Religious Claims Research Articles

Beyond Objective and Subjective: Assessing the Legitimacy of Religious Claims to Accommodation

There are at present two ways in which to evaluate religiously-based claims to accommodation in the legal context. The first, objective approach holds that these claims should be grounded in « facts of the matter » about the religions in question. The second, subjective approach, is grounded in an appreciation by the courts of the sincerity of the claimant. The first approach has the advantage of accounting for the difference between two constitutional principles : freedom of conscience on the one hand, and freedom of religion on the other. It has the disadvantage of transforming courts into expert bodies on religious matters. The subjective approach has a harder time accounting for the distinction. It also risks giving rise to a proliferation of claims. A plausible synthesis between the two approaches requires that we uncover the normative grounds justifying the granting by liberal democracies of religious accommodation. An analogous argument to that put forward by Kymlicka in the case of minority nations identifies the interest that citizens have in being able to exercise their « cultural agency » : the creative reappropriation and reinterpretation of the rituals, practices and norms of religious traditions.

The roar of the lion, the taste of the salt: on really religious reasons

AbstractSome of the most significant religious appeals can be taken as reasons of a distinctively religious kind. But many popular ways of interpreting religious reasoning pose obstacles to appreciating religious reasons as such. To avoid binding the concept of religious reason to an intellectual programme that requires a disjunction between the religious and the rational or that dissolves all tension between religious claims and general rational standards of validity and normativity, religious reasons can be defined for purposes of liberal study by their challenging yet rationally appreciable transvalid claims and transnormative implications. Examples from the book of Amos and the Chandogya Upanishad are discussed.

Deference or Interrogation? Contrasting Models for Reconciling Religion, Gender and Equality

Since the late 1990s, the extension of the equality framework in the United Kingdom has been accompanied by the recognition of religion within that framework and new measures to address religious discrimination. This development has been contested, with many arguing that religion is substantively different to other discrimination grounds and that increased protection against religious discrimination may undermine equality for other marginalized groups – in particular, women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. This paper considers these concerns from the perspective of minoritized women in the UK. It analyses two theoretical approaches to reconciling religious claims with gender equality – one based on privileging, the other based on challenging religious claims – before considering which, if either, reflects experiences in the UK in recent years and what this means for gender equality.

Deference or Interrogation? Contrasting Models for Reconciling Religion, Gender and Equality

Abstract Since the late 1990s, the extension of the equality framework in the United Kingdom has been accompanied by the recognition of religion within that framework and new measures to address religious discrimination. This development has been contested, with many arguing that religion is substantively different to other discrimination grounds and that increased protection against religious discrimination may undermine equality for other marginalized groups – in particular, women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. This paper considers these concerns from the perspective of minoritized women in the UK. It analyses two theoretical approaches to reconciling religious claims with gender equality – one based on privileging, the other based on challenging religious claims – before considering which, if either, reflects experiences in the UK in recent years and what this means for gender equality.

Epistemic Evaluation of Religious Claims in Public Schools: A Response to Suzanne Rosenblith

The position the authors challenge in this article, one most notably advocated by Suzanne Rosenblith, suggests that religious study has a legitimate place in public education if and only if teachers and students grapple with the epistemic superiority of competing theistic claims. In this rejoinder, the authors propose that Rosenblith's suggestion faces 3 insurmountable hurdles to become an achievable education objective: (1) Rosenblith fails to articulate how religious claims might be evaluated epistemologically. Instead, she candidly admits there are presently no “clearly identifiable standards by which to measure religious and moral claims.” (2) In the absence of “clearly identifiable standards” to evaluate religious truth claims an untenable situation is created for schools, parents, students and teachers. Rosenblith's attempt to evaluate competing religious claims may foster increased conflict between different religious traditions. (3) The foundation, or “wider context,” required to support religious truth claims is itself epistemologically problematic.

Beyond Belief: Epistemic Evaluation of Religious Experiences

In this response, the author argues that to include religion as a subject of study without treating it as a possible contender of truth by evaluating religious claims in a public manner unfairly prejudges their epistemic status and is patronizing to the variety of religious worldviews; it also disrespects the institution of public schooling by making light of its responsibility to explore questions of truth based on relevant evidence. The alternative view that I propose insists that genuine respect is achieved neither through inclusion or exclusion per se, but by offering students opportunities to subject religious claims and experiences to rigorous epistemic analysis. In this approach, religion is treated as a contender for truth, and students are helped, in this arena as in others, to develop habits of mind and skills that will enable them to become reasonable, thoughtful, and autonomous thinkers.

The Importance of Religious Displays for Belief Acquisition and Secularization

Both the sociology and the cognitive science of religion seek to explain the acquisition of religious beliefs. In this article, I offer an account of the acquisition and distribution of religious beliefs using the findings of both fields. In the process, I seek to illustrate the potential of interdisciplinary dialogue for improving our understanding of religion and its absence. More specifically, I present a prima facie case—based on existing work in the social and cognitive sciences, exploratory online surveys, and participant observation—that witnessing actions attesting to religious claims is one of the most crucial variables determining whether or not an individual will explicitly believe such claims. Further, I argue that the connection between action and belief can help produce an improved account of secularization and non-theism, defined here as the lack of explicit belief in the existence of non-physical agents.

Common Cause in the Culture Wars?

A significant body of legal academic writing produced in recent years has argued that one of the primary purposes of the First Amendment's Religion Clauses was to protect freedom of conscience. But in the two decades since the Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division v. Smith, a number of commentators have suggested that freedom of conscience has lost its place as the focus of Free Exercise and Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Indeed, some have gone so far as to argue that protection for freedom of conscience has disappeared from the Free Exercise Clause almost entirely, leaving conduct that is motivated by a religious conscience without special constitutional protection. To be sure, some protection for freedom of conscience remains—but its constitutional source is often to be found outside of the Religion Clauses and its concern is often with non-religious activity.This evolution of doctrine has been extensively criticized by scholars of the Religion Clauses, many of whom view these developments as departures from original intent and from long-settled constitutional practice. Michael McConnell, Martha Nussbaum, and others have also advanced normative critiques, arguing that religious conscience is in many ways distinctive and merits distinctive constitutional solicitude under the Free Exercise Clause. At the same time, the Supreme Court's rejection of special privileges for religious claims of conscience has been welcomed by other scholars, some of whom have argued that preferential protection for religiously-motivated conduct is a form of unconstitutional discrimination. Two of the most prominent proponents of this position are Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager, who maintain that the Religion Clauses should be read to promote equal liberty rather than to provide special exemptions.

The Politics of Judicial Public Reason: Secular Interests and Religious Rights

This paper seeks a better understanding of the role of public reason in alimenting or defusing religious conflicts by looking at how courts apply it in deciding cases arising out of them. Recent scholarship and judicial decisions suggest, paradoxically, that courts can be biased towards either the secular or the religious. This risks alienating both religious majorities and religious and secular minorities. Judicial public reason is uniquely equipped to protect minorities, and its costs to religious majorities may be mitigated by accepting religious morality and identity claims in the political and legislative realm. Despite the political fragilities of judicial public reason, it is not intrinsically hostile to religious claims. It ought in fact to be fully equipped to recognize the equality and religious freedom rights that religious groups and individuals might assert in pursuing exemptions from general secular laws. Judicial public reason does have the potential to defuse religious conflicts, however much it falls short in practice.

Teaching about Augustine: Providing a Scaffolding for Learning

This paper acknowledges that many young adults today have poor content knowledge in theology and related fields. It argues that one way of addressing this is to teach more explicitly about seminal thinkers and their ideas as part of an integrated approach to religious education. One such figure is Augustine, a thinker of immense significance in the Christian tradition. By being familiar with the ideas of Augustine, students are more able to understand religious claims and to facilitate higher learning. Using a Vygotskian paradigm a number of suggestions are made on how best to teach Augustinian themes. These ideas rest on the concept of scaffolding of learning.

Ibn Sahula's Meshal ha-Qadmoni as restorative polemic

This essay explores the ways in which Isaac ibn Sahula (1244–c. 1284) drew upon philosophy, medical theory, astrology, and animal lore, both to polemicize against Christians and Muslims and to goad his Jewish readers to correct spiritual behavior in his Meshal ha-Qadmoni. Christians, Muslims, and “bad” Jews are portrayed as having degraded their intellect by following fleshly lusts or false wisdom. In losing their intellect, they have lost the quality that made them superior to animals. His use of animals to portray the “inhumanity” of most humans adds a level of irony to his work, but also becomes a part of his arsenal of symbolism, which he deftly uses to criticize the religious claims and behavior of non-Jews. In some instances loss of intellect feminizes his opponents. However, Ibn Sahula's use of gender symbolism does not fall along neat dichotomies of male-spiritual, female-material. Rather, non-Jews are often characterized by hyper-masculinity, violence, and excessive lust, whereas Ibn Sahula portrays himself as a woman giving birth, Israel as maiden or woman in need of going to purify herself in a miqvah. His manipulation of gender symbolism, like his use of animals, is part of a broad defensive polemic aimed at Christian and Muslim criticism of Jews.

Preface

Preface Michael C. Jordan, Editor We are in an odd position in relation to visual images. Technologists and entrepreneurs have invented and produced powerful devices of various types that enable us to summon to appearance images both still and moving from almost anywhere at almost any time. We are saturated with images. But are we generally attentive and responsive to the spiritual quality of images, especially considering that the human capacity to imagine and artistically render and preserve images seems to have emerged for spiritual purposes in the first place? I am thinking here of the words of Jean Clottes, a French expert in prehistoric cave paintings, who, when contemplating the images drawn on the walls of what is now called Chauvet Cave in southern France more than 30,000 years ago, summarized how he regards human beings in relation to our remote ancestors who drew these images: "Homo sapiens is Homo spiritualis."1 These words indicate that we find the origins of our kind in the capacity for spiritual experience rather than knowledge. Clottes disavows for himself any specifically religious claims, but when considering what we might now call the remarkable collected words in numerous caves completed in the Paleolithic age by our remote ancestors, [End Page 5] it seems right that we can discern something like spiritual ancestry in relation to the unknown artists or religious celebrants who painted these images. The cultural differentiation indicated by the terms "art" and "religion" makes it necessary for us to imagine the fusion of these concepts in an undifferentiated form that probably prevailed for the makers and users of these images. We live in a time in which we possess the technological capability of discovering, studying, comparing, reproducing, and preserving these images to an extent never before possible. But the ability to discern the spiritual qualities and purposes of these images is probably rare. Although we might think that the extensive knowledge of ancient and contemporary religious doctrine and practice in Christianity would place us in a position of ready responsiveness to Christian religious images, there is reason to believe that this is not generally the case. This point is made clear by Dominican theologian and historian of art François Boespflüg, who has recently published a monumental history of artistic images of God in the Christian tradition titled Dieu et ses images (God and His Images), which he calls in the title of his introduction "Une histoire iconique de Dieu" (An Iconographic History of God).2 Boespflüg asserts that God seems to have departed from contemporary art, that in European art of the second half of the twentieth century depictions of the crucified Christ are almost the only images of God to be found and that these depictions generally seem disconnected from the essential Christian affirmation of Christ as the Incarnation and the Savior, and that generally those contemplating these images are not inclined to make the same declaration as the centurion who, while gazing at Christ on the cross, exclaimed: "Truly, this was the son of God" (484). But the purpose of Boespflüg's book is not to bemoan this current cultural condition, which may, after all, turn out to be temporary. Instead, he recognizes that a number of confluent conditions make an iconographic study such as his possible today, especially the accessibility of an enormous number of images from across long periods of history and the possibility of easy consultation among [End Page 6] experts facilitated by the Internet, and the development of the disciplines of art history and theology such that the former no longer need restrict itself to analyses of provenance and style and the latter need no longer rely exclusively on written documents and linguistic sources in seeking to understand theological truths. Nor is it necessary to subordinate an iconographic history to biographical, political, social, and economic strands of historical change—artistic images can be understood as expressions of faith, and however contested and even sometimes interdicted such expressions might be, they form their own pervasive history and exist in a kind of communal relation to one another in ways that are often independent of other strands of historical change. This iconographic...

Religion and Violence in the Song of Roland

Religion and Violence in the Song of Roland Andreas Kablitz (bio) To Ursula Peters I. Introduction: Violence and Monotheism Pope Benedict set off an on-going debate concerning the links between religion and violence in his controversial speech at the University of Regensburg (Bavaria) in September 2006.1 In his talk, the Pope explicitly rejected any substantial or natural link between violence and faith. Appealing to a well-established tradition of Western theology and philosophy, Benedict argued that God's metaphysical essence being Reason, religion must therefore have no place for violence. So strongly does violence controvert religious tenets, the Pope argued, that any religious claim for the compatibility of the two unavoidably calls into doubt the very substance of religion. Although Benedict did not make the case for the interdependence of monotheism and rationality, this connection obviously underlies his argument. This thesis is in evident opposition to a position formulated recently by the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann2 who postulated a logical link between violence and monotheism based on an intellectual tradition going back to Sigmund Freud. To Assmann only the birth of monotheism [End Page S115] generates a difference between true and false faith, between truth and error in religion, a distinction, which naturally leads to violence in the name of God. Because truth, the truth of the one and only God, has to be established, defended and has finally to be diffused around the world and to be adopted by every human being, the unavoidability of violence seems to be inherent in monotheistic religion. In this paper, I won't discuss these controversial concepts systematically,3 even though, from an historical perspective, it seems doubtful that there would have been no religious violence before the emergence of monotheism. While still a cardinal of the Roman Church, Joseph Ratzinger questioned the plausibility of Assman's thesis by pointing to noted cases of violence in polytheistic contexts.4 Yet from an historical perspective, it can hardly be denied that Judeo-Christian religious concepts have legitimized the use of violence. The crusades and their justification obviously constitute one of the most striking examples of religious violence in the name of Christianity. The appeal to the faithful to drive the pagans from the Holy Land by attacking them in the name of Christ offers a classic example of the use of religious arguments to justify war. One of the medieval literary texts that has long been considered a radical illustration of the crusader ethos is the Old French Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland).5 In this chanson de geste, Charlemagne's fight against the Moslems appears to be a prototype of every crusade, to the extent that, despite all the odds, Christians—the French in this case—will win a decisive victory. The argument seems to hold that their unshakable belief in Christ will make the French strong enough to defeat the pagan enemy. That belief was succinctly expressed in the famous apothegm: "Paien unt tort et crestïens unt dreit" ["Pagans are in the wrong: Christians are in the right"] (1015).6 Yet, on closer examination, it's misleading to claim that the use and justification of violence in the Chanson de Roland is based entirely on the notion that physical power alone suffices in the struggle for religious truth. On the contrary, as I will try to demonstrate, the [End Page S116] Christian justification of violence as a means of combat against the pagans is only one mode for legitimizing violence in this text. There are others, and, more importantly, the reader cannot help but observe the disharmony, not to say chaos, among them even to the point of manifestly contradicting each other. Clearly these conflicting strands represent competing ideologies of power and violence in the Song of Roland.7 It is precisely these competing modes that I will describe and analyze in the following pages. Among other things, I want to show how an unresolved conflict between two fundamentally opposed views of violence characterizes the narrative of the Roland: on the one hand, violence instrumentalized to realize the goals of French crusaders, on the other hand, violence problematized in the name of Christian doctrine.8 [End Page...

When Sodomy Leads to Martyrdom: Sex, Religion, and Politics in Historical and Contemporary Contexts in Uganda and East Africa

This article examines the shifting interpretations of homosexuality in colonial and post-colonial contexts in east Africa. In 1886, Mwanga II, the king of the Baganda kingdom, executed forty-five male pages of his court. All forty-five were recent converts to Christianity and many accounts of the execution highlight the pages' refusal to submit to the king's sexual demands as the cause of their execution. Over the last one hundred and twenty-five years, the story of the martyrs has been used to support a broad spectrum of political, cultural, and religious claims. By examining the event in both historical and contemporary contexts, this paper identifies broader fault lines within those contexts in relation to Christianity, Islam, colonial power, and post-colonial politics in east Africa.

The Case of 'Queer Muslims': Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Human Rights Law and Muslim Legal and Social Ethos

This article analyses the past and present positions of the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity in international human rights law and Islamic legal tradition in order to establish a rationale for the protection and empowerment of the millions of members of various Muslim communities who suffer from discrimination and prejudice solely because of their perceived or actual gender and/or sexual diversity. It argues that the systemic oppression of ‘queer Muslims’ runs against the fundamental principles of both analysed global(ised) legal systems, and that the notions of gender identity and sexual orientation, as pronounced in the Yogyakarta Principles, should be considered in framing the related legal, religious, social and human rights claims.

Searching for Non-Toxic Religion

This article provides more accurate tools to engage the public nature of religious and other ideological claims by proposing a distinction between belief-policies, beliefs and practices that could enable more acute ways of locating the aspects of ideology that are considered problematic in a given situation. In addition, the article proposes rules of engagement for how we might deal with these aspects in public discourse.

Table of Contents

Abstract Cover Story Manage your way through crisis Learn strategies for managing your most difficult legal challenges Sample coach contract can be a useful model The Two‐Minute Drill UConn coach suspended for NCAA recruiting violations Coach awarded $1.2M in retaliation claim Fight over university's nickname not dead yet Holy Family coach suspended after alleged assault on player Leaders & Innovators MIKE ALDEN, AD, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AD survives, learns from NCAA investigation AD hits road to promote his institution, sports programs Contracts Make sure coaches' contracts cover NCAA termination scenarios Select appropriate contract language Student Conduct Educate athletes to recognize pitfalls of Facebook postings Try these strategies when dealing with Facebook postings Managing Your Office Survey may help you retain staff as the economy improves You Make The Call Was university liable for cheerleader's injuries during a practice session? Lawsuits & Rulings TITLE IX Part of wrestlers' claim to move forward TITLE VII Coach's religious claim fails against Lutheran university TITLE IX Female athlete can't prove university liable for sexual assault A Conversation With… JUDY VAN HORN, SENIOR ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS/SENIOR WOMAN ADMINISTRATOR, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA ADs must create a culture of compliance Resources/Ideas Summit to teach safety tips Company releases compliance app Names in the News

Presumptions of Worth and Pedagogical Imperatives

John Tillson’s thoughtful essay covers tremendous ground in limited space. Tillson does a terrific job highlighting many of the central concerns of religious education both in British and U.S. contexts. The thrust of his argument questions the point of pursuing open-ended discussions on matters that are settled, or as he says, “dead options.” As I understand him, Tillson’s point is that to the degree that an issue is truly open-ended, then Michael Hand’s notion of nondirective instruction, instruction where the goal is consideration of a range of views, is appropriate. Tillson, however, doubts that many religious claims are in fact truly open-ended. Therefore, our choices, he says, are all “unattractive.” According to Tillson, in considering all kinds of religious views and claims we (a) run the risk of having to remain non-committal on matters like holocaust denial or young earth creationism; (b) must also include discussions of atheist and agnostic claims, as well as flying spaghetti monster claims, which (c) inevitably leads to figuring out what to remove from the curriculum in order to make space for all of these open-ended discussions. Instead, he concludes, religious education is best if limited to a survey of the history of religions and perhaps the cultural contributions of religions over time.

Women, Peace and Security in Contemporary Pakistan: Meeting the Challenge of Security Council Resolution 1325?

The adoption in 2000 of Security Council Resolution 1325 has rightly been described as a watershed moment. Not only does this resolution recognise women as potentially vulnerable in times of conflict, it specifically, and importantly, recognises women as political actors, as agents in peace processes and as key stakeholders in peace-building. More than a decade after its adoption, however, questions remain as to whether 'gender security' is an elusive goal in conflict and post-conflict situations. There is little to suggest that Resolution 1325 has heralded the kind of transformative change that was hoped for by many, and the challenges of effective implementation continue to arise. There is also the question of compromise in the negotiation of peace agreements and in post-conflict reconstruction. Nationalist sentiment, frequently reinforced by religious and cultural claims, all too often turns on questions relating to sexuality, gendered identities, roles and status. In times of crisis, in fragile states, women and girls become the repository of tradition, and gender identities become the markers of national and group identities, often presumed central to a process of nation-building. In the context of ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the challenges in ensuring that peace processes meet the requirements of Security Council Resolution 1325 are particularly acute. Over the last year, the possibility of 'talking to the Taliban' has repeatedly been raised. For women and girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the stakes are particularly high in any such negotiations. This article explores the position of women in Pakistan and the role that militant religious forces have played in limiting the potential of democratic transitions since the foundation of the state. This article is based on a presentation to the annual conference of the Committee for International Affairs, entitled 'Governance for a more ethical world', which took place at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 19 November 2010. Author's e-mail: s.mullally@ucc.ie Irish Studies in International Affairs , Vol. 22 (201 1), 53-66. doi: 10.3318/ISIA.201 1.22.53 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.210 on Sun, 31 Jul 2016 05:37:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 54 Irish Studies in International Affairs

Methodological Ludism and the Academic Study of Religion

Abstract The usual options scholars have when dealing with religious truth claims—methodological atheism, theism and agnosticism—are criticized for being restricted to the contrast between science and religion. They represent researchers’ perspectives that are not helpful in studying believers’ truth claims. Furthermore, they are associated with positivist or neo-positivist approaches to religion. Methodological ludism is presented as an alternative point of departure that connects well with current constructivist approaches to religion. Methodological ludism invites fieldworkers to use their human capacity for play by identifying temporarily, in a serious way, with believers’ claims of true knowledge. This posture is described and explored in a case study of a Dutch healer, Jomanda.