Pluralistic Situation Research Articles

Inculturation in the Catholic Church in Indonesia

Indonesia consists of different ethnicities, cultures, religions, and beliefs. This diversity is a gift, but also a challenge for the Indonesian nation. Differences that exist often cause problems and conflicts between tribes and between religions and beliefs. In the midst of this pluralistic situation, the Church in Indonesia needs to develop inculturation in order to be open and to be able to make dialogue with every culture that exists in Indonesia, with different religions and beliefs as well as with the concrete situation occurring in Indonesia. This paper uses an analytical descriptive method to describe and analyze the concrete situation of the Church in its efforts to respond to socio-religious and political problems and challenges in Indonesia. It appears that the Church in Indonesia is very open and fully respond to every problem and challenge that exist in the midst of Indonesian people and society. This paper is expected to be an inspiration for the local Churches in developing its role to contribute to the development of the nation and the State of Indonesia, as well as to be an inspiration to other Churches in other parts of the world wherever experiencing situations more or less similar to the pluralistic situation in Indonesia.

Expansion of Religious Pluralism in Korean Civil Society: A Case Study of Conscientious Objection in South Korea

This paper analyzes a socio-cultural adaptation of the concept of religious pluralism, focusing on the matter of conscientious objection in Korean pluralistic situation. The issue of conscientious objection in Korea has extended from a religious and philosophical field to a political, diplomatic, and international problem, being influenced heavily by IRFR and UNHRC. Regardless of their numerical marginality, its social implication is revealed more clearly in recent decisions of local or higher courts and triggers another significant public discourse on how Korean civil society should expand a concept of pluralism to integrate them. The paper concludes that the concept of pluralism advances into an operational principle to prop up the civil society of Korea beyond the narrow concept of religious pluralism.

Health-Seeking Nomads and Faith-Healing in a Medically Pluralistic Context in Mbeya, Tanzania

Abstract1The popularity of faith-healing in sub-Saharan Africa has been widely acknowledged in research, but mostly treated as a phenomenon apart, instead of being viewed in relation to other modes of healing. In this article I focus on the reasons why believers choose faith-healing in a medically pluralistic situation and how they see other healing options available in a locally founded Charismatic church community, the Gospel Miracle Church for All People (GMCL), in the Southern Tanzanian city of Mbeya. I propose that, in order to see the medically pluralistic context in Tanzania through the journeys of health-seeking nomads, the focus must lie on two intertwined aspects of faith-healing: first, it is inevitably based on the need to be healed and speaks of a failure of biomedicine to explain illness and provide healing; and second, the long journeys that are made in search of healing mean traversing boundaries and switching between parallel healing systems: biomedicine, traditional healing, and faith-healing. While health seeking nomads are in many ways in a vulnerable position, I suggest that their ability to move from one healing option to another speaks of agency: not in the sense of full control over their life situations but, rather, as a way of coming to terms with their illness.

THE ROLE OF CIVIL RELIGION FORMING CIVIL SOCIETY THROUGH PRACTICING RELIGIOUS COMMENT

Modern society requires the new symbol rituals development to create a solidarity in a pluralistic country such Indonesia. This is what sociologists called civil religion. Andrew Shauks stated that civil religion is not a true religion as existing religious practices; it did not compete with conventional traditions, but it is existing on it and break it bonds. The same idea also explained by Olaf Schuman that civil religion is not a religious source for someone where he gained his understanding of the identity and social obligations. It remains a resource is the existence of religion civil religion should not and could not be a substitute powerless religions. Civil religion is not like a religion and not a rival to the existing religions. Rather it part, it exist of religions and values and norms generated by them to ensure a life together that is sustainable and harmony in an pluralistic society situation to create society (civil society), an open society, egalitarian, and tolerant based on ethical values, moral transdental

For Comparative Theology's Christian Skeptics:An Invitation to Kenotic Generosity in the Religiously Pluralistic Situation

In present–day North America, with mosques and temples springing up a few streets from synagogues, cathedrals, and steepled church houses, a state of religious plurality is becoming undeniably more pronounced. In the wake of 9/11, the tensions ushered in by this shifting landscape are also increasing—not least for Christian believers who have shadowy notions of the religious “other” and are concerned about the realities of a pluralistic, post–Christian American society. Meanwhile, Christian scholars and practitioners engaged in the burgeoning field of comparative theology view this pluralistic situation not as a daunting challenge; rather, they view it in terms of its constructive potential. For them, religious pluralism is not an obstacle to be overcome but an opportunity for rich theological inquiry and practice. Thus, these comparative theologians urge their fellow Christians to take up a distinct form of conversation with the religious newcomer, guided by peaceful interreligious dialogue and the understanding that interreligious learning is a worthy aim.

Islamic Law, Adat and State Law Franz von Benda-Beckmann on Systems of Property and Inheritance in Minangkabau

Franz von Benda-Beckmann is a famous figure in the field of legal pluralism. He is one among scholars who propose to understand the plurality of norms in a society. Among his many works, those on Minangkabau are well-known in the study of Anthropology of Law (Rechtsethnologie). This article attempts to analyse his ideas in a book entitled Property in Social Continuity: Continuity and Change in the Maintenance of Property Relationships through Time in Minangkabau, West Sumatra published in 1979. It has its relevance in the seminar Anthropology of Islamic Law, especially when the book talked about the pluralistic situation of laws in Minangkabau on problems of property and inheritance. Because the book is predominantly about Minangkabau adat, the author focuses on adat’s relation with Islamic law and more specifically on the problem of inheritance which has been a source of much “competition” between both systems to regulate the society. Keyword: Islamic law, adat, Minangkabau, anthropology, legal pluralism

Fatah e il processo di istituzionalizzazione: la lunga strada della Sesta Conferenza

The Fatah movement, the backbone of Palestinian national movement, faces a period of deep transformation. In the aftermath of Arafat’s death and with the decline of peace process, the movement has known a period of internal debate since 2005, in order to reshape the political space influenced by the emergence of Islamist challenge. This reform process follows two main directions: the internal reorganization and the political program. These topics constitute the base for the convening of the movement’s Sixth Conference, that could be read as the key factor for the transformation of Palestinian political system within an uncertain institutional framework, that of Palestinian National Authority. This work analyzes under which conditions Fatah movement is driving its transformation towards the institu- tionalization from a typical national liberation movement to a political party. Considering that the national aims have not been achieved yet, the Palestinian political landscape is shifting from a situation of one ruling party to a pluralistic de-facto situation, undoubtedly not the rule in the Arab world.

<i>Evangelization and Religious Freedom:</i> Ad Gentes, Dignitatis Humanae (review)

Reviewed by: Evangelization and Religious Freedom:Ad Gentes, Dignitatis Humanae Mary Doak Evangelization and Religious Freedom:Ad Gentes, Dignitatis Humanae. By Stephen B. Bevans and Jeffrey Gros. [Rediscovering Vatican II.](Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. 2009. Pp. xii, 259. $21.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-809-14202-6.) The publication of Evangelization and Religious Freedom:Ad Gentes, Dignitatis Humanae completes the Paulist Press series Rediscovering Vatican II. This latest volume is an excellent resource, providing a lucid overview of the state of contemporary debates and practices in the Catholic Church on the topics of missionary activity ( Ad Gentes) and of religious freedom ( Dignitatis Humanae). Following the approach of the other volumes in this series, the two Vatican II documents chosen for this volume are each analyzed in four steps: (1) a discussion of the history and development of the document at the Council, (2) an analysis of the major points of the final text, (3) an assessment of the document's implementation since the Council, and (4) a discussion of current debates on the topic addressed by the document. This approach allows for a [End Page 776]thorough yet concise presentation of each conciliar document, locating the text within its historical context and clarifying its contribution to theological debate and to the life of the Church. The analyses of the documents serve historians, theologians, and pastoral leaders equally well. Nearly two-thirds of the book is devoted to Stephen Bevans's analysis of Ad Gentes, "The Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity." This engaging presentation situates Ad Gentesamid the dramatic shifts in attitudes toward Christian missionary activity that followed the end of colonialism in the twentieth century. Bevans attends especially to the contribution made by Ad Gentesand by other conciliar documents to the development of a dialogical approach to mission work that strives to value the local culture and to work for global justice, even while Bevans insists (in agreement with recent papal statements) that proclamation of the Gospel cannot be neglected. Bevans succeeds here in integrating complex historical and theological assessments into a coherent yet nuanced account that communicates a deep understanding not only of the Second Vatican Council but also of the centrality of missions to the life of the Church. In pointing to the emerging attention to reconciliation, and to the still unresolved challenges to the theology of mission posed by globalization, migration, and the role of women, Bevans clarifies that mission is inextricably involved in the ongoing development of a theology adequate to the twenty-first century. Jeffrey Gros's discussion of Dignitatis Humanae, "The Declaration on Religious Freedom," also achieves an impressively clear and insightful analysis of the teachings of this conciliar document along with a summary of its historical context, its development, and the complexity of its varied implementation throughout the world. Religious freedom is, alas, a topic that cannot be easily contained given the variety of contexts and issues with a claim to attention; yet this section of the book is considerably shorter than is Bevans's discussion of mission activity. Hence, one is left with the impression that there is less coherence in the understanding and implementation of Dignitatis Humanaethan of Ad Gentes, which is probably true. In any case, Gros does an admirable job of guiding us quickly through the many issues at stake in Dignitatis Humanaeand through the different historico-political contexts in which the document was received. Gros's attention to the need to catechize people unaccustomed to negotiating a religiously pluralistic situation is especially commendable, but more attention to the contentious debates over the meaning of religious freedom today would not have been amiss. If one could read only one book on either Ad Gentesor Dignitatis Humanae, this book should be it. With all that has been written on these documents and on the Second Vatican Council, the historical, theological, and practical overviews provided here are invaluable. [End Page 777] Mary Doak University of San Diego Copyright © 2009 The Catholic University of America Press

What After Pluralism? Ulysses Still on the Road

In this work I intend to convey from an autobiographic perspective what it meant for me to become an analyst in a small Latin American country, in an especially turbulent moment in its history. When I graduated from medical school and began my psychoanalytic training, there were marked contrasts in Uruguay. In the political arena there was a long military dictatorship during which human rights and freedom of expression were not respected, while within the Psychoanalytic Association of Uruguay a cultural ambience of pluralism and freedom of thought rich with European tradition could be felt. The existence of multiple approaches—both theoretical and technical—is a positive thing, depending on the way the differences are dealt with. I will reveal some characteristics of the coexistence of various perspectives in Uruguay and reflect on the conditions that made our pluralistic situation a fostering factor for psychoanalysis.

A Correlational Model of Comparative Theology

Next article No AccessA Correlational Model of Comparative TheologyHugh Nicholson Hugh NicholsonCoe College Search for more articles by this author Coe CollegePDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 85, Number 2April 2005 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/427313 Views: 41Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref © 2005 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Davide Tacchini Migration and the Need for Reconciliation in Contemporary Western Europe, (Mar 2022): 61–74.https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666568565.61Paul Hedges Comparative Theology, Brill Research Perspectives in Theology 1, no.11 (Oct 2017): 1–89.https://doi.org/10.1163/24683493-12340001Reid B. Locklin Śabda Pramāṇa and Prophetic Witness: Barthian and Advaitin Perspectives in Dialogue, The Journal of Religion 94, no.44 (Jul 2015): 485–503.https://doi.org/10.1086/677289Francis X. Clooney SJ Comparative Theology and Inter‐Religious Dialogue, (Apr 2013): 51–63.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118529911.ch4Haslina Ibrahim, Khadijah Mohd Khambali @ Hambali, Suraya Sintang, Nurhanisah Senin, Suhaida Shaharud-din, Mahmud Ahmad, Mohd Roslan Mohd Nor, Nor Adina Abdul Kadir The Role of Comparative Religion Curricula in Intra–Inter Civilizational Dialogue, Religious Education 108, no.11 (Jan 2013): 28–40.https://doi.org/10.1080/00344087.2013.747851 Bibliography, (Apr 2011): 226–240.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444393644.biblio

American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism

American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism. By Dean Grodzins. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Pp. xiii, 631. Illustrated. Cloth, $39.95.)As Peter Berger once reminded us, the root word for heresy is haerisis, which literally means choice. (Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural [1969], 45). He notes: Every religious community in the pluralistic situation becomes a 'heresy,' with all the social and psychological tenuousness that the term suggests. Berger was speaking of the modern world in general and especially of the twentieth century, but his insight seems even appropriate to the United States in its infancy. Heresy has been, in principle, the coin of the American religious realm since the approval of the Constitution and has brought a steady flow of creativity as well as an unprecedented inflation of choice to United States religion. These days, it is in the realm of politics or intellectual life that heretics delight in slamming positions or methodologies. As for the American topography of faith, it has become so crowded with heresies that one hardly ever uses the word to distinguish one turn from another.All the more reason, then, to find a certain poignancy in the title of Dean Grodzins's deeply researched, elegantly written, and altogether convincing portrait of Theodore Parker (1810-1860). The antebellum era encompassed the first great creative moments of heretical challenge to established and recently disestablished orthodoxies and often retained in its religious battles at least the aroma of apocalypse and martyrdom. Theodore Parker, the once famous Transcendentalist colleague of Emerson and Thoreau and minister to Boston's abolitionist community, was a warrior among warriors, a passionate believer who sought to rekindle the power of liberal faith in what he viewed as a moribund Unitarian community. For some decades lost on historians' long list of American reformers, good for a quote or caricature but dependent for continued existence on Henry Steele Commager's lively but dated Theodore Parker (1936), this complicated soul has finally found his consummate biographer. American Heretic, the first of two volumes, takes Parker from birth to 1845, the year before he founded Boston's Free Church and decisively entered into the political controversies of the day.At the center of this era was Parker's dark and complicated journey of the soul, one that drew him to the ministry and transformed him from a Biblically-based Unitarian to an almost frighteningly creative Transcendentalist religious virtuoso. he began at Harvard's Divinity School in April 1834 and, following some of his teachers, soon began to imbibe early historical approaches to the Old Testament and prophecy. he also found models of inner religious commitment in Henry Ware Jr. and William Ellery Channing, whose moderate abolitionism also shaped Parker' s social vision. Yet it was the religious radicalism of Transcendentalism that brought him from apprenticeship to the full blossoming of his intellectual and religious powers. …

Theologie der Säkularisation heute: Post-säkulare Theologie

Article Theologie der Säkularisation heute: Post-säkulare Theologie was published on January 1, 1997 in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie (volume 39, issue 1).

La foi chrétienne dans une situation de pluralisme culturel

Rector of St. Joseph' s University, Beyrouth, the author considers himself in the Near Eastern context of Lebanon, at the confines of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This enables him to (a) evoke the cultural status of Revelation and (b) to reflect on his own acceptance in a university context which itself grows in a cultural pluralistic situation. Three unseparable characteristics are proper to Christian Revelation : Transcendence, Historicity and Universality. ; Salvation is infact not to be considered as any human culture ; it is realized in a sequence ofevents and destined to ail, open to ail cultures. The author goes on to show how a Catholic University, privileged place of dialogue between faith and cultures, is directly concerned by the cultural status of Revelation and must thus put into place its triple and undissociable components : a mission of critical analysis and of training to discernment in given political, economie, scientific, cultural and religious situations. ; Thus transcendence calls for a special attention to be paid to the intellectual factors, to the languages and to politics. In university teaching and research, the importance and the weight recognized to history will allow for a role of catharsis in favor of the faith so as to extract from it, beyond historical conditions, the permanent valued as well as the most fundamental meanings. Cultural pluralism should not cause unsurmountable problems to university teaching : it requires recognition of resembling elements and demands not to radicalize differences.

THEOLOGICAL PLURALISM: AN ASIAN RESPONSE TO DAVID TRACY

The topic originally given to me was very broad and I have taken the liberty to narrow it down drastically to the present one. Although I have not managed to keep up much with American theology since I completed my graduate theological studies at Chicago and left for Hong Kong over twenty years ago, I have not forgotten the impression of richness and vitality of American theology, a characteristic of its pluralism. Now David Tracy, himself a product of this pluralism, seeks to address it directly with a revisionist model of theology.' In Blessed Rage for Order (1975) and The Analogical Imagination (1981)2 Tracy has presented to the American public not only an analysis of the pluralistic situation of contemporary American theology but also a reconstructed model of how theology should be done in just that situation. A third volume, when it appears, should complete his great work, which will likely become a milestone in the development of American religious thought. I am much impressed by Tracy's work and have learned much from him, not only for his encyclopedic learning but also, more important, for his liberal and irenic spirit. I wish to thank Professor Ray L. Hart for suggesting Tracy to me for this occasion and am grateful to the Academy for allowing me the honor to make an address on American theology as Tracy has envisioned it. There is much in Tracy's works to which I resonate. As I read him, I often found that he seemed to be addressing me, describing what I in my own situation was trying to do in theology or philosophy of religion. There are many things in his works that are exciting to

The Pluralistic Situation and the Coming Dialogue between the World Religions

I have been invited here because of two hats I wear: one as a sociologist; other as someone who has at least an amateur interest in theology. Sociology has been very well described by a number of people as being latest, and perhaps most pernicious, expression of what Friedrich Nietzsche called the art of mistrust. The basic intellectual thrust of sociology as a field is fundamentally destructive. It is debunking, it is irreverent, it is distrustful-in fullest sense of word-in that it mistrusts facades of human life, including pretentions of human ideologies, thought systems, beliefs, and what have you. Religion, on other hand, in its very essense is trust. It was Martin Luther who said that faith (fides) is essentially trust (fiducia). And I think that one does not have to be a Protestant to say more or less same thing. I think at very heart of religious attitude of human beings is an act of trust in final benevolence of reality. So there is, I think, a very fundamental tension between these two possible movements of human mind. I personally find this tension very creative indeed. It does not trouble me. When I'm a sociologist, recalling that I'm also a Christian protects me from kind of melancholy that led Max Weber to answer once, when someone asked him, If you feel this way about Sociology, Professor Weber, why do you go on doing it? Because I want to see how much I can stand. Being religious-not just Christian, but any kind of religious attitudeprotects one from this kind of conclusion. On other hand, being a sociologist keeps me honest in my thinking about religion and I think there are very few areas of human life which are as prone to dishonesty and illusion as religious enterprise-and for very good reason. I won't go on with this; I say it as an opening observation, because it is a problem. Since this is primarily a gathering of religious types, there is an air of great reverence and solemnity about some of these proceedings which I am

Aboriginal Culture Classes at Balgo Hills School

There is much discussion today of the need in education to recognize the culturally pluralistic situation in which many Aboriginal children find themselves. Balgo Hills school shows one effective way of implementing this recognition. What approaches are being taken in other schools in Australia?

The Transcendental or the Political Kingdom?—I: Reflexions on a theological dispute

It is no longer possible to speak as if Catholic theology were a selfevident unified whole. There are many Catholic theologies now being constructed within the Church community, and there are correspondingly many philosophies being presupposed by this pluralism of theological languages. Neoscholastic philosophy and theology, despite the still considerable authority behind them, now form just one language among many: the evidence mounts that this ‘privileged’ language is increasingly a dead language for students of theology. The refusal to face this pluralistic situation is dangerous, the inability to face it tragic: one need only reflect on recent papal encyclicals to see what occurs when the ideology of the one language gropes and flails about in the room of the many languages like Nabokov’s blind man.The existence of a theological pluralism merely poses the problem, it does not solve it. The problem is that of theological meaning generally. How can theology perform its task of communicating between Church and world, gospel and life, when organized religion appears to many increasingly irrelevant and atheism has become less a particular mode of thought than a normal mode of existence? This question, if taken seriously, would bring the various emergent theologies out of that peaceful coexistence with each other which is often just the other side of their encapsulation from the real problems of life. Certainly, the kind of confrontation envisaged here presupposes certain rules. The language of the opposed and opposing theology would have to be understood—the lack of this understanding vitiates, to my mind, the attacks of Maritain and Von Hildebrand on the so-called ‘new theology’.