Process Of Secularization Research Articles

Muslim bodies in secular European cemeteries

Muslims face many difficulties in burial spaces, some of which stem from a long history of secularisation of church cemeteries. While the process of secularisation made it possible for the bodies of Muslims to be placed in the denominational sections of municipal cemeteries in many Western European countries, it also maintained their biases in favor of majority customs, which are de facto places of Christian tradition. In both France and Germany, Muslims increasingly prefer to be buried in places that had been traditionally secularised rather than being returned to their countries of origin. Within this framework, a constant religionization is taking place, which, on the one hand, gives Muslims access to certain rights but, on the other hand, also brings with it the danger of the reification of their traditions and of their increasing public problematisation. I argue that Muslims who choose for themselves or for their relatives to be buried according to Islamic customs in European cemeteries become political as they become part of the public space with their differences visible to all. They commit ‘acts of citizenship’, mostly unconsciously, while claiming their rights for universal citizenship through manifesting their religious/cultural particularities. They enter and modify from within the materiality, affects, and sensibilities of the secular in European deathscapes.

Il confronto tra cristianesimo e comunismo nella secolarizzazione del XX secolo L’originale percorso di Mario Gozzini

In the backdrop of the confrontation between faith and politics, in particular the relationship of dialogue between Communism and Christianity in Italy during the secularization process of the 20th century, the essay aims to retrace the long biographical story of the Catholic intellectual (later elected as an independent senator in the lists of the Italian Communist Party) Mario Gozzini, with a special focus on the elements of continuity and discontinuity between modernism, the Second Vatican Council and religious dissent. By making nonconformist choices of freedom of conscience, expressing positions of dissent from the prevailing orientations in Catholicism, and paying for them personally with isolation and the risk of excommunication by the ecclesiastical side, Gozzini had the great ability to affect, outside of integralisms, on a double institutional front: 1) in church circles, he contributed to the gradual shift from a position of intransigent repulsion toward aspects of modernity and communism to an acceptance of certain changes in social customs, and an acceptance of believers' autonomy of political and social choice; 2) on the side of the state and political parties, he contributed to greater pluralism and a shift away from the PCI's atheistic positions on religion, evident in the ideological revision of Eurocommunism.

Color profiles of disk galaxies at z = 1–3 observed with JWST: Implications for outer-disk formation histories

We investigate the deconvolved color profiles of 223 disk galaxies at redshifts of z = 1–3 observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science survey (CEERS). The filters were selected to approximate the rest-frame B − Y color, which is used to identify U-shaped color profiles –those becoming progressively bluer with increasing radius, then turning redder beyond a specific point. We find that 36% of Type II (down-bending) disks exhibit U-shaped color profiles with a minimum at or near the disk break. In contrast, no Type I (single-exponential) disks and only 9% of Type III (up-bending) disks show such a profile. The presence of U-shaped color profiles in Type II disks likely arises from the interplay between a star-formation threshold and spiral- or bar-driven secular radial migration of older stars outward. The fraction of Type II disks exhibiting a U-shaped color profile remains almost consistent across two redshift bins, z = 1–2 and z = 2–3, but is significantly lower than that observed in the local Universe, likely because the secular process of radial migration at high redshift may not have had sufficient time to significantly influence the disk structure. The absence of U-shaped color profiles in Type II disks could point to rapid rather than secular radial star migration potentially caused by violent clump instabilities, transporting both younger and older stars to the outer disk. Our results provide useful constraints on the formation and evolution models of disk galaxies in the early Universe.

A secularização nos discursos de Joaquim Nabuco

The 1824 Constitution combines elements of permanence and rupture with the Old Regime, by introducing the right to religious freedom and maintaining the confessional model characterized by placet and patronage. Throughout the 19th century, the gradual and ambiguous advance of the secularization process, understood as the reduction of religion to the private field, led to a political crisis accentuated by the Religious Question (1872). This text aims to relate Joaquim Nabuco's perceptions about secularization with the decline of the confessional model and, to this end, considers the author's ideas about the relationship between the Church and the State in the period between 1873 and 1880. Nabuco's view on the subject is in line with the perspective of the liberal radicals of the 1870s who disputed with royalists, ultramontanes, and moderate radicals about the role that religion would play in Brazilian public life. These different positions of the political spectrum are projected into discordant interpretations of the maintenance of the confessional regime and its relationship with constitutional rights and freedoms. The research found the statesman's perception of the need for autonomy in Brazilian public life in relation to religion, which implied reducing the political reach of the Church, breaking with the model adopted by the Constitution of 1824. It is concluded that the thinking of Nabuco on secularization can be framed within what the statesman called Politics with a capital p, as he realizes that the separation of Church and State was inevitable for Brazil to progress.

Mechanisms of Secularization: Testing Between the Rationalization and Existential Insecurity Theories

The study tests two competing explanations of the secularization process related to rationalizing worldviews and decreasing existential insecurity. While the former explanation argues that people are unwilling to join religious groups because of increasing mechanistic understanding of the world that clashes with religious views (and is rather irreversible), the latter argues that it is the decreasing insecurity that causes secularization and that this trend can be reversed with increasing insecurity. In the present study, 811 secular participants from the USA and Poland played a modified version of the Nash demand game, which simulates dilemmas indexing cooperative insecurity. Participants were randomly assigned to either a secure or insecure environment, manipulated by the parameters of the Nash demand game, and we assessed whether they would be willing to join costly normative groups that regulate cooperation in the game. Crucially, participants were randomly assigned either to a secular condition (choosing between a secular normative group and a group with no norms)—our manipulation check—or a religious condition (choosing between a normative group with religious framing and a group without norms)—main test between the two theories. The results showed that participants in the secular condition were more likely to choose the normative group in the insecure compared to the secure environment, but this difference was inconclusive in the religious condition. However, when re-assigning participants from insecure to secure environments and vice versa, we found strong support for the existential insecurity theory. We discuss potential explanations for the discrepancy between stated and actual behavior as well as potential motivations for joining religious normative groups. This submission has been positively recommended by PCI RR (links to Stage 1 and Stage 2 recommendations).

God hasn’t died, it has merely been encapsulated – Psilocybin and ayahuasca in the psychedelic renaissance: Intersections between religion, indigenous cosmologies, spirituality, and science

This article traces the trajectories of psilocybin and ayahuasca in the context of the psychedelic renaissance. The bibliometric analysis reveals that academic publications on psilocybin fall primarily into the medical and scientific areas, whereas those devoted to ayahuasca derive mainly from humanities and social sciences. Second, the article argues that psilocybin and ayahuasca use is undergoing a process of secularization, leading to psychedelic use that is increasingly removed from its traditional cultural roots. This secularization manifests itself differently in the two cases: Psilocybin exhibits a higher degree of secularization than ayahuasca. Ayahuasca maintains strong ties to religious institutions and indigenous organizations deeply involved in its global spread, and it has undergone less medicalization than psilocybin. While the careful attention to setting in psilocybin clinical trials is noteworthy, this doesn’t necessarily imply an emphasis on traditional mushroom use settings. On the other hand, a form of ‘ayahuasca guardianship’ persists, manifested in individuals and groups actively maintaining and asserting their cultural authority over the plant’s significance and associated practices.

Responding to Life Itself: A Proposed Understanding of Domain, Goal and Interventions for Chaplaincy in a Secular Age.

In this article, we present a model of chaplaincy in a secular age which includes, in one coherent system: domain, goal and an intervention pathway. The domain is presented as the process of "responding to life itself". A corresponding goal of chaplaincy is considered in the context of "existential well-being". This goal can be achieved through the proposed "The Ritual Bath Model" based on these new defined concepts.

Modes of Mindfulness in Post-Catholic Ireland

The Republic of Ireland has undergone a seismic religious and social transformation in recent decades. Through the processes of secularization and detraditionalization, as well as several major scandals within the Irish Catholic Church, irreligiosity has become an increasing reality in terms of the hitherto overwhelmingly Catholic population. At a time of spiritual climate change in this post-Catholic Ireland, the contemporary phenomenon of mindfulness has exploded in popularity across various elements of society. Against this backdrop, three distinctive modes or strands of mindfulness are proposed as being operative in the Irish context, each catering to the needs of different practitioners. The proposed modes include psychological and clinical mindfulness and commodified and post-secular spirituality. Within the lacuna created by the receding of Catholic belief and practice, the emergence of mindfulness in the Irish context is explored, mapping how this originally Buddhist practice has gained such a foothold in contemporary spiritual discourse.

Religion, secularism, and postsecularism in Chinese internet literature

Abstract Internet literature emerged in China in the 1990s and became commercialized in the early 2000s, with readers paying an access fee, which is split between literary platforms and their contracted writers, to access popular novels. While the most popular genre is fantasy, a type of imaginative literature devoted to invoking magic beyond the limits of empirical reality and scientific rationality, the primary source of magic for Chinese fantasy is traditional Chinese cosmology and its concrete applications in everyday practices. These ideas and practices, the onto-epistemic-practical foundation of Chinese religion before the twentieth century, were considered superstitious and targeted for elimination in modernizing and secularization processes. However, they have not only survived but taken up a new life in fantasy novels, which depict them as the antecedents of, alternatives to, or more advanced forms than modern scientific endeavors at engineering natural environments and enhancing human bodies. This is why I see online fantasy literature as a palimpsest bearing the traces of Chinese religion, Chinese secularism, and the social conditions of contemporary China. In bearing such traces, this literature exemplifies the postsecular.

Secularization: A Response from Canon Law Based on the Concept of the “Church on the Move” and Cooperation with the Civil Order in Cases of Abuse of Minors by Priests

The influence of secularization and secularism in today’s society has led to a process of privatization of religion. Faced with this reality, Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, has promoted the need for a pastoral conversion, betting on a “Church going out” that, on the one hand, can cope with this process and, on the other hand, go out to meet all those people who suffer in the existential peripheries. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, through a qualitative and quantitative methodology, how canon law is a reality that cannot stand aside from this call and how, in the specific area of child abuse within the Church, it must opt for a position that we call “expansion” or extra ecclesiam, capable of recognizing and dealing with the cases that have occurred, as well as operating a system of cooperation with the civil order, with the aim of promoting justice and the common good of society, in order to limit the growing process of secularization.

The Interaction Between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity in the Meiji Period

Although initially fraught with tension, spanning roughly two decades, Buddhists employed various strategies to combat the spread of Christianity and uphold their traditional values. As the 1890s dawned, a new wave of Buddhists emerged, spearheading the reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism through processes of secularization and westernization in alignment with the currents of the Meiji Restoration. This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan following the Perry Expedition. By scrutinizing the writings and orations of numerous Buddhist leaders spanning the period from the 1860s to the 1890s, this paper elucidates the multifaceted conflicts and interactions between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. A nuanced analysis of their endeavors, reveals the evolving dynamics and strategies employed by both religions in navigating their coexistence in Japan's religious landscape, where both involuntarily made corresponding relative changes to be involved in social trends and Japanese traditions. This paper also discusses the cooperation and potential union between the two religions at the beginning of the 19th century, when New Buddhists received education in Western philosophy and examined Christianity. In short, the Buddhist-Christian relationship underwent a conversion from opponents to equal religion, even collaboratively enforcing social justice and care.

The Interaction Between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity in the Meiji Period

Although initially fraught with tension, spanning roughly two decades, Buddhists employed various strategies to combat the spread of Christianity and uphold their traditional values. As the 1890s dawned, a new wave of Buddhists emerged, spearheading the reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism through processes of secularization and westernization in alignment with the currents of the Meiji Restoration. This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan following the Perry Expedition. By scrutinizing the writings and orations of numerous Buddhist leaders spanning the period from the 1860s to the 1890s, this paper elucidates the multifaceted conflicts and interactions between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. A nuanced analysis of their endeavors, reveals the evolving dynamics and strategies employed by both religions in navigating their coexistence in Japan's religious landscape, where both involuntarily made corresponding relative changes to be involved in social trends and Japanese traditions. This paper also discusses the cooperation and potential union between the two religions at the beginning of the 19th century, when New Buddhists received education in Western philosophy and examined Christianity. In short, the Buddhist-Christian relationship underwent a conversion from opponents to equal religion, even collaboratively enforcing social justice and care.

The Appeal and Perils of Religious Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis

The question of how Christians should engage politically is a matter of perennial debate. Ever since the time of Emperor Constantine and the “Christianization” of the Roman Empire, a particularly fraught question is the relationship between Christianity and political power. In Europe’s medieval kingdoms, Christians wielded tremendous political power, and even after the rise of secular nation-states, a Christian worldview remained heavily influential. The process of secularization has meant that that influence has waned, and some Christians have adopted the rhetoric of “Christian nationalism” in a defensive effort to hold onto power. This article seeks to describe the appeal of this political ideology in Central and Eastern Europe, in the context of secularization, with reference to parallel trends in the United States. It also provides a theological critique of some of its problems, including its idolatrous tendencies.

Secularisation as the Fragmentation of the Sacred and of Sacred Space

Contemporary conflicts about secularity in ‘the West’ tend to focus on public space. Although collective Christian heritage means that public space is rarely exclusively neutral, conflicts continue to arise over the relationship between secularity and religious symbolism, and especially over those symbols which derive from religious minorities. This contribution critically considers the designation of space as either sacred or secular in political imaginaries, approaching processes of secularisation as part of a fragmentation of the sacred and of sacred space. We introduce the concept of trans-liminal space: spaces which can contain multiple and potentially conflicting ascriptions of meaning. Conceptualizing public space as trans-liminal allows for contemporaneous and competing ascriptions of the secular, the sacred, the secular-sacred, and the sacred-secular, without being exclusively grounded in either. Trans-liminality does not preclude public space to be predominantly secular, but it does problematise the phenomenon of normative exclusions of religious symbols from public spaces.

Contemporary Turkish and Western historiography on post-secularisation processes in Turkey

The assessment of secularisation and post-secularisation processes that took place in Turkey in the 20th century are associated by scholars with internal and global socio-political processes such as collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the course towards Westernisation, the development of capitalism, the confrontation between the West and the USSR, etc. This issue was preferred as the subject of the study as it is topical due to the revival of religious values, despite the secularisation processes that engulfed many countries worldwide. This article examines the representation of post-secularisation processes in Turkey through assessing the works of Western and Turkish scholars. The analysis of these works provides an understanding of the consequences of historical events in the form of the phenomenon of “religious revival”.

Acceptance of euthanasia by students of selected study disciplines at universities in Lublin, Poland

BackgroundIn the context of discussions between supporters and opponents of euthanasia, and legal regulations regarding this type of practices, the attitude of young people with respect to this phenomenon is a very interesting issue. According to Polish law, euthanasia is prohibited. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of acceptance of euthanasia among students from Polish universities across three different fields of study: psychology, medicine, and economic-technical disciplines, and to identify the factors associated with the acceptance of this phenomenon.MethodsThe study included 627 persons studying in Lublin, Poland: medicine (280), psychology (170), and economic-technical studies (177). The study was conducted as a survey using questionnaire containing items concerning students’ attitudes towards euthanasia. The analysis of the collected data was conducted using the SPSS software (version 29) with the following methods: Chi2, Student’s t-test, Phi test, Cramer’s V test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, one-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s post hoc test, linear regression analysis, and categorical regression analysis using optimal scaling (CATREG).ResultsNearly half of the students participating in the study (45.9%) rated the practice of euthanasia as decidedly negative. The highest number of strongly negative evaluations was found among psychology students, and the least among students of economic-technical disciplines. The level of acceptance of euthanasia is significantly associated with religious involvement and studying psychology. Being religious and being a psychology student both contribute to lower acceptance of euthanasia and a lower willingness to consent to euthanasia. Consent to euthanasia is more commonly declared by individuals with experience of living with elderly people.ConclusionsAlthough nearly half of the respondents expressed a negative attitude towards euthanasia, considering the secularization process among Polish youth, it can be assumed that the level of acceptance of euthanasia in this social group will increase. The lower level of acceptance of euthanasia among psychology and medical students compared to students of economic-technical disciplines suggests that the curricula of these studies present alternative solutions to the problems of terminally ill patients other than euthanasia.

Зло как категория современного политического мышления

The article attempts to analyze the understanding of evil both in contemporary political discourse and in everyday word usage. For this purpose, it is proposed to revisit the problem of theodicy, since evil is almost always used in a religious sense. The article distinguishes between the process of secularization, as a result of which the omnipotence of God becomes the property and instrument of political power, and the deconstruction of Christianity, which allows us to move from political theology to secular theodicy, where our ability to think and recognize evil in the world, rather than the problem of God's justification, comes to the fore. The author argues that this is impossible within the framework of political theology, where political evil always conceals and justifies itself. This is the fate of all theodicies, which Kant calls “doctrinal,” in which reason, making a claim against god (or transcendence) is always able to justify it. Kant considers the Book of Job to be the only “authentic” theodicy in which it is suffering itself, or Job's conscience, immanent to the world, that sues god. This is an important step in the direction of secular theodicy, but it is also limited in its desire to be subsumed by deity or authority. The paper suggests that we should pay attention to Job's wife's call to her husband to “curse the Lord and die.” These words become the origin of an alternative theodicy – a theodicy of action, a theodicy of the victim refusing to speak to god. The author finds the beginnings of such a theodicy in Jules Michelet's historical analysis of the religious massacres of witches, where the latter appear as victims, as well as in Jean Amery's analysis of torture and his idea of the rehabilitation of the ressentiment. The line of rebellion leading from the words of Job's wife to the unprecedented forms of violence of power provoked by the fear of this rebellion leads to the understanding of evil not as religious (opposing good), but as a political phenomenon of the modern world, manifested in excessive violence against the powerless victim.

The future of religious pasts: religion and cultural heritage-making in a secular age – introduction

ABSTRACT The question of how to symbolize collective identities in an age marked by both nationalist fervor and diversity politics has dominated public debates and highlighted the political role of religion. But what happens to religious objects, sites, and practices when they are framed as cultural heritage? What are the forces behind the ways in which religion is drawn into the dynamics around cultural heritage and heritage-making in secular societies? And why and how do some religious places become iconic sites of cultural heritage, arousing both national sentiments and global concerns? In this article, we explore the complex politics around religion and cultural heritage and scrutinize how they intersect with processes of secularization, and regimes of diversity and secularism. We argue that there is a growing tendency in contemporary societies to culturalize religion, suggesting that the framing of collective heritage is closely linked to what counts as religion and as culture in everyday life and in official discourse. We theorize this dynamic through the concept of ‘heritage religion’ and contend that it offers a distinctive material perspective on the culturalisation of religion. Drawing on Durkheim, we point out how processes of religious heritage-making produce new forms of sacredness.

From Secularism to Islamism: A Portrait of Minority Dynamics in Turkey's Changing Political Landscape

This study examines the evolving dynamics of minority groups within Turkey's shifting political landscape, from Atatürk's secular reforms to the rise of Islamist ideology under Erdoğan's leadership. It traces Turkey's political transformation from the decline of the Ottoman Empire through the establishment of a secular republic and the recent resurgence of Islamic influence in governance. The research employs qualitative methods, including historical analysis and case studies, to explore how these political shifts have impacted minority rights, cultural expressions, and societal integration. Findings reveal that both secularization and Islamization processes have presented challenges for minority communities, albeit in different ways. The study highlights the ongoing tension between modernization, traditional values, and religious identity in shaping Turkey's national character and its treatment of minority groups. This research contributes to broader discussions on the role of religion in public life, the limits of secularism, and the complexities of managing diversity in modern nation-states.

Politický mýtus, Thomas Robert Malthus a vznik árijské rasové imaginace

The emergence of Nazi ideology and the rise of Nazism represented one of the most dramatic and tragic events of modern times, the consequences of which humanity is still dealing with today. The doctrine of the superiority of the Aryan race was an integral part of Nazi doctrine and served as a “scientific” justification for German expansionism and the policy of ethnic genocide. The Nazi conception of the German nation as the chosen Aryan racial community was identified as an example of a modern political myth by Henry Tudor in the early 1970s [Tudor 1972: 16]. We will attempt to explain the rise of Aryan ideology using the concept of political myth and Blumenberg’s notion of “work on myth” as the result of the long development of Western genealogical speculation, which underwent a process of secularization during the Enlightenment and once combined with stimuli coming from contemporary natural sciences, was used under the conditions of modern industrial society to “rationally” legitimize inequalities between people. A parallel development, consisting in the attempt to deny by scientific arguments the equality of human beings, despite the spread of liberal ideas inspired, among others, by the American and French Revolutions, took place in the economic sciences, where the doctrine of the British political economist Thomas Robert Malthus gained prominence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Malthusianism, Aryan race ideology, Social Darwinism, or the eugenics movement thus had a common denominator, which Friedrich August von Hayek called the “counter-revolution of science” or Zeev Sternhell “counter-Enlightenment”.