Religious Inclusion Research Articles

The Influences of Religious Attitudes on Volunteering

Religiosity has long been known to promote volunteering in the US and elsewhere. Despite the growing body of research examining religious correlates of volunteering, however, few studies have focused on whether and how religious attitudes affect volunteering. With data from the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II), 2004–2006, we examine the influences of religious attitudes, namely, the religiously based feelings of exclusiveness and inclusiveness, and openness to other religious faiths, on volunteering. We find that while religious exclusiveness significantly promotes volunteering only in religious areas, religious inclusiveness promotes both religious and secular volunteering. Moreover, those who are open to other religious faiths are more likely to engage in both types of volunteer work. Implications of these findings are discussed for future research linking religious attitudes to volunteering.

Religious Diversity: A Philosophical Defense of Religious Inclusivism

Faced by the challenge of religious plurality, most philosophers of religion view pluralism and exclusivism as the most accepted and fully developed positions. The third alternative, the model of inclusivism, held especially within the catholic tradition, has not received adequate attention in the debates in philosophy of religion, perhaps as it is based solely on theological grounds. In this essay I offer a philosophical defense of the position of religious inclusivism and give reasons why this position represents the most appropriate position in the face of conflicting religious truth claims.

Is Canada Moving Towards or Away from Religious Inclusivity in the Public Sphere?

In recent years, the Canadian judiciary has played an increasingly prominent role in determining the place of religion in the public sphere. Some of their decisions have led to greater religious inclusivity, while some have led to an increasing marginalization of religious communities. This paper examines the impact of some of these decisions on the public dimension of religious life. It considers the role of freedom of religion, equality, faith and belief in the lives of both religious and nonreligious citizens. It argues that the role of law is not to promote a single, monolithic conception of citizenship, but instead to foster a diverse and tolerant multicultural society that protects the sanctity of its citizens’ beliefs. Consequently, the public sphere may be best understood as a realm of competing belief systems, all of which must be accorded proper respect.

Inclusive Religious Education in Local Churches in the Netherlands

This article explores several principles underlying the developing practice of inclusive religions education in the Netherlands. The Institute for Theology and Social Integration (Utrecht, The Netherlands) has been instrumental in advocacy for inclusive programming within churches. Underlying philosophies include the notion of “taking a walk” and experiential aspects of religious participation and practice. Practical examples of pastoral practices are provided.

Inclusive Religious Education: Making it Happen

This article calls upon the church to reconsider its current practices and traditions with the goal of moving in new directions that meaningfully include persons with disabilities. Alternatives to traditional programs have been described in this special issue. The failure of the church to step forward as advocates and leaders in creating supportive communities that welcome people with and without disabilities on some level places it in peril. However, as illustrated here, there are those doing innovative work in an effort to bring change. If the church is to be truly responsive to its calling, its culture and practices must be changed.

Boundary Work in Inclusive Religious Groups: Constructing Identity at the New York Catholic Worker

Many religious groups use symbolic boundary work to construct distinctive collective identity. While boundary drawing may be unproblematic for some, it can create conflict for groups. How do inclusive groups construct and solidify identity and commitment? If they use boundary work, how do they manage the conflict between exclusive othering and inclusiveness? I show that while members of the inclusive New York Catholic Worker use boundary work to construct distinctive identity, their boundary work takes place largely on an abstract level while they practice inclusion of the other in their concrete interactions. Building on Martin Buber's insights regarding the transforma- tive power of encounters, I argue that concrete practices of inclusion outweigh boundary drawing in inclusive groups like the Catholic Worker. Group ideologies that encourage practices that cultivate openness to I-Thou relations, such as Catholic Worker personalism, therefore provide an advantage in balancing inclusive identity with boundary work.

A prophet of old: Jesus the ‘public theologian’

In this article the argument is put forward that Jesus’ parables portray him as a social prophet, as many of the issues addressed by Old Testament prophets (such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Hosea) are common themes in Jesus’ parables. As proof for and further elaboration on the abovementioned argument, two of these themes from Jesus’ parables, religious inclusivity and social injustice, are discussed. It is concluded that if public theology is understood as public theologians doing theology in public, Jesus was a ‘public theologian’ par excellence.

Remonstrant-Counter-Remonstrant Debates: Crafting a Principled Defense of Toleration after the Synod of Dordrecht (1619–1650)

AbstractThe debate about toleration occasioned by the condemnation, exile and later return of the Remonstrant leaders during and after the Truce in the Dutch Revolt has often been noted but not examined in detail. Based on the plethora of pamphlets and tracts for and against toleration that these years produced, this article analyzes the arguments and motivations for religious coexistence and freedom of conscience formulated by Simon Episcopius, Johannes Uytenbogaert, and other Remonstrants, in constant polemic interaction with their Contra-Remonstrant opponents. In the course of the debate the Erastian role of the magistrate was hollowed out and the importance of religious inclusion emphasized, but with the understanding that absent a reconciliation with their Gomarist counterparts, the pluriform reality existing within the Dutch Republic should be maintained and safeguarded. Accused of a sectarianism incongruent with their former position, the Remonstrant protagonists were compelled to develop a principled defense of their request for the free practice of their faith as well as of their refusal to tolerate the intolerant. Accused of licentiousness, they reluctantly formulated their own restrictive creedal formula. They presented the unmolested presence in the Republic of various sects as an enriching rather than a nefarious situation, rejected dogmatism and the monopolizing of truth, and argued plausibly that the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the 1579 Union of Utrecht is meaningless unless it include the freedom to practice one's faith.

Thomas Merton Global Prophet

Thomas Merton Global Prophet Victor A. Kramer Merton, grounded in the Christian monastic “School of Charity,” stands as a prophet for humankind’s future. On August 6, 1960 he wrote: “A prophet is one who cuts through great tangled webs of lies.” His intense, compassionate vision, akin to Teilhard de Chardin’s, invites all persons to embrace creation by employing a magnifying glass of compassion to ignite the ever‐present rays of God’s mercy. Then comes the living dance, what he calls the “general dance” in New Seeds of Contemplation. His vision includes ecumenical Christianity and sees beyond to affirm authenticity as manifested through art, culture, liturgies, and societal needs in the most inclusive religious and cultural senses. This issue of CrossCurrents commemorates forty years of Merton’s earthly absence and paradoxically his increasing worldwide presence. It brings together insights about his power, which flows from obedience as a contemporary Christian monk choosing to live faithfully as a Cistercian within the unlikely culture of mid‐twentieth century America. Merton lived almost fifty‐four years and was a member of the community of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky from December 10, 1941 to December 10, 1968. We are only now beginning to understand his amazing legacy. Sometimes I think of him as a Walt Whitman and a St. Augustine, or as an Emily Dickenson and a Thomas Aquinas. He was a towering intellectual, yet like Herman Melville’s Ishmael, a mystical observer. He pondered the globe—its good and evil. His tale is multivalent. What is most significant is that through his writing the whole world became one community. Merton’s gift of renewal, a legacy rooted in the Desert Fathers and St. Benedict, is clearly needed for the future of all humankind. His contemplative vision is both very simple and simultaneously extraordinary. Buried by vows in the quiet of the knobs of Kentucky, he rose as spokesman for all. He saw the whole world in his vision as did Jesus, Benedict, and Gerard Manley Hopkins (his proposed Ph.D. topic at Columbia). Earlier his M.A. thesis was written on William Blake, done in the framework of neo‐Thomism. Jacques Maritain’s Art and Scholasticism informed Merton to think in big patterns even then. Finally, Merton’s gift allowed him to stand back for the whole planet. That is also what we are trying to do here with this special double‐issue celebrating Merton. With this issue and the next, our intent is to help readers see Merton as one of the most important—indeed prophetic figures—in recent Western culture. He stands as a gift for all seekers in the twenty‐first century. As a prophet, he cuts away confusion. We have never before had a witness like Merton. Awake to all creation; alert to the horrors of the twentieth‐century and all of the neo‐colonial errors of 500 years, he sings the glory of God (yet not only as a Roman Catholic God) for a world which had become both post‐Christian and, even more so, post‐humane. His mature poetic‐prose gathering, Raids on the Unspeakable (1966), is an intense collection of essays and meditations which allows us to see “the outrageousness of our cultural assumptions.” Maybe more importantly, as reflected in the pieces collected here, we can see Merton found many excellent ways to affirm our world and our contemporary needs. We hope these essays, testimonies, analyses, and book review allow readers to know Merton a bit better and to come closer to implementing his vision. He had a wonderfully expansive and loving vision: we know no other prophet who as cloistered monk so loved the world, and who so loved humanity as to write literally thousands of letters and hundreds of poems and scores of lectures and books to remind us of the “inner experience” which we are desperately in our Promethean madness so bent on running away from. Brief excerpts included here are from two meetings where Merton was the focus.1 These analysts also refer to him as Prophet. What is interesting is that these commentators approach him so utterly differently. In each instance, he is appreciated as someone whose...

Rethinking “Sephardic”: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Observances among the Jews of Bombay

This study explores the ritual enactments of the Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jewish communities in Bombay, India during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. By comparing and contrasting the ritual enactments of the two communities against each other, the Sephardic norm, and various faiths in India, their acculturation and hybridization in India is displayed and expressed as “Eastern Sephardic” Jewry. The results demonstrate that the religious life of the Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews resembles that of other Mizrachi or “Eastern” Sephardic Jews, that is, “traditional” Sephardic rites were superimposed on older, ancestral Jewish customs, with additional contributions from their respective locales. The study argues that the Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews have not lost their Jewish identity by adapting to their host country and culture; rather, they have developed and nurtured a finely balanced and unique Indo-Judaic identity through a demonstrative cultural and religious inclusion of their Indian neighbors.

The case for religious inclusivism and the judicial recognition of religious associational rights : a response to Lenta : case comments

Patrick Lenta, in his comment on Pillay and in earlier work, has done South African jurisprudence a great service by forcing us to attend to the complexity of cultures and the problems associated with the accommodation of religious belief and practice in constitutional democracies.

Supernatural Miracles and Religious Inclusiveness

In this paper I shall assess Clarke’s assertion that all definitions of miracles that purport to satisfy the criterion of religious inclusiveness should substitute the term ‘supernatural’ for ‘non-natural’. In addition, I shall attempt to strengthen Clarke’s conception of the supernatural by offering an analysis of what it means for something to be ‘above’ nature. Lastly, I shall offer a new argument as to why Clarke’s intention-based definition of miracles is necessarily less religiously inclusive than Mumford’s causation-based definition.

Race and the Puritan Body Politic

On that day, completely dislocated, unable to be abroad with the other, the white man, who unmercifully imprisoned me, I took myself far off from my own presence, far indeed, and made myself an object. What else could it be for me but an an a that spattered my whole body with blood? But I did not want this revision, this thematization. I wanted was to be a man among other --Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White I heard that my heart must break and melt for sin, and beleeve in Christ, and that we should try our hearts if it be so.... I thought I wil give my self to God, and to Christ, and do what he will for ever; and because of this promise of pardon to al that repent and beleeve, my heart desireth to pray to God as long as I live. --Ponampam (Eliot and Mayhew Tears of Repentance) In his analysis of French colonization in Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Frantz Fanon relates an experience of a man's reduction to his body, specifically to the skin, when viewed by white racists. On the day Fanon describes above he was assaulted by such declarations as: Dirty nigger!.... Look, a (109) and Mama, see the Negro! I'm frightened! (112). In the wake of these statements, [He] had to meet the white man's eyes: An burdened me. The real world challenged my claims. In the white world the man of color encounters difficulties in the development of his bodily schema. Consciousness of the body is solely a negating activity.... My body was given back to me sprawled out, distorted, recolored, clad in mourning in that white winter day. (112-13) The statements do not merely call attention to the man's race, but they also compel him to remember his place, thereby encumbering him with an unfamiliar weight of his now distorted body. Despite the successes he might have had in other arenas, as in his profession, these moments freshly stain his exterior with the black from within. The amputation, excision, or hemorrhage that spattered [his] whole body with blood challenges his sense of his own humanity. All I wanted was to be a man among other men. In Black Skins, White Masks the body figuratively explodes because it cannot represent both colonial and identities. Furthermore, the body remains as the marker of difference that de-natures the adopted subjectivity. This inability to naturalize colonial identities as explicated by postcolonial theorists applies to one of the central contradictions in the Puritan missions to Christianize the Indians in New England. These missions tested Puritans' claims of their role in the new world and revealed the degree to which race limited religious inclusion. The degree to which Anglo-Puritans suspected the Indians' conversion, however, circumscribed their own neighborliness as well as the Christianity and humanity of the new converts. Within Puritanism in Massachusetts Bay, the tensions between corporeal models of community--those which emphasized hierarchical relationships and figuratively united members as a body-and more egalitarian contractual models, such as those based on mutually agreed upon terms, might explain the simultaneous embracing and rejection of these newly acquired lambs. While the original covenant was a holy agreement between God and his people, Puritans used the covenantal form to understand their legal and spiritual relationships to each other as well. As a third term, the covenant engages aspects of the body politic as well as the modern contract. While Fanon's experiences on the street qualified the mother country's promises of inclusion, the Puritan distrust of their Native American brethren corresponded with corporeal models of spiritual and social communities but contradicted at points the inherent promises of divine covenants as well as earthly contracts. …

’n Ondersoek na godsdiens-inklusivisme en godsdienspluralisme by M.A. Kruger

An investigation into religious inclusivism and religious pluralism in the work of M.A. Kruger In his exegesis of Romans M.A. Kruger arrives at the conclusion that there can be people who do not know the Scriptures or have not heard the contents of Scripture but still have true faith. Kruger’s conclusion indicates similarities with several writers who reject the religious-exclusive view that only those who know Jesus Christ and believe in Him are saved. This article explores the question to what extent Kruger’s views correspond with two ways of theological thought, that is, religious inclusivism and religious pluralism.

The Study of Values: Construction of the fourth edition

Some forty years after its initial publication, the Allport–Vernon–Lindzey Study of Values (SOV) was the third most cited non-projective measure of personality in the field of psychology. However, by the early 1980s the measure had fallen into disuse, in large part—we argue—due to its increasingly archaic content, lack of religious inclusiveness, and dated language. We describe the development of an updated version of the SOV that incorporates modifications to 15 out of the 45 original items. One hundred and seventy-nine students completed both the original and updated versions (counter-balanced for order). Psychometric properties of the updated and original scales were comparable and acceptable. Rationales for use of the updated version in research and practice are advanced.

Habermas and Religious Inclusion

Such a moral theology not only provides us with a convincing certainty of God's being, but it also has the great advantage that it leads us to religion, since it joins the thought of God firmly to our morality, and in this way it even makes better men of us. Kant, Lectures on Philosophical Theology This philosophy too, which takes up the thought of confederation in the concept of communicative, historically situated reason, will be able to provide no assurance ( keine Zuversicht); it stands in the sign of a transcendence from within and must content itself with the justified encouragement of a skeptical but non-defeatist “resistance to the gods and demons of a world contemptuous of man.” Habermas, “Israel oder Athen: Wem gehoert die anamnetische Vernunft?”

The "wider view": André Helleger's passionate, integrating intellect and the creation of bioethics.

This article provides an account of how André Hellegers, founder and first Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, laid medicine open to bioethics. Helleger's approach to bioethics, as to morality generally and also to medicine and biomedical science, involved taking the "wider view" -- a value-filled vision that integrated and gave meaning to what otherwise was disparate, precarious, and conflicting. This article shows how Helleger's wider view of bioethics was shaped by events in his own life, his resultant sense of the precariousness of life and health, his commitment to religious inclusiveness, his research in fetal medicine, his clinical experience in obstetrics, his role in the struggle to change the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on fertility control, and his developing concepts of health and disease. Hellegers was committed to and worked toward bioethics as a self-consciously interdisciplinary field in which the contributing disciplines adapt to each other -- rather than sustain themselves as autonomous disciplines -- to create a dynamic and complex intellectual, clinical, and social activity.

Religious Diversity and Cultural Inclusion in America

Religious Diversity and Cultural Inclusion in America

The Law of Peoples

The Law of Peoples

Particularism in Subsaharan Africa: ‘tribalism’ in town*

A model of particularism is proposed that distinguishes bases and levels of identification, association, unions, and organization. It is constructed from the literature on urbanization in Subsaharan Africa and the author's research in Nigeria. The context of ethnicity is described as a set of concentric circles designating the more narrowly or more largely defined ethnic groups ego identifies with, recruits his/her friends from, joins in unions, and supports in formal organizations. Socioeconomic position and religion are seen as alternative bases, each again offering different levels at which to define ‘we’ as against ‘they.’ The model thus focuses attention on both: alternative contents of particularistic attachment and action, and different levels of ethnic, socioeconomic, or religious inclusiveness at which such attachment and action crystallize.