Religious Dualism Research Articles

Missional Discipleship in the Public Sphere: With Special Reference to Lordship, Followership and Christlikeness in the Concept of Public Discipleship

Missional discipleship is more than a movement seeking a new methodological and strategic mission paradigm. Missional discipleship is the essence of Christianity concerning the ontological foundation for the prime reason for existence as believers and the epistemological lens to see the world from the perspective of transformed values in Christ. In other words, missional discipleship requires acknowledging the lordship of Christ by demonstrating the ontological embodiment of who Christ is and epistemological resemblance by perceiving the reality as Christ does. These radical transformations in both ontological and epistemological areas can enable believers to authentically follow Christ as disciples and demonstrate Christlikeness in all spheres of their existence as missionaries. Christlike attributes and qualities are progressively cultivated in believers lives as they conform to the image of Christ, and the most profound nature of Christlikeness is holiness. Missional discipleship provides a platform to expand the concept of Christlikeness as holiness from the personal dimension to the public dimension to overcome the privatisation of discipleship and Christian religious dualism polarising things into the categories of the sacred and secular.

SURVIVE STRATEGY AND STRUGGLE OF MARAPU ADHERENTS IN TARUNG VILLAGE, WEST SUMBA

Marapu is the indigenous religion of community in Tarung Village and Sumba Island in general. Marapu adherents experience hegemony including state discrimination and the spread of religion by the church elite. This study aims to reveal the hegemony process experienced and the survive strategies and struggles of Marapu adherents. Data were analyzed using hegemony theory and practice with qualitative research methods. The results showed Marapu adherents experience state hegemony in the aspect of their religious legality. This condition was used by church elite to spread their religion. The people of Tarung Village accept Christian/Catholicism, but still maintain the Marapu ideology as their religion, so that the reality that occurs in the local community is the practice of religious dualism as strategy of survive and negotiation. The struggle of Marapu followers continues after the Decision of Constitutional Court Number 97/PUU-XIV/2016 by trying to obtain a determination as Marapu customary law community.
 Keywords: Hegemony, Survive Strategy, Struggle, Marapu, Indigenous Religion

Disenchanting secularism (or the cultivation of soul) as pedagogy in resistance to populist racism and colonial structures in the academy

This article explores pedagogic strategies for resisting the racism of contemporary populism and age‐old coloniality through challenging secularism in the academy, especially in social theory. Secularism sustains racism and imperialism in the contemporary academy and is inscribed, in part, through the norms of social theory. Post‐secular social theory has been positioned by some as the decolonial answer, but often replicates the most problematic aspects of secularism. Whereas post‐secularism affirms the previously denigrated side of the secular vs religious dualism, I am more interested in unworking those classificatory schemas, setting the critical thought of religious teachers in relation to ‘secular’ social and political theorists such that boundaries erode. The ambition in this is to resist the hierarchical orderings of knowledge that pit Islamic, indigenous, feminised subjectivity as backwards, dangerous or intrinsically inferior to secular, Christian, rational knowledge. It is also to disenchant the secular gods (progress, money, growth, health) and hold open space for critical play in relation to the transcendental—to create a permissive, legitimising, space for students’ spiritual dimension, conocimiento or the ‘cultivation of soul’. The article draws theoretical inspiration from Gloria Anzaldúa, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Sylvia Wynter. It also draws on a practical experiment in disenchanting secularism through teaching an undergraduate module in social theory called Capitalism and Religion.

Relasi Budaya dan Agama dalam Perkembangan Agama Islam di Huta Sijungkang, Humbang Hasundutan

AbstractThe space for interaction in society is always influenced by religion and culture as binding aspects, both individually and in groups. This study aims to reveal how the relationship between culture and religion in the development of Toba Islam in Huta Sijungkang, Parlilitan sub-district, Humbang Hasundutan district. The study was conducted with a qualitative approach through interviews and literature studies. Based on research conducted in the development of Islamic religion in Huta Sijungkang, culture and religion are not two contradictory entities, but an inherent unity to regulate relations in society. This has made the people not patterned based on religion, so that cultural and religious dualism is not a conflict, but rather a cultural identity and values that continue to be lived by the Huta Sijungkang community. For society, religious differences are not a barrier in family ties, so there is an awareness to maintain the principles of togetherness and unity.Keyword: Relation; Culture; Religion; Huta Sijungkang.

Kult Trzygława w Szczecinie lat 20. XII stulecia. Między monolatrią a „dwuwiarą”

The cult of Triglav in the Polabian-Pomeranian territory in the 12th century confirms an evolution of the religious system of the local Slavic communities towards monolatry, largely affected by confrontation as well as a cultural dialogue with the Christian culture. At first, at the time of the Pomeranian missions of Saint Otto of Bamberg in the 1120s, attempts at suppressing the cult did not bring about long-term effects. However, a wave of the so-called pagan reaction led to some sort of a compromise made in Szczecin, leading to official coexistence of the cult of Triglav and the newly introduced cult of Jesus Christ. From the point of view of mythology, the competences of the two divine figures turn out to be convergent and universal, yet still, as part of the Szczecin “religious dualism”, no attempt was made to identify them (following the rule of interpretatio Slavica of the elements of Christianity). The belief in the autonomy of Triglav and Christ (“A German God”) was confirmed in Szczecin in the course of Otto’s evangelization which resulted in a Christian community in the city. The phenomenon of syncretism, present there until Otto’s second mission (1128), was therefore an attempt at maintaining unity in a religiously divided society following the first mission of the Apostle of Pomeranians (1124-1125).

Russia in the Eyes of Islamic State: An Analysis of the Content of Dabiq and Rumiyah Magazines and Russia’s Involvement in the Fight against the Islamic State

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes a large content of the Islamic State (IS) English-language magazines Dabiq (fifteen issues, 2014–2016) and Rumiyah (13 issues, 2016–2017), which represent the largest text sample of IS propaganda prepared for English-speaking recipients. The author attempts to understand the propaganda methods and leading themes related to Russia exploited in the magazine. Research confirmed strong, omnipresent religious dualism between “believing” and “disbelieving” applied to non-religious entities, seen by Islamic State as enemies. Thus, military opponents, such as Russia are labeled with words such as Crusaders or unbelievers, while self-proclaimed caliphate is portrayed as the last Muslim bastion against the invaders. This article attempts to fill a gap in research on the Islamic State’s propaganda methods used in its flagship online magazines. Its major objective is to discover and understand the Islamic State’s approach to one of its biggest enemies—the Russian Federation. In order to reach this goal, quantitative and qualitative content analysis is used.

Auden, Auden’s Milton, and Songs for Virgins

Abstract Deep though unexplored currents of W.H. Auden’s incipient Christian theology in ‘Song for St Cecilia’s Day’ become clearer when we read the poem with an eye on John Milton’s madrigal ‘At a Solemn Music’ and his musical tribute to virginity, ‘A Masque’. Auden closely identified Milton with the religious dualism that impeded his acceptance of Christianity, as well with the divided consciousness of the Protestantism whose disintegration was a primary source for contemporary global chaos; and his examination of art, religion, and sexuality consistently uses Milton’s poems as counter-texts off which to ‘bounce’ his own vision of Christian flesh and Christian spirit.

Slavic religious dualism in the X–XV-th centuries: Bulgarian bogomils as a factor in the emergence and spread of the Albigensian catharism ideology

Slavic religious dualism in the X–XV-th centuries: Bulgarian bogomils as a factor in the emergence and spread of the Albigensian catharism ideology

Religious Dualism and the Problem of Dual Religious Identity

����� ��� The word “dualism” is used in many senses. It can refer to the separation of mind and body in classical Western philosophy or to the separation of divine and human in some religious traditions, but religious dualism is also used in the social sciences to describe how two religious systems may relate to each other. Personally, I am interested in this topic because I teach at a Taiwanese seminary, where students draw deeply on Taiwanese culture even as they assert a very clear Christian identity that often challenges or clashes with the broader culture. Like many Protestants, my students generally reject an idea of syncretism while simultaneously affirming Taiwanese culture and many popular beliefs. This dual identity fascinates me. “Dualism” in anthropological research is sometimes used to describe the attachment to two discrete religious or cultural traditions, such as Buddhism and Christianity. An important early theorist was anthropologist June Nash, whose work grew out of ethnographic research in Bolivia and Mexico. Nash looked at Bolivian miners and studied their popular devotion. She wrote that “this technique of syncretizing elements as developed by the Spaniards in the early years of conquest seems alien to the Bolivian way of thinking. It relates to a mode of thinking that accepts only a single, hierarchically defined system of ideas. Indigenous thought is capable of entertaining coexistant and apparently contradictory world views.” Nash says that she “hope[d] to clarify this point of the segmentation in time and space of the two systems, since it defies the model of acculturation as a homogenous blend.” 1 In this understanding, “dualism” better describes the reality with which many people live than do more general terms like “indigenization” or “acculturation,” and it also resists an understanding that religious traditions simply blend together—rather, they are segmented and retain elements of coherence even when held simultaneously.

Further Considerations on the Politics of Religious Discourse: Naim Frashëri and his Pantheism in the Course of Nineteenth-Century Albanian Nationalism

In the standard tradition of both Albanian studies and Western scholarship, including either any interested religious and political activism or less ‘interested’ lay people, endeavours of historical and textual fact-finding have been relevant only to re-confirm and indeed perpetuate the very meaning of a myth, according to which the thinking of Naim Frashëri was formed and dominated by Bektashism and his ‘Albanianism’ had a Bektashi foundation. In an earlier paper this myth was shown to be unreliable by arguing that Frashëri's religious thinking was shaped by religious dualism. This paper argues further that Naim Frashëri went far beyond Bektashism in his heterodoxy, not only in a kind of liberation theology, but also by embracing a comprehensive pantheism which generated an active and all-inclusive attitude to Albanian identity, not necessarily limited in any special way to Bektashism. Methodologically, such a new picture must arise if the analysis of the historical and literary contextualization of Frashëri's major works is submitted to the perspective of social theoretical approaches to religion developed in sociology and anthropology.

The politics of religious dualism: Naim Frashëri and his elective affinity to religion in the course of 19th-century Albanian activism

In standard Albanian studies and Western scholarship, including both the work of religious and political activists and that of less ‘interested’ lay people, historical and textual fact-finding efforts have only confirmed and indeed perpetuated the myth that the thinking of Naim Frashëri was formed and dominated by Bektashism and that his ‘Albanianism’ had a Bektashi foundation. The author intends to scrutinize and disprove this analysis, arguing that while Frashëri’s thinking did indeed have a religious cast, it went far beyond Bektashism in its heterodoxy, being a kind of liberation theology and pantheism, which generated an all-inclusive attitude to Albanian identity, not one limited in any particular way to Bektashism. Methodologically, such a picture must arise if we submit the available empirical evidence to critical analysis from the perspective of social theoretical approaches to religion developed in sociology and anthropology.

Religion et politique en pays d’Oc sous la IIIe République (1879-1914)

Religion and Politics in the South during the Third Republic (1879-1914). The place of religion in the political life of the Third Republic, period of great confrontations between Republicans and pro-Catholics, is considerable. In order to go beyond a binary view of « Red South » and « White South » , this article is based on an quantitative approach which measures the capacity of resistance of populations to the secularization of elementary schooling after 1879. It underlines very strong contrasts within Southern France between departments and, at a closer scale, between cantons. Religious dualism is one of the explaining factors. Resistance was higher in areas where Protestant presence was strong and where a legitimatist current had developped since the French Revolution. It then presents the debates which took place over the Separation at the beginning of the 20th century, underlining the development of activities implicating youth and their political consequences.

The defensibility of Zoroastrian dualism

AbstractContemporary philosophical discussion of religion neglects dualistic religions: although Manichaeism from time to time is accorded mention, Zoroastrianism, a more plausible form of religious dualism, is almost entirely ignored. We seek to change this state of affairs. To this end we (1) present the basic tenets of Zoroastrian dualism, (2) argue that objections to the Zoroastrian conception of God are less strong than typically imagined, (3) argue that objections to the Zoroastrian conception of the devil (and evil) are less strong than typically imagined, and (4) offer some brief concluding thoughts.

Colloquy with the Inner Friend

This paper considers Marie-Louise von Franz’s use of the words love, differentiated feeling, eros, and civilization in her lecture “C. G. Jung’s Rehabilitation of the Feeling Function in Our Civilization.” and explores how we might begin to acknowledge the reality of the Self, when the world-embracing spirit of God insists upon an awareness of the shadow and evil. What did Jung’s grappling with the God-function—feeling—have to do with Islam? Jung’s auseinandersetzung with the “God-complex” (Jung CW 6) was pivotal to his arrival at a theory of the Self as a way of transcending doctrinal disputes in all three monotheisms. Religious splitting within Islam is a reality that Jung wrestled with in an important dream during his travels to the Muslim city of Tunis, on the northern tip of Africa in 1920; he continued to grapple with the problem of religious dualism in Persian Zoroastrianism, Mithraicism, Manichaeism, and Islam between 1934 and 1939. By the time his seminars on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra ended on the eve of WW II, he had zeroed in on the pivotal role that the figure of Khidr plays in Islamic mysticism. Jung cites the “colloquy with the friend of the soul,” Allah, or the Self, as a paradigm for a dialogical method of active imagination, which, if used with right feeling, and in an embodied way, can be employed as a technique for transcending splits within the historical God-image. He exemplifies this technique in “Answer to Job.”

State–church relationships in Germany: past and present

In the wake of the Reformation, the bitterest religious wars were fought on the territories of what is now Germany. It was here, however, that the rule “cuius region, eius religio” was found as well which can be interpreted as a first step towards religious tolerance. Germany has been characterised by a religious dualism between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant (Lutheran and Reformed) Church since then. Both had the status of state churches until the First World War. Since then, they are still by far the dominant religious communities in the country but they regard themselves wrongly to be Volkskirchen (people’s churches). They, as well as a number of smaller religious communities, enjoy the status of a corporation under public law. This status includes the right to collect church tax from members through state channels. The federal German state system is mirrored by a similar federal character of the Protestant Church, which is a union of regional churches. When Germany was reunited in 1990, the Volkskirche principle was reintroduced in East Germany although Christians had become a minority there due to 40 years of strong influence of Communism. Secularisation and pluralisation have changed the religious landscape in Germany especially after 1960. The two big churches have lost large numbers of members, and new religious communities have arrived. In the light of Europe growing together, the Protestant Church in Germany, being the largest in numbers in Europe, has initiated stronger cooperation between the different Protestant churches in the European countries, many of which are organised as national churches. Islam has come to Germany mainly through Turkish labour migrants. The country has only recently changed its self-perception into being a society with a large immigrant minority, which is to stay; therefore it will certainly take some time until Muslims are fully accommodated.

Lexical Reflections Inspired by Slavonic *Bogŭ: Some Thoughts on the Slavonic Pantheon

This paper examines the pagan Slavonic gods and the way in which their functions might mirror the tripartite division of pagan society into juridical/magic, military, and economic functions. Toporov, for instance, sees the main Russian gods as Stribog, Perun, Volos, paralleling the Roman Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus and Germanic Odin, Thor, Freyr. Particular attention is paid to the origin and meaning of Common Slavonic *bogŭ vis-à-vis *divŭ and to the one pagan god probably common to Slavs and Balts, Perun/Perkūnas. The study is presented under the following headings: The chief Indo-European deity; Traces of the chief Indo-European deity in Slavonic; The form *bogŭ The religious dualism divŭ vs. bogŭ The Elbe/Baltic Slavs' chief deity; The pagan Slavs worshipped a chief deity; Another aspect of the chief deity; The pagan Slavs' chief deity; The fertility-protecting function; The position of Veles/Volos; Conclusion. Though it would be possible to force Slavonic pagan religion into the framework of an Indo-European/Indo-Iranian triadic structure of the pantheon, reflected in a similar view of society, it is concluded that the limited amount of firm evidence requires that one should proceed circumspectly in any attempt to project hypotheses onto an entire linguistic group.

From Compromise to Rebellion: Religion and Political Power of the Nobility in the First Century of the Habsburgs' Reign in Bohemia And Moravia

AbstractIn Bohemia and Moravia, a religious dualism prevailed following the Hussite revolution and the Compactata of 1436. Although the Compactata were abolished by the pope in 1462, the treaty of Kuttenberg guaranteed a right to individual choice in religion, something the nobility viewed as a crucial privilege. But such choice became a victim of a growing re-Catholicization in the sixteenth century. Although Catholic nobles were a minority in Bohemia and Moravia, they were better organized and supported the Habsburgs and the Council of Trent. Their efforts succeeded in contriving a situation in which non-Catholic nobles were tolerated, but excluded from serving in high state offices. Non-Catholic nobles, starting in the 1570s, attempted to organize themselves, and drew up the Confessio Bohemica, which would have given them control over education, church administration, church courts, and censorship. Although the Confessio never achieved legal status, Calvinist noblemen used the dynastic crises of the Habsburgs during the years 1608-11 to further their agenda. A charter, ratified in 1609, gave them control over the lower consistory courts, Charles University, and a body of Defensors who oversaw the preservation of religious liberties. They thereby established a "state within a state," and unavoidably set themselves up for later conflict with the Habsburgs. After their defeat at the battle of the White Mountain, a revised constitution (1627 in Bohemia, 1628 in Moravia) ended religious toleration by outlawing non-Catholic worship, and paving the way to a later absolutism.

“Without Contraries is no Progression”: Dust as an All-Inclusive, Multifunctional Metaphor in Philip Pullman's “His Dark Materials”

Drawing on John Milton's Paradise Lost and on motifs found within Gnostic mythology and the poetry of William Blake, this article explores Philip Pullman's reworking of the Judeo-Christian myth of the Fall. At the centre of this investigation is ‘Dust’: a conventional metaphor for human physicality inspired by God's judgment on humanity. This article suggests that Dust is re-presented in the trilogy in a more positive manner through the development of Milton's metaphor of the ‘dark materials’ into a ‘substance’ in which good and evil, and spirit and matter—conceptual opposites that form the basis of religious dualism—coexist.

THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF SCIENCE IN FRANCE: ERNEST RENAN AND THE VIE DE JÉSUS

The publication of Ernest Renan's La Vie de Jésus in 1863 is rightly regarded as a key moment in French history. The book served as an important symbol of science and free thought in the battles over the Republic and laïcité, and presented a thesis that characterized French scientific philosophy in the mid-nineteenth century. Jesus, for Renan, transcended his own culture, rejecting all social constraints in the pursuit of a unique ideal of the kingdom of God, becoming in the process the first true individualist in history. Critics ridiculed his arguments, but it was typical of the Romanticism of the French positivists. Renan's philosophy was rooted not in empiricism, but in an essentially pantheistic metaphysics, prizing the realization of God within oneself as the highest ethical achievement. This was an innovation of the highest importance in France, where a traditionalist, but post-Christian theism had marked social thought since the Revolution. Renan and his generation, notably Taine, dispensed with the traditionalist religious dualism that typified the social outlook of Tocqueville, Michelet, and their contemporaries. Far from articulating a materialist dead end in the history of ideas, their Romantic individualism was critical to later developments in European thought, including aestheticism and irrationalism.

My Beloved Is All Radiant: Two Case Studies of Congregational-Based Christian Fundamentalist Female Enclaves and the Religious Experiences They Cultivate among Women

This article draws upon data gathered during an extensive field study of Christian fundamentalist churches in the USA to present two case studies of the religious experiences of women involved with them. An exercise in strategic microanalysis, it discloses how the gendering practices integral to religious life at fundamentalist congregations bifurcate believers into gender-defined groups. While it does not guarantee it, this gendering practice creates a social-sacred environment where the significance female believers attribute to their religious commitment can readily vary from that of male believers. The article demonstrates how this bifurcation contours activities at the two congregations studied such that each institutionally supports religious experiences among female believers that differ from congregational norms. To the extent these findings are generalizable, Christian fundamentalism needs to be academically reimagined to take into account the religious dualism which gender norms encourage in congregational-based Christian fundamentalist religious life.