Minority Religious Groups Research Articles

Diversity management in the integration of minorities in the job market: policies and practices

PurposeCultural variance represents a significant challenge to policy designers and, in practice, to employers in the varied employment spaces. Providing workplace accessibility for the integration of various cultural groups requires deep thinking and creating unique possibilities for each group in accord with its particular heritage. Ultra-Orthodox society in Israel is a religious minority group that has undergone significant changes, from a desire to maintain total separation, to gradual integration into a variety of areas in Israeli society. In light of these changes, we sought to examine what policies should be adopted in order to improve ultra- Orthodox integration.Design/methodology/approachMethodologically, we examined the cultural variance of ultra-Orthodox academics in their workplace using combined methods. The study included 745 ultra-Orthodox academics who responded to an online questionnaire that examined the issue in question from various aspects. In addition, four focus groups were convened, in which discussion examined issues.FindingsThe study findings reveal that the integration policies of the various workplaces were above and beyond the expectations of the cultural diversity management approach. Although the study focused on the personal perspective of the ultra-Orthodox employees who integrated, the employers' open and accepting attitudes were very prominent. The participants' comments showed that the employers showed great consideration for their needs and exceptional cultural sensitivity towards the employees' temperament. This dialogue constitutes the basis for managing variance in a multicultural society. The understanding by the employer of the background and cultural legacy from which the worker has come, alongside the difficulties he must cope with constitutes, in itself, the basis for building a stable relationship between employer and worker and for optimal integration of a minority group in society.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that cultural adjustment is required in four areas: a. Adaptation from the social and cultural aspect in the workplace. b. The definition of different areas of employment specific to gender. c. Consideration of the employees' halachic needs d. Professional preparation for employees prior to their absorption.Originality/valueThis study is a pioneering one, examining the integration of ultra-Orthodox academics in the Israeli economy. This process is very significant in a political entity with different cultural identities. The acquisition of a higher education in ultra-Orthodox society in Israel and subsequent integration into the Israeli economy has a decisive cultural and economic impact on both the ultra-Orthodox and general societies simultaneously. An examination of the issue of integration of the ultra-Orthodox minority in employment is intended not only to investigate the character and nature of the process, but also to examine the place of multiculturalism in Western societies and the interaction between a minority group and the majority group, with an emphasis on employment.

Die ambivalente Rolle der Spiritualität für die Erklärung von Verschwörungsglauben und Demonstrationsbereitschaft im Kontext der COVID-19-Pandemie

ZusammenfassungIm Kontext der COVID-19-Pandemie gewinnen zunehmend Gruppen an Sichtbarkeit, die sich als Anker in der Problembewältigung präsentieren und vermeintliche Lösungsansätze zum Umgang mit der Pandemie zur Verfügung stellen. In Teilen solcher Strömungen zeigt sich ein Hang zum Verschwörungsglauben sowie zu abergläubischen und esoterischen Deutungsmustern, die in den Protesten gegen Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Pandemie vermehrt zum Ausdruck kommen. Die Vermengung dieser Phänomene in einer gemeinsamen Protestbewegung wirft die Fragen auf, wie diese zusammenhängen und welche Rolle dabei religiöse Zugehörigkeiten und spirituelle Weltanschauungen einnehmen. In der vorliegenden Studie werden spirituelle Welt- und Wertebilder differenziert und religionsunabhängig erfasst, um diesen Fragen nachzugehen. Es lassen sich empirisch zwei Formen der Spiritualität, die aktive und passive Spiritualität voneinander trennen, die sich in den Dimensionen Weltbild und Ethik, Wertekanon und Sinnempfinden teils diametral gegenüberstehen. Es zeigen sich unterschiedliche Effekte dieser beiden Spiritualitätsformen auf die Offenheit gegenüber alternativen und esoterischen Welterklärungen sowie auf die Ausprägung von Skepsis gegenüber der Wissenschaft. Die spirituellen Elemente tragen auch zur Klärung des Glaubens an Verschwörungserzählungen, der Unterstützung von Corona-Demonstrationen und einer diesbezüglichen Teilnahmebereitschaft bei. Dabei wirkt die aktive Spiritualität als Schutzfaktor und die passive Spiritualität demgegenüber als verstärkender (Risiko‑)Faktor für die Auftretenswahrscheinlichkeit von sowohl Verschwörungsglauben als auch Protestbereitschaft. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass eine mehrdimensionale Erfassung von Spiritualität zur Erklärung von verschwörungstheoretischen und protestrelevanten Einstellungen beiträgt. Auf diese Weise können zudem bisherige ambivalente Befunde der Forschung zu den Effekten von Spiritualität als Resilienz- bzw. Risikofaktor für solche Einstellungen und Verhaltensbereitschaften ausdifferenziert werden.

Religion amidst Tares and Weeds: A Pentecostal Perspective on the Hegemony of Non-Religious Movements and Scholarship on Religion in the 21st Century

Religion is an influential and resilient phenomenon that parades no cryptograms of decline. It incites the deepest obligation, emotion, sharp action, strong dialogues and study for practitioners, opponents and fence-sitters. Any anthropoid who is familiar with the world around them understands that religion is a powerful probing phenomenon that demands better understanding through inquiries. Despite the force of religion, the 21st century has observed nonreligious groups and scholars’ greater influence on religion. This mixed-method study adopts a grounded theory approach to inductively ascertain from collected data, whether religious movements (RM) will survive the heroic tremor from nonreligious movements (NRM) and scholarship. The study discussed how scholars have studied religion and NRM in various academic disciplines and how the activities and engagements of NRM and scholarship have impacted the beliefs, functions and paradigm of RM. The study discoveries bring out that, though NRM and scholarship have vastly altered religious beliefs and meanings, RM will live beyond the 21st century, as far as human beings remain. The study findings additionally acmes that RM should not envision the NRM and scholarship as harmful but also as an expedient tool for favorable and inspired reforms. The study contributes to scholarship by defining religion as anthropoids’ innermost instinct and craving to satisfy certain responsibilities as revealed by a transcendental being or a higher order. The study further contributes to academia with the theory that, religious movements cannot be suppressed by the copious nonreligious schedules and scholarship, nevertheless it has made weighty vicissitudes to the trajectory of religious movements, which is worth stating and noteworthy. Keywords: Religious movements, nonreligious movements, scholarship, atheist, secularists, humanists, and free thinkers.

FAITH, SCIENCE, AND NONRELIGIOUS IDENTITY FORMATION AMONG MALE KENYAN YOUTH

AbstractThe faith and science dialogue has received scholarly attention in the recent past. Within the African landscape at large, the underlying assumption has been that Africans are religious. However, there has been a rising cohort of Africans who are increasingly identified as nonreligious or atheist or agnostic. This research presents a qualitative analysis of the sociocultural factors that affect or influence these minority identities within a pluralistic African context, exploring their emergence and diversities within the African context, with a specific focus on 20 male Kenyan youth who are identified as nonreligious. This research utilized purposive sampling within nonreligious groups and networks. Second, this research aims at exploring how nonreligious identities are constructed, particularly given the concomitant issues surrounding emerging adulthood and new media. This builds up on the theories around youth and identity formation, while foregrounding science and belief as a central theme of study.

Sunni and Shia Muslim and Christian encounters in northern Nigeria

AbstractThis article analyses how the circulation of ideas and hybrid rituals between Shia Muslims and Christians reveals a much more intentional political process whereby minority religious groups consciously create shared experiences and a sense of commonality in the face of political marginalization in northern Nigeria. One example is the Shia invention of Jesus’s Mawlid (Jesus’s birthday), which they perform in a different way from the conventional Christmas but that is attended by some Christians. Also, some Christians participate in the annual celebration of Mawlid al-Nabiy (the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), organized by Shias. Despite the adherents of the two religions participating in mixed religious practices, they continue to see themselves separately as Muslims and Christians. Reactions to these hybrid rituals impact relationships among the mainline Sunni groups. Sufis (Tijanis and Qadiris), who were previously united in the face of the anti-Sufi reform movement (Izala), now diverge over how to respond to Shia Islam. While they disagree with Shias intellectually, not everyone supports the attacks against Shias by Salafi activists. These dynamics add to the understanding that the concept of ‘tolerance’ is not sophisticated enough to capture all forms of religious coexistence in Nigeria.

Smartphone Religious Networking: Negotiating Contested Identities within a Pious Community over WhatsApp

Online social networks can be considered harbingers of modernity and are claimed to encourage individualization in religious practices. Nevertheless, religious minority groups, including reclusive communities, legitimize their use for religious and communal purposes. Accordingly, social networks are emerging as dynamic third spaces of identity reflections on key issues of lived religion. This study examined how members of a religious group negotiate their identity over online social networks. Accordingly, we conducted a content analysis of 70 ultra-Orthodox Jewish public (Haredi) WhatsApp groups and 40 semi-structured interviews with participants. Findings revealed three primary facets of identity performance: communal affinity; proclaimed conformism and practiced agency; and contesting dogmatism and pragmatism. Through these facets, a new social identity is crystallized within the Haredi sector in Israel. Thus, the secluded spaces of WhatsApp groups enable a marginalized grassroots religious public to promote incremental social change without shattering communal boundaries.

The Limits of Religious Plurality: The Pentecostal Movement in Post-Stalinist Czechoslovakia

ABSTRACT This article examines the religious conditions in Post-Stalinist Czechoslovakia on the example of the Pentecostal movement. It enlarges the classical research scope done on a church-state axis by focusing on a minority religious group, which is not only oppressed by the system driven by atheistic imperatives but also must compete with the rival religious organization. By using the concept of the religious field, the study argues that the state socialist system was caught between two different roles. The state tried to diminish the belief in God, but also it was supposed to operate as a guarantor of religious life. The state division of roles enabled believers to take an active part in negotiating their religious independence and even when they failed, it shows that they were not passive objects controlled by the state, but active actors with an agency of their own.

Created Sick? Well, Not Exactly… Canadian Atheists Report Similar Levels of Impairment and Disability to the Religiously Affiliated

Religion/spirituality (R/S) is positively associated with a variety of health outcomes, although how R/S relates to the likelihood or severity of impairment or disability is understudied. Given the broad salutary effects of R/S, we tested if nonreligious groups (specifically atheists) were more likely to report impairment or were more likely to report greater disability. Using Canadian data (N ≥ 1,000) from the 2015 General Social Survey (Cycle 29), we compared atheists to Agnostics, Nones, Protestants, Catholics, Christian Orthodox, and Eastern Religion practitioners. The results indicated that Atheists were slightly more likely to report the presence of impairment and disability relative to Catholics, but these effects were in the trivial-to-small range. When exploring the severity of self-reported disability across religious groups, atheists did not differ from any other religious group. These results are intriguing as the broader R/S-health literature has suggested that greater secularism should be associated with a health penalty; however, we found limited evidence to support this. Although we cannot state that atheism is necessarily healthy, the results of the current study would suggest that atheism is certainly not unhealthy.

Dancing with Religion: Organized Atheism and Humanism in the Field of Religions in Denmark

Abstract The article firstly presents a modified version of a relational theoretical approach to the study of religions that can also be useful in the analysis of dynamic relations between religions and nonreligions. Nonreligious groups can be studied as relational collective groups that define themselves vis-à-vis other religious groups. Following this, the article suggests that scholars should take this relation between religions and nonreligions much further into consideration. Religious and nonreligious groups define themselves in a relation to what they perceive to be their most immediate competitors. Thus, the article posits that there is a social field of groups that relate and react to the other, and since we by convention know some of these groups as religions and nonreligions, we can study the set of interrelated groups as a social reality without the need of a definition. Instead of defining “religion” and “nonreligion,” the analysis can depart from the relation between the groups or the fact that both religions and nonreligions relate to and constitute themselves vis-à-vis other religions. In the last part, the article analyzes a piece of rare empirical evidence, namely, the founding event of a nonreligious group (i.e., the Danish Humanist Society). Here, the article shows how the Danish Humanist Society combined meaning and strategy in its relational struggle against its significant religious other, the Danish National Church.

Relasi Sosial Umat Kong Hu Cu Di Kawasan Simpang Lima Ampenan Kota Mataram

This article aims to looks at the pattern of the relations built by the Confucians community and the practices of peace that are applied. As a minority religious group, The Confucians community in Ampenan cannot be separated from their efforts to survive with the adaptation strategies that are carried out. The intended adaptation strategy is the pattern of relationships that are built. Using a qualitative research method where the data collection process uses the method of observation, interviews and documentation. With the help of AGIL theory, this article also finds that the adaptation made by the Confucians is an merely an adaptation to the economic activity’s as an primary aspect. The practice of peace that is applied is also with the economic aspect. This partially refutes AGIL's theoretical framework by looking at Goal Attainment, the integration and built latency do not reach their ideal point. The main reason why the Confucians chose the economic aspect over the religious aspect was to evade the unsuccesful story between Hindu-Muslims which failed to build the relationship pattern through the pattern of marriage relation.s The effective pattern of relations in maintaining the harmony of the people in the Simpang Lima Ampenan Mataram area is through the economical aspect

AN ANALYSIS OF THE APPLICATION OF S 4A OF THE WILLS ACT 7 OF 1953 WITH REGARD TO MUSLIMS MARRIED WITHIN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT

South African Muslims constitute a religious minority group who have been living in South Africa for almost four centuries. These persons are required in terms of their religion to ensure that their estates devolve in terms of Islamic law. One of the ways of doing this would be where a testator or testatrix drafts and executes a will stating that his or her estate must devolve in terms of the Islamic law of succession upon his or her demise and that an Islamic institution should draft an Islamic Distribution Certificate stating who his or her beneficiaries are in terms of Islamic law. This type of will could be referred to as an Islamic will. The said will must however conform to the provisions found in the Wills Act 7 of 1953 (Wills Act) in order to be deemed a valid will within the South African context. Section 4A of the Wills Act states that “[a]ny person who attests and signs a will as a witness … and the person who is the spouse of such person at the time of the execution of the will, shall be disqualified from receiving any benefit from that will.” This article looks at the application of s 4A of the Wills Act 7 of 1953 concerning Muslims married within the South African context. The scenario that is considered in this article is where Ahmad Guru (Ahmad) executes an Islamic will on 8 August 2019, with Yusuf Tuan (Yusuf) and Amina Guru (Amina) being the only witnesses thereof. Ahmad died on 9 September 2019 leaving behind a net estate of R900,000.00, a son, Omar Guru (Omar), and a daughter, Sara Guru (Sara), as his only relatives. The Islamic Distribution provides that Omar should inherit 2/3 of R900,000.00 = R600,000.00 and Sara should inherit 1/3 of R900,000.00 = R300,000.00. One of the witnesses of the Islamic will, Amina, is also the spouse of one of the beneficiaries, Omar, as provided in terms of the Islamic Distribution Certificate. This article looks at three instances of how section 4A of the Wills Act would impact the right of Omar to inherit the R600,000.00 (based on the Islamic Will and Islamic Distribution Certificate) in the event where he was, at the time of the execution of the will, (1) married to Amina in terms of Islamic law only; (2) married to Amina in terms of Islamic law as well as civil law; and (3) married to Amina in terms of civil law but divorced Amina in terms of Islamic law. The article concludes with an overall analysis of the findings and makes a recommendation as to the way forward.

Being a Minority in a Moslem Neighborhood: Reflective Experience of a Buddhist Priest in Cemani Village

On Tuesday, 1st of October 2019 around 02.30 a.m., Amoghasiddhi Cetiya at Cemani Village, Grogol Subdistrict, Sukoharjo Regency, Central Java, Indonesia, was caught on fire for the second times. The carpet was scorched and the air-condition was fell-down. The crime was reported to the police, but the priest and his followers expect nothing but take it as a blessing in disguise that it’s the time for them to repaint and refurnish their prayer house. By applying interview, news research, limited participant observation and reflective-interpretive approach this paper tries to discuss and conclude that in order to be able to survive a religious minority group needs to equipt themselves with personal capacity such as high sense of tolerance, modesty, relenting attitude, and ignoring their rights to justice. Those are the challenges for religious minority groups to live in Indonesia, a country which is ethnically multicultural but ironically only six religions are sanctioned by the state with Islam as the one adhered by around 80% of the population. So then, discussing inter-faith relation will result in a bias conclusion as both majority and minority have their own syndromes. Feeling of fear or being threatened by the existence of something new is the syndrome for the majority, while relenting attitude as well as tendency not to demand their rights to with the fear that struggling for justice may lead to misfortune justice for the minority, as experienced by Meiliana of Tanjungbalai, North Sumatera. The Buddhist woman of Chinese ethnic was accused of committing blasphemy in July 2016 merely because she complaint the high volume of adzan prayer call from a neighbourhood mosque. Not only her house was then destroyed by a mob, but also more than tens of vihara in her town were set on fire. In April 2019 her appeal to Supreme Court was refused, so she has to serve 18 months jail sentence as verdicted. 

Christianity-science compatibility beliefs increase nonreligious individuals' perceptions of Christians' intelligence and scientific ability.

Nonreligious individuals stereotype Christians as unscientific and see Christianity and science as conflicting. The present studies examined how perceptions of incompatibility between Christianity and science influence nonreligious individuals' stereotypes of Christians in science in the US context. We measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2) participants' beliefs about the compatibility or incompatibility of Christianity and science. In Study 1 (N = 365), nonreligious participants (n = 214), more so than Christian participants (n = 151), perceived Christianity and science as incompatible, which in turn predicted perceptions of Christians as less intelligent and less scientifically able. In Study 2 (N = 799; 520 Christians, 279 nonreligious), manipulating perceived Christianity-science compatibility reduced negative perceptions of Christians' scientific ability and general intellect among nonreligious participants. Implications for mitigating negative stereotypes of Christians in science, increasing Christians' representation in scientific fields, and improving relations between Christians and nonreligious groups are discussed.

The Fruits without the Roots? Postmodern Group-Identity in the Light of Biblical Anthropology

The origins of modern western societies are indubitably rooted in Judeo-Christian values that generated a unique form of civilization over the course of almost two-thousand years. These values have as their core-belief that humans are created in the image of God. This notion deeply influenced views on human identity and on human rights. Since the rise of modernity, these religious roots of the western world-view have eroded gradually as a consequence of secularization. While society increasingly became cut off from its own roots, the fruits of the former world-view were still accepted as desirable. Howev­er, emerging post-modernity appears to be in the process of not only losing the roots, but also rejecting the fruits of Judeo-Christian values. As a consequence, human identity is evermore perceived as consisting of – often conflicting – group-identities. The aim of this study is to discover whether biblical anthropology can shed light on the functions of groups within a given society. Being aware of the fact that the way how ancient Israel dealt with minority groups and how this is reflected within the Hebrew Bible is not auto­matically applicable for present-day societies, we still might be able to glean insights for our present world. In order to attain such, this study first analyzes shortly the post-modern societal situation pertaining to group-identities. Subsequently, the focus will be on how Israel’s self-understanding as “chosen people” is approached critically by some parts within the Old Testament. Following that, the study concentrates on how concrete social and religious minority groups were viewed: the sojourners, the poor, the slaves. Within this approach also the “sons of the prophets” and the Rechabites will be reviewed. The study suggests that the Christian church might have an own alternative narrative within a postmodern world by emphasizing that identity should have a transcendent side, by seeing that the individual is the proper level of identity, and by proclaiming that individuals are called to function with responsibility within communities.

Creating Sacred Spaces: Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim Student Groups at U.S. Colleges and Universities

Why are some schools home to Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim student organizations but others are not? In this article, we draw on theories of student mobilization, especially recent theoretical insights on educational opportunity structures, to understand the factors associated with the presence and number of minority religious student organizations at U.S. colleges and universities. Analyzing an original database of minority religious student groups across 1,953 four-year, not-for-profit U.S. colleges and universities, we show that large, wealthy schools that are located in liberal, pluralistic contexts and that are not affiliated with Christian denominations exhibit greater odds of having at least one minority religious student organization. Similar factors are associated with the overall number of minority religious student organizations at a school. Our article represents the most comprehensive study to date of minority religious student organizations and sheds light on issues of unequal access to student organizations more generally.

STUDY AS AN EDUCATIONAL LEISURE ACTIVITY: THE CASE OF ISRAELI SOCIETY

The research literature on leisure indicates that it is perceived differently by sector and culture. In Israel, one’s affiliation with religious or non-religious groups affects one’s perception of leisure and its legitimacy. The common activities of religious and secular people include studies in general, and Torah study in particular, as activities carried out by choice and for pleasure. In this research Torah study is considered in its wide meaning, as including all traditional Jewish texts. The research sought to try and understand various characteristics of people who study Torah as a leisure activity and to illuminate aspects rarely addressed in the academic literature, mainly students' perception of study efforts, importance of studies, the contribution of studies and satisfaction with studies. The sample included 234 respondents divided into three groups: Torah students (56) who were studying in a hevruta (collaborative) format, Torah students (50) who were studying a course by participating in lectures, and a control group (128) who were studying other theoretical topics by participating in lectures. The findings of this research indicate that Torah study nowadays takes place not only as an obligation but rather also as an elective activity in formal courses and hevruta study groups – an activity that transcends the religious dimension and involves a choice and pleasure for all learners. Additionally, Torah students perceived their studies as having greater contribution, more important and more satisfying than students of non-Torah subjects. The method of study (collaborative vs lectures) did not affect these perceptions. The findings may have applied implications beneficial to society in general. The research findings illuminate the potential of Torah study as a leisure activity and its capacity to unite various sectors in Israeli society. Keywords: leisure activity, culture, religious, Israeli society, Torah study

Shi’a Community in Malang City as a Subaltern: Strategy to Celebrate Religious Freedom Amidst Sunni Domination

Everyone has the right to practice their religion and adhere to their beliefs. Unfortunately, minority sects such as the Shi’a community cannot celebrate their beliefs freely as citizens. They had to hide their identity as Shi’a congregations in order to prevent conflicts and to protect themselves and their families. Against this background, this article aims to examine the strategy of the Shi’a community in Malang City in exercising freedom of religion and belief as a minority religious group in the midst of the Sunni community. This study puts the Shi’a religious group in Malang City as a subaltern that is often discriminated against and excluded socially and politically. This study's data was gathered through interviews and a review of the literature. The selection of research informants was carried out through a purposive sampling technique. By using a qualitative approach with the case study method, this study finds at least three strategies developed by the Shi’a community in Malang City to practice their freedom of religion and belief, namely the Taqiyyah strategy, strengthening the congregation through Huseiniyah recitation, and teaching their children about two different versions of prayer.

Religious Freedom in the City Pool: Gender Segregation, Partisanship, and the Construction of Symbolic Boundaries

AbstractLow political support for religious minority groups in the United States is often explained as a matter of social distance or unfamiliarity between religious traditions. Observable differences between beliefs and behaviors of religious minority groups and the cultural mainstream are thought to demarcate group boundaries. However, little scholarship has examined why some practices become symbolic boundaries that reduce support for religious accommodation in public policy, while nearly identical practices are tolerated. We hypothesize that politics is an important component of the process by which some religious practices are transformed into demarcations between “us” and “them.” We conduct an original survey experiment in which people are exposed to an identical policy demand—women-only swim times at a local public pool—attributed to three different religious denominations (Muslim, Jewish, and Pentecostal). We find that people are less supportive of women-only swim times when the requesting religion is not a part of their partisan coalition.

Investigating fundamentalist trends in the Orthodox Church of Greece: Balancing between traditionalism and fundamentalism.

The purpose of this article is to investigate trends and variations of fundamentalism in the Orthodox Church of Greece. In order to achieve this, the article analyses discourses and practices of the Orthodox Church of Greece since the restoration of democracy in 1974. The main argument is that the church, as an institution, produces public discourses and adopts practices with regard to modernity, more specifically on social, political, moral and scientific issues, using both modernity and tradition in order to strengthen its place in Greek society. The church, also, tries to establish an official response to the gradual marginalisation of religion both at the political and social levels, through moral dualism and strict behavioural requirements; perceiving sacred texts in an absolute and inerrant way; and creating sharp boundaries between Greek Orthodoxy and other religious communities, non-religious groups and the West, leading this way to the establishment of an elect membership through superiority. The main outcome is that the Orthodox Church of Greece is primarily a traditionalist institution, but it also meets a great number of the fundamentalist characteristics responding this way to the privatisation and marginalisation of religion in Greek society.

Contemporary, racialised conflicts over LGBT-inclusive education: more strategic secularisms than secular/religious oppositions?

ABSTRACT This paper analyses public conflicts over school policies that seek to advance Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) equality. It focuses in particular on conflicts where Muslims, who protest LGBT-inclusive policies, become racialised as other to secular national/Western values. Growing attention has been paid to the secular arguments used by majority and minority religious groups to publicly counter LGBT-inclusive education. In this paper, I contend that neither contemporary arguments for, or against, LGBT-inclusive education are neatly secular, i.e., non-religious, in their public appearance. Introducing a Critical Secular approach, I contend multiple parties in such conflicts work with “strategic” secularisms. Strategic secularisms are prevailing discourses which privatise, and deprivatise (make public), aspects of minority religious and sexual identities on neo-colonial, secular Christian terms. I present a thematic analysis of 149 newspaper articles covering protests largely by Muslims against LGBT-inclusive education outside schools in Birmingham, England. The analysis shows that newspapers foregrounded discourses seeking to privatise (assert private authority over) or deprivatise (publicly surveil) Muslim religiosity. LGBT identities were also variously framed as “beliefs” to be kept private, or an essential part of the public self which must be confessed to be “free”. Based on this analysis, I argue public discourse should certainly challenge queer/Muslim and secular/religious dichotomies. But more fundamentally, there is a need to cultivate education publics that refuse strategic secularisms based in neo-colonial, racialised discourses of secular Christian civilisation, and engage the losses created by the privatising and deprivatising of specific forms of minority religious and sexual identity.