Religious Choice Research Articles

In and out of the city: Generational disaffiliation among evangelicals in the age of mobility and religious choice

The intergenerational transmission effect reveals an important trend behind the current growth of ‘nones’ in Canada, the fastest-growing religious identity in North America. On the other hand, ‘dones’, who distinguish themselves from ‘nones’ in terms of non-religion, reveal another important facet of this trend. These are people who have distanced themselves from their religious affiliation. This article highlights issues of generational succession and religious transmission in the disaffiliation process. Drawing from qualitative interviews with 12 formerly self-identifying evangelicals aged 25 to 36 in Quebec, it argues that evangelical disaffiliations are also influenced by the religious choices of one’s parents. Like their children, parents’ conversion often involved disaffiliation from the religion of their upbringing, which in Quebec is mostly Roman Catholic. In the contemporary context, high geographical mobility also plays an important role in the disaffiliation of these young evangelicals, creating the conditions for a gradual erosion of social ties. At the same time, the emergence of new urban churches, combined with a sense of generational unity, has created a space for transition outside the traditional evangelical milieu. Taken together, these factors suggest that, even in evangelicalism, a religious movement that resisted decline until very recently, certain features of modern religious transmission are implicated in the disaffiliation process.

Tribal mobilization for religious identity and political space: ongoing demand for inclusion of Sarna-Tribal religion in the census of India

ABSTRACT The public mobilization of religious communities to acquire political space has been a heated discussion among scholars worldwide. Research reveals a long history of religious communities participating in political movements. However, in India, the debate on the recognition and protection of religious identity has been reduced to a discourse of minority versus majority religion. This paper examines the ongoing political mobilization by tribal communities in the state of Jharkhand and its demand for a separate religious column in the census of India. The underlying motive of this mobilization is to establish their religious identity, which is separate from both Hinduism and Christianity, and to resist the encroachment of tribal land by campaigning for tribal control over state resources through strengthening the constitutional provisions. The study focuses on tribal protests on social media platforms, in addition to the 2019 protest at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, initiated by tribal groups demanding the Sarna-tribal religion as a legitimate religious choice in the census of India. The study used qualitative inductive analysis on data sourced through participant observation and 50 semi-structured interviews. The results prove that the ongoing protest for the recognition of the Sarna-tribal religion is stimulated by the threat to their religious identity and land rights. Additionally, social media played a crucial role in informing, mobilizing, and stimulating feelings of collective group identity.

A Comparative Study of the Existential Resistance Consciousness of Camus and Shi Tiesheng

Albert Camus, the founder of "Absurdist Philosophy," portrays the absurdity and alienation of individuals in a strange world in his works. He opposes the ideology of submission, celebrates the spirit of resistance in adversity, and explores the true meaning of life. Shi Tiesheng, a renowned contemporary Chinese writer, questions the meaning of existence in the face of illness and hardship, reaching remarkable heights through imagination and speculation. Although there is ample research on both writers individually, there is a lack of comparative studies in literature and philosophy. This paper integrates relevant theories and recent research findings to conduct an in-depth study of the works and philosophical outlooks of Camus and Shi Tiesheng regarding existential dilemmas, religious choices, and collective resistance consciousness, exploring their explorations in resistance consciousness and existential challenges. Additionally, this paper explores the perspectives of Camus and Shi Tiesheng on the collective fate of humanity, discussing the insights brought about by people's reflections on modes of existence due to the global pandemic in 2019. This study broadens the research scope, deepening the understanding of these two writers, particularly regarding their existential resistance consciousness, which is inspiring for individuals to find meaning in adversity.

The tradition of the formation of religious communities among the Tatars of the Volga and Ural regions

The article discusses the foundations of the formation of the Tatar community of the mahalla. According to the author, the Tatar mahalla has two foundations: they are 1. The tribal, 2. The Religious. The community of Tatars was formed during the formation of tribal relations. Over time, tribal ties were consolidated by the religious choice of community members. The article gives an attempt to find out the reasons for the transition of the tribal system of community organization to the religious system. According to the author, religion has become a cementing element for a deeper strengthening of religious ties. The religion of Islam has become the basis of educational work in the community. The election of a religious-legal school was also strongly influenced by neighboring kindred peoples who could be related. Religion plays the role of institutionalizing the community elite and legalizing the powers of the elders and the community imam. It also played a role in the religious practice and rituals of the community.

Религия и ее значение в социокультурном бытии человека: духовно-практические смыслы семейно-родовой памяти

The connecting elements of the spirituality and religiosity of the individual are social meanings. The human mind rests on them in moments of truth. The authors analyze the basic foundation of spirituality of an individual - the family-patrimonial memory of the Siberian community. This is an element of spiritual life, capable of constructing social and cultural ethical meanings, determining the fate of people, comprehending one’s existence. Meaning is an epistemological value. It acts as a reference point for the need for a person’s religious choice. Family and tribal memory has a stabilizing cultural-creative function necessary for the reproduction and maintenance of the social order, enshrined in spiritual practices. Family and tribal memory is defined by the authors as a system of ideas, stereotypes, united by a value-semantic core (family solidarity in understanding one’s historical identity) with the spiritual and activity bases of mental structures for assessing the dynamics of historical events, filled with a variety of personal meanings at the level of semantic functions and variability of semantic interpretations. Family-patrimonial memory is narrative. The study of family mnemonic narratives allowed the authors to determine the significance of sociocultural trauma in the evolution of understanding of their religiosity by members of the Siberian territorial community. The array of interviews with the older generation of Siberians was divided into thematic clusters containing the semantic positions of performing spiritual practices or refusing them. These meanings are passed on by older generations to their grandchildren as a symbolic spiritual capital that influences the behavior of young members of the community. The unity of religiosity and the inconsistency of the content of social memory is devoted to the author’s study of the attitude towards religion of the multi-confessional Siberian community.

Nothingarians: The Fear of the Unchurched in Early National America

The term nothingarian suggests an under-studied presence in the history of the early republic: the religiously unaffiliated. Scholars routinely mention the term nothingarian, but few have examined its origins, uses, or significance in American history. Although it seems to have originated much earlier, as a term for members of the little-known Gortonist sect in Rhode Island, "nothingarian" would come to connote the irreligious, ambivalent, or unaffiliated person, one whom pollsters of religion today might call a "none," or a person of no organized religion. The fear of nothingarians was especially acute in the early republic because of the widespread disestablishment of official denominations, rapid spread of settlement on the frontier, and deep uncertainties about American national cohesion after independence. Many observers in early national America feared that disestablishment and religious choice would lead not to massive numbers of conversions, but to masses of indifferent, skeptical, or unaffiliated people. The term nothingarian is important because it was widely used (if poorly defined), and because it reflected widespread fears about preserving religious affiliation and building a new American nation in the absence of state churches or a national establishment.

Regulating Religious Choices: Foundations and Legitimacy of Anti-conversion Laws in India

Abstract In the last few years, there has been a conspicuous upsurge in the enactment of anti-conversion laws by many Indian states. Even though some states have had such laws since the 1960s, the recent ones are more aggressive and stringent, primarily aimed at making the conversion process cumbersome and illegal on additional grounds including marriage of inter-faith couples. The recent laws have been targeted for furthering the political agenda of love-jihad and violating the secular ideals enshrined in the Constitution. This article argues that the object of the recent anti-conversion enactments is largely political and reflects majoritarian disposition. It is further asserted that the inherent ambiguities in the grounds of unlawful conversion and procedural provisions of these laws are arbitrary, discriminatory, and violative of the right to equality, freedom of religion, marriage, and privacy recognised by the Constitution.

Secondary school teachers’ perceptions of Catholic school management in selected schools of Lusaka District

This paper presents the findings of a study conducted to assess Catholic and non-Catholic teachers’ perceptions of Catholic schools’ management in five selected Catholic secondary schools in Lusaka District of Zambia. The objectives of the study were to examine the experiences of teachers teaching in Catholic schools; to assess the teachers’ perceptions of their school management in the Catholic schools, to establish aspects that influence negative perception of teaching in a Catholic school, and to investigate how religious restrictions affected the morale of teachers teaching in Catholic schools. The study used a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews to generate data. Purposive sampling was used to select 25 participants that included five school head teachers; one in each school, ten Catholic teachers and ten non-Catholic teachers; two in each school that participated in the study. Data analysis was thematic. Among the key findings were that Catholic schools were managed via a strict school management model. Further findings revealed that key management positions were seen to be a preserve for Catholic teachers, management in the schools was perceived to be conservative and mass was made compulsory. Based on the findings, the study recommended the need to make the attendance of Mass, devotion, and other religious activities optional especially for non-Catholic teachers in order to respect religious choice and further adoption of flexible styles of management and minimum supervision of teachers. Positions in school management should be available for all teachers and learners and be based on merit first before religious faith.

«Другие» протестанты — смена религиозной идентичности

In this article, the author attempts to reveal some aspects related to the transformation of the confessional identity of members of Protestant religious organizations operating in the Southern, Middle and Polar Urals and identifying themselves as representatives of “other” ethnic groups that are not widespread in Russia. The article presents data on the confessional identity of the respondents and on the factors that contributed to their adoption of Protestant Christianity. The research materials allow us to conclude that the religious identity (or lack of it) of the respondents before coming to Protestantism is close to that of the respondents from the general sample in the Urals; most of all among the “other” Protestants were atheists or non-denominational theists who “simply” believed in God. Most of all, both among “other” Protestants and among believers from the general sample of those who came to Protestantism with the assistance of close people who enjoy the greatest trust: friends, parents, relatives and spouses. Domestic and foreign missionaries, as well as members of religious communities personally unknown to the respondent, played an insignificant role in the religious choice of the respondents from both samples. The data presented in the article demonstrate that the confessional affiliation (or lack of it) of the respondents before they adopted Protestantism, as well as the factors contributing to the acquisition of their religious identity by Protestants, do not depend on ethnic identity.

Explanation of the Trends and Recent Changes in Spanish Society Regarding Belief in God: Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Skepticism, and Belief

This article deals with the different religious counterpoints or beliefs that traditions of philosophy and thought have fundamentally defined around five positions or options: atheist, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, and belief. The aim is to explore the sociological conditioning factors behind these profiles, offering a meaningful explanation to help us understand the trends and recent changes in Spanish society. To this end, we analyzed two surveys, for the years 2008 and 2018, of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) on Religion in the context of Spain. The results highlight the variables of gender, age, and ideology to describe specific profiles, explain religious choices, and understand trends. In addition to the trend towards secularization, the results manifest an increase in the number of atheists and a decrease of believers, show increasing radicalization and right-wing ideology among believers, and a greater grounding of the meaning of life in the existence of God alone.

Revisiting the History of Religious Resistance to Vaccination in the Netherlands

This article provides a new framework for the history of religious objections to vaccination in the Netherlands. In public opinion and scholarly literature, these are often associated with the contemporary group of conservative Reformed people or inhabitants of the Dutch Bible Belt and projected back onto the past in a static way. In early modern times, however, reluctance to perform any preventive medical act on the human body was embedded in a general perception of the divine governance of daily life. During the eighteenth century, the innovation of inoculation was gradually accepted by medical and theological specialists, replacing providentialism by supernaturalism. In the nineteenth century, under the influence of orthodox Protestant opinion leaders, spiritual hesitation and anti-science feelings took the form of conscious religious choices and decided positions on personal freedom, especially in education. In the twentieth century, the movement against the vaccination policy of the national state became entangled with political and social mobilisation and theological legitimisation. The COVID-19 crisis reconfirmed the mix of religious and other objections. The reinterpretation of these developments bears on the direction and content of further cultural-historical research.

Aspectos da diversidade religiosa do estudante universitário: uma pesquisa com estudantes do Curso de História do Centro de Estudos Superiores de Parintins

This research seeks to outline the profile of higher education students in the History course at the State University of Amazonas (Parintins). The objective of the research is to analyze to what extent the experiences and content offered at the university influence the religious values ​​and behavior of young students, noting possible clashes between religion and science, as well as their impacts on the religious choices of young people in the history course, as well as discuss to what extent young people attribute the university experience to the progressive distancing from old religious beliefs and practices. The research used as a tool the application of a questionnaire built specifically for the reality of History students. The questionnaire has 61 multiple choice questions divided into 5 blocks.

The Potential of Catholic Schools: Public Virtues through Private Voucher

Recent US Supreme Court cases signal a likely increase in calls for K-12 school choice programs that include the option of enrolling in religious schools. In turn, criticism of religious school-inclusive school choice programming is likely to shift to policy and values-based critiques. This article addresses two allegations of Catholic primary and secondary school deficiencies in achieving objectives important to a pluralist society, allegations that would invalidate indirect state support of Catholic schools. By analyzing the aesthetics of Hans Georg Gadamer and Aristotelian moral theory in light of American Catholic schools’ potential, this paper rejects claims that Catholic education is unlikely to meet core needs of a contemporary pluralist society.

The phenomenon of human freedom when making a personal choice

The article is sanctified to the displays of various forms realizations of religious choice, that assist self-realization of personality. The aim of the article consists in research of the phenomenon of freedom of man at realization by her the personal religious choice, conceptions of freedom creation in her modern kind and taking into account of the latest models of perception of the world, them scientific reflections. In this plan especially model theoretical positions of post-modernism that defends thesis about «dimensionlessness of freedom». At preparation of research a complex was applied as philosophical so special religious methods. To the first group it follows to take the methods of scientific analysis and synthesis, characteristic for modern scientific paradigma approaches, that include the elements of scientific induction and deduction, and also interdisciplinary approach that provided bringing in of these allied subjects, : philosophy, theology and religious studies. To the special religious methods of application of that provided the depth of opening of corresponding range of problems take the methods of religious tolerance, ontological, axiology and hermeneutics approaches.

Reversing the Causal Arrow: Politics' Influence on Religious Choices

Decades of research has explored the political consequences of religious identities, practices, and beliefs. This article describes new research that has reversed the causal arrow to look at the religious consequences of partisanship and political outlooks. The first part of the article describes the current religious‐political landscape, in which religious Americans are more likely to be Republicans and less religious Americans are more likely to be Democrats. The article then goes on to introduce key theories and findings explaining how politics helped produce this religiosity gap. After discussing avenues for future research in this area, the article switches gears to describe other ways politics can shape religious choices, including pushing evangelical Republicans out of churches and encouraging short‐term fluctuations in religious engagement. The article concludes with a brief discussion of how the study of religion and politics is fundamentally different on account of politics' ability to both shape and be shaped by religion.

Religion versus social relationships: how Chinese Muslims deal with Halal taboos in social eating

ABSTRACT The halal concept is an essential religious belief of Muslims but brings difficulty to cross-cultural social eating. Dealing with the incompatibilities is a problem that Muslims in multicultural societies must face. Based on fieldwork involving social gatherings of Chinese Hui Muslim students and employing a relational perspective, the research showed that food is given multifaceted symbolic meanings both by Islam and by Chinese guanxi culture, which in turn changes network structures and interactional rules for Muslims. Social actors are supposed to maintain the conviviality of social eating, thereby establishing or maintaining potential relationships with others; however, the food eaten at these gatherings might be suspicious or even prohibited religiously for some. Therefore, these Muslim students strategically surrendered to the consumption of specific foods. These findings demonstrate how guanxi’s maintenance mechanisms and unequal relational positions affect Muslim minorities’ reflexivity toward their religious choices in daily interaction.

Representations of the Iron Din Movement in Socio-Сommunicative and Historical-Cultural Discourses

In this article, we attempt to identify the topical issues of the religious movement Iron Din in socio-communicative, historical, cultural, and political discourses. The study applies on the interdisciplinary approach based on a systematic review of textual materials, scientific research devoted to Iron Din, and interviewing adherents of this movement. Iron Din has a dual nature, incorporating both the essence of the traditional Ossetian religion and the specifics inherent to new religious movements. In our opinion, this specific dualism and ambivalence are one of the key features of Iron Din. We have identified a number of prerequisites for the spread and popularization of Iron Din as one of the forms of religious self-identification in modern Ossetian culture. These are globalization, digitalization, the prevalence of visual culture over verbal culture (the so-called visual turn), and the mythologization of modern mass culture. The analysis of the data obtained from the source base enables us to identify key problem areas in the development of the Iron Din movement at the present stage. Among the most acute issues affecting the worldview basis of the movement are the following: firstly, the problem of religious self-identification (monotheism, paganism, syncretism), secondly, the problem of respondents' religious choices (family tradition, personal choice) and thirdly, the problem of inter-confessional conflicts (confrontation with Orthodoxy, mainly in digital format, i.e. on the Internet information platforms). All of them have enabled us to draw the following conclusion: at present, Iron Din is a syncretic movement including both loci of traditional Ossetian beliefs and a set of elements typical for new religious movements. Iron Din has absorbed the autochthonous customs, rituals, and norms of behavior of the Ossetian people, which acquired a new interpretation in terms of globalization. According to the respondents, the most important characteristics that an Iron Din believer should possess include courage, modesty, moderation, honesty, respect for seniors, etc. Religious illiteracy and a decline in morality appear among the shortcomings identified by the respondents. According to the survey, inter-confessional disagreements are not widespread and are accumulated exclusively within the digital discourse. The results of the interviews and the systematic review have shown that the cult of nature is not prevailing or autonomous in Iron Din: it is sacred natural loci (places of prayer) and a material expression of culture. It is better to define the Iron Din movement as a part of national identity, largely formed under the influence of religious syncretism and the fledgling movements of the new century.

Moral Dilemmas in Foster Care Due to Religious Differences Between Birth Parents, Foster Parents, and Foster Children

Many ethnoreligious-minority foster children in several western countries, including the Netherlands, are placed and permanently live with ethnically and religiously non-matched foster families (i.e., in trans-religious foster care). We examine whether and which moral dilemmas exist around the issue of how religion should be weighted in trans-religious foster care to provide ethnoreligious-minority foster children with healthy identity development. We applied a thematic analysis to 17 qualitative interviews (seven foster parent/foster child dyads and three foster parents) taken from two pre-existing datasets. We retrieved five moral dilemmas in trans-religious foster care placements, which are discussed in relation to the following ethical arguments: (1) pressure from birth parents and parents of foster children to abide by their religious praxis; (2) objections of the foster family to the faith of the birth family; (3) a switch to the faith of the foster family by the foster child; (4) challenges to the religious identity searches of foster children due to ethnoreligious boundary drawing between majority and minority groups; and (5) the impact of religious traditions on the bodily integrity of foster children. We argue that it is in the best interest of foster children to have a foster family who, when making (some) religious choices on their behalf, is sensitive to the particular child and their developing identity with regard to their religious ideas and beliefs. Foster families need support regarding religious reflection and religious self-determinism in their foster children.

Delineating the Concept of Human Dignity in the Quran: Karamah al-insan as an Antidote to Religious Conflicts and Violence

Human dignity is defined as the right of every human life to be valued unconditionally. In Islam, this is perfectly embodied in the Quranic concept of “karamah al-insan” (Human Dignity). Karamah al insan becomes an instructive Islamic principle that regulates all human relationships, including those between Muslims and others. However, misperceptions in peripheral exclusivist thoughts have clouded the concept, positioning the honour and rights of the religiously faithful above those who were deemed lower by virtue of their religious choices. This paper sets out to ascertain the distinction between inherent dignity as an intrinsic right of every human being versus acquired dignity, that which is obtained by virtue of a Muslim’s efforts to ascend up the spiritual ladder. This distinction will distill the value of karamah al-insan as a universal value (human rights) and a shared belief among the different faiths. Furthermore, this clear distinction will deconstruct the claims made by extremist groups to justify civilian and religiously-motivated attacks. To this end, the paper will take a closer look at the Quranic verse 17:70, that specifically mention about human dignity and other related Quranic verses. The paper concludes with the argument that as a universally-shared value, the concept of karamah al-insan will serve as a robust antidote to social and religious chaos especially in these divisive times.

Baron Ungern in the Literature of the 1920s: The Two-Sided Optics of the Civil War

The article analyzes the image of Baron R. Ungern von Sternberg, which was created in the 1920s by writers, who were standing on different sides during the Civil war. In the works of A. Nesmelov and P. Krasnov, adherents of “white idea&8j1;, it is romanticized and apologized. Nesmelov in “Ballada about Daurian Baron&8j1; (1927) embeds him in the Daurian and Mongolian myths. The negative qualities in this person, when touched by mysteriousness, somehow gain in attractiveness. Krasnov in the novel “For the Thistle&8j1; (1922) turns Baron Ungern into the savior of the Fatherland and the Romanov dynasty; his hero is a Eurasian in outlook, who came into contact with Buddhism, with Asia, and it was there that he found a new support for the revival of Russian statehood; his image in the novel reflects martial righteousness and Tibetan mysticism. Soviet writer S. Markov in his novel “Red Buddha” (1929, publ. 1989), in turn, ornaments the image of Ungern, focusing on the diversity of Asian reality that captured and transformed the baron: Ungern is terrible, he is an enemy of Soviet power, but he is not worldly, zoomorphic and ornithomorphic features appear in his image. Markov’s Ungern is like a fake Buddhist, the baron took from Buddhism an exotically perceived mysticism and filtered Buddhist ethics in his own interests. Despite the difference in ideological views, these writers, creating the image of Baron Ungern, speak less about politics. At the center of their works is, first of all, his religious choice – a Westerner who converted to Buddhism.