, into areas that were heavily populated with Catholics. Here they closed and in some cases wrecked the churches and schools, arrested the priests, and began a campaign to educate the Catholics in the advantages of becoming Orthodox Christians. To escape imprisonment, many Catholic priests went into hiding, while hundreds of their parishioners, in order to avoid converting to a faith that they could not embrace voluntarily, fled abroad, first to Western Europe and later to the United States. Many of the Catholics, however, retaliated against Nicholas's repressive policies. Combining with nationalists and other dis gruntled elements of the Russian Empire, they staged a rebellion in Poland in 1831. Since the rebellious groups were disunited and had failed to win the support of the peasants, their revolt

The Muslim League in South India since Independence: A Study in Minority Group Political Strategies

How can a religious minority organize most effectively to protect its interests without weakening the distinction between religion and politics by which advocates of a secular state justify equal treatment for the minority? As in Europe earlier in the century, this problem is again acute in some of the so-called “New Nations” of Asia and Africa where national integration is far from complete and religion is still the primary mode of self-identification among many of its communicants. If a minority faith is geographically concentrated so as to constitute a majority in certain extensive areas, it is likely to seek independence, merger with an adjacent state of the same religion, or at least provincial autonomy if its members believe that their religious identity is threatened by assimilation.Of the great world religions, Islam provides the most difficult case of adjustment to minority status by separation of religion from the state. The leaders of the Muslim minority of British India finally set the objective of separate national independence in 1940 after they had concluded that they could not rely upon constitutional guarantees to safeguard their rights against the Hindu majority. But the creation of Pakistan in 1947 left a substantial though scattered Muslim population of some forty million in the Indian Republic, ten percent of the latter's people. Suspected by many Hindus of further divisive intentions, how was this group to act within the framework of parliamentary and at least ostensibly secular democracy?