Multi-religious Context Research Articles

Between religions: Baptist converts in Sierra Leone and their Islamic and African Traditional Religious past

This article focuses on Baptist converts in Sierra Leone and how they live between religions in an African multi-religious context. When converts looked back on their lives, they reconstruct their memories to fit their present religious convictions. Baptist churches teach their members to leave traditional practices and Islam. Converts break with the past and leave their former religious community. Converts´ experiences and memories of Islamic homes were often positive, but memories of African traditional religion (ATR) were more complex. However, Church members sometimes go to ATR herbalists and healers when they have severe health problems. Baptist churches compete with ATR and teach that power of Christian God is real, and healing is often part of the Church services. After conversion Baptist converts are members of their Churches with different degree of commitment. Converts often had difficulties in maintaining good relationships with their Muslim relatives. However, Christians and Muslims see that they have more in common with each other than they do with African Traditional Religion (ATR). Extended families and intermarriages helped to build better relations between Muslims and Christians. Keywords: Muslims, Baptist, Sierra Leone, African Traditional Religion, Conversion.

Student Agency in Negotiating the Relationship Between Science and Religion

Research examining the relationship between science and religion has often painted a narrative of conflict for students with various religious beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to present a counter-narrative based on a study carried out in Singapore, which provides a unique multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment and geopolitical context to study the phenomenon. Informed by the theories of collateral learning, situated cognition and agency, the study examined how a group of high school biology students viewed and negotiated the relationship between biological evolution and their beliefs in Christianity. Case study methodology and semi-structured interviews were used to generate thick descriptions of their views. Findings from the study illustrate how the students exhibited agency in deliberately creating multiple resolution mechanisms as they recognised and negotiated the conceptual and social tensions between the worldviews of evolution and creationism. The findings suggest that the students exhibited more agency in resolving the perceived conflict between science and religion than we tend to ascribe based on previous interpretative accounts that emphasised confrontation, alienation and marginalisation. The implication is that students’ agency in negotiating the differing worldviews between science and religion should be seen as a resource for the learning of evolution, rather than a hindrance.

Local congregations: Engaging neighbors of other faiths

When I was growing up in rural north Georgia in the 1950s and 60s, religious diversity meant there might be a Pentecostal church tucked in among the Baptist and Methodist churches. Today, congregations typically do not live in communities in which religious diversity is so narrowly experienced. Diversity no longer even signals that there are Protestant, Pentecostal, Catholic, and Jewish houses of worship present. The increase in the scope of diversity in almost every community means there are representatives of various non-Abrahamic religions present as well. Members of these different faith expressions live together in community, send their children to the same public schools, participate in local civic events, and serve one another as physicians, pharmacists, teachers, restauranteurs, hoteliers, and retailers. In short, people of diverse religions live, work, and worship in close proximity. How, then, do they form community in which the social fabric of the city, county, or state in which they live, and ultimately that of the nation, is strengthened by a commitment to the common good that secures for all the blessings of security, peace, and justice? In this multi-religious context, how are Christian congregations enhancing rather than hindering the building of community in diversity?

Old Practices in New Places: Breaking Violence through Ignatian Exercises in a Swedish Maximum Security Prison

Old Practices in New Places:Breaking Violence through Ignatian Exercises in a Swedish Maximum Security Prison Tone S. Kaufman (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Isolation. © Marcel Ciobam [End Page 19] At the high security prison Kumla in Sweden, long-term inmates wait in line for more than a year in order to be silent, without visitors, phone, newspapers, TV, and radio for a month. They voluntarily exchange the few privileges they have for "an undoubtedly painful and confrontational look inside themselves," as retreat leader Truls Bernhold puts it.1 For about fifteen years, men incarcerated in Swedish prisons have been given the opportunity to follow a thirty-day Ignatian retreat and a prison monastery has been established within the walls of the Kumla prison. The results of offering such a retreat to prisoners have been overwhelmingly positive. As one retreatant expresses it: "Within these walls [of the monastery at Kumla prison] goodness is exploding!"2 What makes Ignatian spirituality3 a relevant resource in the secular and multi-religious context of a high-security prison? In this essay I investigate how a classic source of Christian spirituality can be appropriated in new situations, and how old practices can be undertaken in new places. More specifically, I ask how the Spiritual Exercises4–the way they have been retrieved and are offered in the Kumla context–can be a way to embark on a new and transformative journey for a number of the male incarcerated at Kumla prison. In particular, I identify four aspects of the Exercises that seem to be especially significant to the healing and recovery of the retreatants. When analyzing these four areas of the Exercises, I pay attention to how the selfhood of the incarcerated at Kumla is experienced as a shattered and vulnerable self (see below), and why the Exercises seem to be a helpful resource to retreatants with such a selfhood. I suggest that participation in the retreat provides the participants with tools that help them process their experiences, which includes both their crimes and guilt, as well the violations they themselves have been subject to, not to speak of the care and love most of them have been missing throughout their lives. Thus, trauma not only concerns the inflicted, abused, and violated, but also those having caused inflictions, violations, or abuse to others. The essay unfolds in the following way: First, I briefly describe the monastery and retreat project at Kumla. Second, I sketch out my analytical lens, including some theoretical perspectives. Third, in the main part of the essay, I look into four areas of the Exercises that have proven to be life transforming [End Page 20] for some of the retreatants at Kumla. Finally, I argue that old spiritual resources can be retrieved and undertaken in new ways, also in unlikely places, such as in the Kumla prison context. The material analyzed in the essay consists of various written sources such as extensive articles and reports written by journalists who have visited the Kumla prison, other reports, and a few smaller academic pieces. I am aware that there are methodological challenges in using such diverse materials, as the various documents are situated in different contexts with different aims.5 Historically, the Exercises were almost exclusively offered in Catholic monasteries and various retreat centers. However, there seems to be a potential for engaging in this kind of spirituality also outside the specific Catholic sphere. For example, a diverse student body at Union Theological Seminary has been invited to make the Exercises,6 and in a traditional Lutheran, but also highly secular Scandinavian context, Ignatian spirituality has proven to be a viable alternative for both pastors7 and prisoners, in addition to church employees, Christian lay persons, and seekers more generally.8 In this essay, then, I seek to show what a gift this spiritual practice can be outside of the traditional, religious sphere. As with the offering of meditation and yoga in US and UK prisons, the undertaking of spiritual practices during incarceration is a way to improve the potential for inmate rehabilitation.9 Strongly inspired by the Kumla case, an equivalent project has been launched at Halden prison in...

The social production of sacred space in urban Oslo

This article examines two recent expressions of religion in the multi-religious setting of the Norwegian capital Oslo. The Muslim group Ansar al-Sunnah’s claim of the district Grønland is scrutinized in relation to the public and cultural image of Islam in Norway, and a Christian response to the contemporary multi-religious context is examined via an analysis of the priest Gyrid Gunnes’ performance at The National Exhibition of the Visual Arts in Oslo. These cases are further discussed in relation to spatial theories and theologically embedded questions about ecclesiology and eschatology. This article shows that Ansar al-Sunnah stages an image of Islam that is produced in a cultural Islamophobic discourse, while Gunnes’ performance problematizes taken-for-granted notions about God, the church and what it means to be a Christian. The prevailing, dominant and culturally embedded ideas of what it means to be a Christian or a Muslim are being challenged in Gunnes’ performance through the use of queer theory and apophatic theology.

Postdivorce Adjustment in Singapore: Factors, Themes, and Positive Growth

Although there is a fairly large literature on postdivorce adjustment in the United States, comparatively little research has been conducted on the topic in Singapore. In addition, the majority of research to date has focused on the negative impacts of divorce and has tended to ignore potential positive growth opportunities that might result from the experience. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature through a thematic analysis of interviews with divorcees in Singapore. Specifically, this study identifies factors contributing to positive postdivorce adjustments within the multicultural, multiethnic, and multireligious context found in Singapore. A review of participant responses identified 15 specific factors related to the potential for experiencing a positive postdivorce adjustment. Further review indicates that these factors can be grouped into 6 themes that could specifically inform counselors and other mental health professionals working in Singapore to assist with the adjustment process.

Costs, Security and Discipline: Gendering the Debate on School Choice in India

There is growing evidence of expansion of public and private schools in India. The notional increase in parental choice of schools which is presumed to accompany the expansion has received mixed responses in academic and development research. While some have celebrated the increase in options available to parents, others have critiqued the framing of the issue and highlighted the structural inequalities which continue to influence educational access in India. However, both these kinds of research have been found deficient in their attention to the gender discourses which shape educational decisions in family settings in India. The present article argues for a gender sensitive understanding of the issue by locating school choice in the multi-lingual and multi-religious context of rural Assam. A close analysis of interviews with students, family members and teachers suggest that educational choices exercised in these working class families are connected with issues of marriage, work and gendered norms of conduct. Apart from considerations of costs, gendered ideas of school proximity, security and discipline are of prime significance in their choice of high school for children and particularly for daughters.

Indonesia. Islam, nationalism and democracy: A political biography of Mohammad Natsir By Audrey R. Kahin Singapore: NUS Press, 2012. Pp. 235. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Indonesia. Islam, nationalism and democracy: A political biography of Mohammad Natsir By Audrey R. Kahin Singapore: NUS Press, 2012. Pp. 235. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. - Volume 46 Issue 2

The Figure with a Bow in Gandhāran Great Departure Scenes. Some New Readings

The figure holding a bow on Gandhāran illustrations of the Bodhisattva’s departure from Kapilavastu has been the subject of controversy. First identified as Māra and Indra, the interpretation proposed by K. Tanabe that the protagonist is Vaiśravaṇa-Kubera rallied broader consensus. The present reassessment takes into account the multi-cultural and multi-religious context of production of the images, namely the Kushan era, to offer additional readings of the Gandhāran figure. The approach is two-fold. The examination of written and visual traditions of representing the episode is complemented by the analysis of the Gandhāran iconography in light of material from various cultural strands which came into contact in the region. As a final step, the article considers possible logics which might have constrained the construction of the Gandhāran portrayals and tests the hypothesis that further divinities from religious trends coeval in Gandhāra may be recognized under the guises of the bow-holder.

Beirut in Berlin? Interreligiöse Bildung in der Spannung zwischen Globalem und Lokalem

Abstract Religious pedagogy largely agrees that within religious education, interreligious instruction has to be aligned to the living environment of present-day children and youths. Yet in current concepts, this environmental context is normally interpreted in terms of the social proximity of the students, thus neglecting that the concept of religious contextuality has to be broadened as it develops in the interaction of global and local realities. Based on a case-study from the multi-religious context of Berlin, the present contribution discusses the initial conditions of interreligious education which are being changed by globalization. In a first step, the ambivalent presence of remoteness within the religious environment of modern youths is analyzed from an external sociological perspective. This is done in dialogue with selected sociological theories of reference which help to understand the »new contextuality « of the interreligious sphere as regards its basic dynamics of motivation. Subsequently, the essay focuses on inside aspects of this development: It addresses the question of how the spatial melting of the world influences the perception of the self and the other. Finally an approach is presented that substantiates the increasing globalization of religious environments from a youth-sociological perspective and makes it accessible to empirical analysis.

Does religiosity determine affinities to CSR?

This paper aims at exploring the extent to which Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) orientations are influenced by the level of religiosity among business professionals. Previous empirical research has highlighted the influence of personal values and belief systems on managerial CSR orientations, presenting mixed evidence in relation to the influence of religious ethics on responsible business orientations. Our paper advances knowledge in this important area of research by (1) synthesizing scattered available literature on the topic and (2) presenting fresh empirical insights from the Lebanese multi-religious context in relation to how an individual’s type of religiosity (intrinsic/extrinsic) affects their views of CSR. The results suggest that social extrinsic religiosity is related to a broader perspective of CSR, while intrinsic religiosity is related to a narrow view of CSR. Relevant insights and implications are synthesized accordingly.

交錯する「仏教聖地」構築と多宗教的現実

交錯する「仏教聖地」構築と多宗教的現実

Asia. Translation in Asia: Theories, practices, histories. Edited by Ronit Ricci and Jan Van Der Putten. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2011. Pp. 191. Index.

Translation in Asia: Theories, practices, histories Edited by RONIT RICCI and JAN VAN DER PUTTEN Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2011. Pp. 191. Index. There is much that scholars of Asia can learn from thinking about translation, and much that translation studies scholars can learn from studying practices in Asia, as this excellent book, Translation in Asia: Theories, practices, histories, edited by Ronit Ricci and Jan van der Putten reveals. The book consists of an introduction and eleven chapters, with contributions by Thomas Hunter, Torsten Tschacher, Peter Friedlander, Ronit Ricci, Haslina Haroon, Vijayakumar Boratti, Jose Mario Fransisco, Didi Kwartanada, Erlinda Alburo, Paul Rae and S. Sanjeev. Essays discuss translation in South and Southeast Asia (despite the broad 'Asia' of the title), and from, into, and between languages including Sanskrit, Javanese, Malay, Tagalog, Cebuano, Filipino, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and English. The period of translation history covered is broad; from the two millenia-old cosmopolis shaped by Sanskrit, to contemporary performance in Singapore. The essays take translation studies in exciting new directions. The strongest linking thread is the questioning of ways interlingual transfer -- and language itself--is conceptualised in South and Southeast Asia. Rather than merely identifying instances of a practice readily familiar (from a Euro-American-centric perspective) as 'translation', the writers work hard, from the inside out as it were, to find local explanations of where languages begin and end, and how movement between them is both thought about and practised. This approach reveals a wealth of translation activity and often traditions of profound reflection about it. It leads to discussion about the juxtaposition of and movement between vernacular and cosmopolitan languages (Hunter's wonderful essay on Sanskrit and Old Javanese, and Tschacher on the rendering of Islamic texts in Arabic into Tamil); between languages of writing and speech; between high and low status languages; and between the sacred and secular. It raises questions such as: what is 'unintelligibility', where does it lie, and what is its purpose? It shows how language encounters stimulate the formulation of ideas about 'translation' (for instance Munshi's reflections on Malay); influence language practice (commentary on 'foreign' texts influencing the structure of the local language); and highlight both complex interrelationships between languages and scripts, and differences between manuscript and print culture. This book also demonstrates how a focus on translation can be an entry point to the study of Asia, enriching our understanding of histories of contact, the complexities of thoroughly multilingual societies, and interrelationships between language, identity and power. Asia's multi-religious context, with long-established interaction between Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian traditions, is fertile ground for the study of ways adherents perceive languages of religion and sacred texts (Sanskrit, Pall, and Arabic, for instance) and how these languages, moved between different contexts, transfer ideas. Hunter's essay on the Sanskrit ecumene helps us (after Pollock) associate contemporary ideas of identity formation -- cosmopolitanism -- with centuries-old practice. …

Provocative Pedagogy, Or Youngsters Need The Brain To Challenge Worldview Formation

Brains and gender, separately and in their interrelatedness, are hot items today in popular journals and academic literature. It is in particular the complexity of the interdependence of physical-, psychological-, and contextual-related developments of feminization in education that we focus on these contributions. We argue that a combination of recent findings of brain research and Marcia's psychological model of identity development in a “provocative pedagogy”—combining youngsters’ (boys and girls) need for exploration, console, and support—is a promising “stepped care” strategy for religious development of youngsters in a multicultural and multireligious context.

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.

Wie Kinder Einschulungsfeiern erleben: Kasualtheoretische und religionspädagogische Anschlüsse

How Children Perceive the Religious Service at their First Day of School: Connections to the Theories of Religious Family Rites and of Religious Education. Over the last few years, a new transition rite has become popular with state schools and families in a multireligious context: a church service in a nearby church and conducted by pastors for potentially all the first graders and their families. In this case study results from interviews with the children are presented.

The Politics of Hindu “Tolerance”

That the escalating Hindu violence against minorities has produced a crisis for secularism in present-day India—but not for Hinduism—is an intriguing fact that calls for further analysis. This essay attempts a reexamination of the split between Hinduism and Hindutva, purportedly representing “true” religion and “politicized” religion, and the mapping of this division onto the religious tenet of tolerance and its political exhaustion, respectively, and questions the explanatory value of this narrative. It examines the concept and genealogy of “tolerance” with a view to understanding how it became so central to defining Hinduism itself. Although tolerance is offered as a constitutive or perennial aspect of Hinduism's religious tradition, its prominence in Hinduism's self-description is actually of recent vintage. In the independent Indian nation-state, the dominance of Hinduism in a multireligious context could be checked only by making Indian “secularism” an aspect of, indeed dependent upon, Hindu tolerance. While Ashis Nandy has famously invoked tolerance as the preferred alternative to secularism in the Indian context, this essay argues that secularism in India has all along been (nothing but) (Hindu) tolerance. If tolerance is integral to the rhetoric of Hinduism, historically it has been equally integral to the rhetoric of secular nationalism. Both Hinduism and Hindutva are modern constructs, and although different in their interpretation of the attitude that the Hindu majority community will adopt toward other religious communities in India—the one tolerant and the other intolerant—are essentially alike in envisaging national coexistence as the framing politics of this concern.

Vamps and Villains or Citizen-Subjects? Converting a Third-Person Self-Conception of the Indian Christians into a First-Person Narrative

This article examines the historical factors that gave rise to stereotypes about Christians as aliens who are estranged from the ways of the dominant culture. On the basis of an analysis of the use of stereotypes about Christians in a renowned novel by the Kannada writer Kuvempu it argues that such articulations shape the persistent view that Christians represent Western culture and values. Internalisation of this third-person perspective by the Indian Christians has obstructed a clear articulation of their self-perception as a minority group in a multi-religious context. This article will argue that it is important for the Christian minority to develop a first-person narrative that is neither defensive nor passive.

The Step Model of Transformative Religious Experiences: A Phenomenological Understanding of Religious Conversions in India

This is a phenomenological study of individual conversion experiences to Christianity from different religious traditions in India. The author has collected 165 accounts of conversion experiences by using maximum variant sampling and multiple methods of data collection. By using grounded theory, the author has generated a step model of transformative religious experiences. The step model incorporates the religious experience in conversion to which the converts attribute great significance. It accommodates both the role of religious practices and social psychological factors in the conversion process. This study also brings to light the hostilities to conversion in a multi-religious context.

Religion, Conflict and Boundary Politics in Sri Lanka

Boundaries have always been central to the dynamics of armed conflicts. Wars involve the activation and hardening of certain boundaries, thus dividing friend from foe. But despite the efforts of political potentates to carve out clearly delineated impermeable boundaries, people continue to travel across and sometimes challenge these boundaries. In this article, we study the boundary crossing practices of religious actors in eastern Sri Lanka, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious context affected by protracted war and a tsunami. We discuss two case studies, one on local conflict mediation activities and another on post-tsunami humanitarian work, to examine how religious actors engage with boundaries. We find that paradoxically, religious actors derive their ability to intervene in politically controversial issues because of their perceived distance from the ‘dirty’ world of politics. But conversely their religious and institutional identities are threatened when they become too visibly enmeshed in everyday politics. Les frontières ont toujours été centrales à la dynamique des conflits armés. Les guerres impliquent inévitablement l’ouverture et le blocage de certaines frontières, afin d’établir une division claire entre ami et ennemi. En dépit les nombreux efforts des potentats du monde destinés à établir des frontières clairement tracées et imperméables, celles-ci continuent néanmoins à être traversées, et sont même souvent contestées. Cet article se penche sur les pratiques transfrontalières des acteurs religieux au Sri Lanka oriental, un contexte multi-ethnique et multi-religieux affecté par une guerre prolongée et un tsunami. Nous développons deux études de cas, une portant sur des processus de médiation locale et l’autre sur le travail humanitaire post-tsunami, afin d’examiner comment les frontières affectent les acteurs religieux impliqués dans ces activités. Nous trouvons paradoxalement que la capacité d’intervention des acteurs religieux par rapport aux questions politiques controversées découle de leur distance vis-à-vis du monde « sale » de la politique, mais que leurs identités religieuses et institutionnelles sont menacées quand ils sont trop visiblement mêlés à la politique quotidienne.