Religious Representatives Research Articles

Vector control using LLIN/ITN: reduction of malaria morbidity in Bangladesh

Malaria is one of the major public health concerns due to re-emergence of the disease in Bangladesh in the 1990s. Currently it is endemic in 13 out of 64 administrative districts bordering India and Myanmar. Three hill tract districts (Khagrachhari, Rangmati, Bandarban) in the south-eastern part of the country report the highest incidences. The overall prevalence rate is 3.1% in the 13 endemic districts and 11% in 3 hill districts. BRAC initiated a pilot malaria control project in one of these hill districts in 1998. By 2004, the program expanded to all three hill tract districts covering 1.4 million population with the support from National Malaria Control Programme and with technical support from WHO. Later in 2007, BRAC led consortium of 20 partner NGOs started comprehensive implementation of the programme in all endemic districts with a population of 11 million in collaboration with the government and with financial support from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). The aim was to control the vector, to prevent disease transmission, and to provide early diagnosis and prompt effective treatment services to reduce morbidity and mortality. Currently Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN) are being distributed and ordinary bed nets are being treated with insecticide (Insecticide Treated Net- ITN) to the endemic districts. BRAC has selected female Community Health Workers from their own community and involved them to reach the poor and people living in areas with limited access to treatment services supplementing the government’s health care system. They provide home-based care of malaria diagnosis and treatment. They also provide malaria related information especially on malaria transmission, bed net usage, malaria symptoms and available treatment services at community level. Different sensitization meetings are conducted with opinion and religious leaders, local government and civil society representatives to increase awareness on malaria prevention and management. A recent survey showed that net utilization rate among children under five is 90% and among pregnant women is 85% in malaria endemic region. The national disease specific report shows a substantial decline in malaria cases from the baseline year 2008 (84,690 cases) to 2013 (26,891 cases), a 68% reduction of cases. Increased use rate of LLIN/ITN along with early seeking of home based malaria management is the key to success in malaria control.

John Courtney Murray, Religious Liberty, and Modernity: Part II: Modern Constitutional Democracy

VI THE ARGUMENT THAT STUDENTS of Murray make in defense of liberal or constitutional democracy as the best regime simply for the Catholic understanding can be found in Murray's own writings, at least in outline. It is a historical argument, and runs as follows. Unlike the liberal or laicist democracies of nineteenth-century Europe, which were in fact more or less what I described as Hobbesian or Lockean, American constitutional democracy is not characterized by an indifference to the truth of religion or, worse, by a rationalist faith that seeks to rid the world of superstition. The American political order is quite different. As its Declaration of Independence says, it conceives of rights as endowed by a sovereign God, and the belief in those rights as a holding of truths. (2) In addition, the First Amendment's free exercise clause makes clear that the political agreement reached by the Framers was an agreement of religious men or representatives of a religious people, who wished their government to a care for the protection of their religion from government interference. This people was, certainly, a Protestant people; they shared a Protestant consensus or public philosophy, and their disagreements presupposed this more fundamental consensus or agreement. But the principles that they articulated in the First Amendment are in fact truly Catholic principles. They evince a care for religion. Moreover, the distinction between the State and civil society is, both historically and theologically, a Catholic principle, for the Galatian doctrine of the two swords, altogether unknown to antiquity but required by Christianity, is what has eventually borne fruit as the distinction between the state and society. Finally, the complementary notion of indirect government through a secular state, which informs the American political order, is first found in the writings of John of Paris. Now to be sure, the modern understanding of all of these notions found its initial expression in writers such as Hobbes and Locke, and was largely directed against the Catholic Church, which failed to follow John of Paris and instead sought confessional Catholic states. But this too was a historical accident. The Church had, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, to fill the civilizational void of rule left by that collapse. Having done its work and assisted the maturation of Western man, however, the Church failed to step aside as its own principles, had they been fully understood, would dictated. And so it was left to the Church's secularist opponents to articulate the doctrines that gave rise to constitutional democracy. Now, standing as it were at the end of this maturation, if not at the end of history, the Church recognizes the fully awakened consciousness of human freedom and reclaims as her own the principle of human liberty that informs constitutional democracy. She recognizes the truth and justice of American Constitutional democracy as the best regime simply. (3) That is Murray's historical, and historicist, argument. There is an initial difficulty with it: while there are undoubtedly Christian influences on the American Founding, hard historical evidence indicates that Jefferson and Madison--upon whose work the American Founding rests--were Hobbesian or Lockean, intent on promoting a soft or easygoing indifference in their fellow citizens in the name of comfortable self-preservation. (4) Murray's broad reading of the free exercise clause, which finds that the American regime intended to favor religious practice, mistakes a difference of tactics for a difference of intent. Our sister states in Pennsylvania and New York, says Jefferson, have made the happy discovery that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play. (5) More broadly, Murray's argument is supported by rather thin evidence, including appeals to the true thought of Roger Williams (who was not one of the Framers),6 and an uncritical dependence on Clinton Rossiter and on the Carlisle brothers' neo-Hegelian history of political thought. …

Upstream public engagement, downstream policy-making? The Brain Imaging Dialogue as a community of inquiry

UK science and policy networks increasingly advocate ‘upstream public engagement’, that is, early public deliberation around potentially controversial science and technology. In the last two decades, neuroscience has advanced considerably, and non-medical uses of brain imaging technologies (BIT) are now raising substantial concerns. The 2010 Brain Imaging Dialogue (BID) brought together scientists, health practitioners, sociologists, philosophers, ethicists, religious representatives, citizens, policy-makers and legal experts to deliberate on non-medical uses of BIT. I present the BID as a community of inquiry that sought to stimulate policy deliberation in Scotland. The paper tells the story of the process from the perspective of the public engagement practitioners who organised it, drawing lessons about the community of inquiry method and concluding with reflections on the challenges of connecting upstream engagement to ongoing policy-making. Taking cues from practitioners’ experiences, I propose an institutional mechanism for the uptake of outputs from deliberative processes.

The Role of Spirituality in the Construction of the Autonomy and Responsibility of Chronic Diabetic Patients. An Orthodox Priests’ Perspective

Abstract This article aims to identify the perceptions of Orthodox Christian priests about the role of faith and religious practices, of spirituality, generally, in the care of chronic patients. In treating chronically ill people, we consider that the concerted actions of those who care about the patient (family, friends) are very important, because they, together with the religious representatives, serve to stimulate the joy of life for the suffering persons and to restore their self-confidence. The chronic condition can cause distortions in the representation of concepts like world, time and necessity, which are seen from the perspective of a transfiguring ethos, transcending time, by the reference to a transcendent reality. Life can be understood as a drama, to which the individual makes specific expectations, both from himself and from their relatives. In this paper, we aim to identify a Christian ethical perspective (Damian, S., Necula, R., Caras, A., Sandu, A., 2012) in the discourse of the priests, especially of those engaged in missionary work in hospitals, as well as specific healing rituals of Orthodoxy. In the context of this article, we have chosen a particular side of the chronic patient's construction of the autonomy and the responsibility towards his own health, limiting ourselves to answer the question: What is the role of religion/spirituality and of the religious institutions in the social construction of autonomy and responsibility for the patient with chronic disease?Private interviews have been conducted with the patients and members of their families, medical specialists in diabetes, medical staff, social workers and focus groups with patients, members of their families, medical specialists in diabetes, family, doctors and orthodox priests. The research done within this study is based on the synthesis of these interviews and focus groups and the data were interpreted using inductive qualitative methodologies.

The Grate Italian Personality of the XXth Century – Pope John Paul I

The Pope John Paul I is an outstanding religious representative of the Catholic Church who significantly contributed to the Italian history as well as to the Christian world. Albino Luciani is remembered as «a smiling Pope». He eloquently demonstrated how to treat people, to love them and to respect human dignity. The brief biography of Albino Luciani is described. John Paul I was a highly educated man, he knew six foreign languages. Luciani showed his strong position concerning the reformism of the Catholic Church after participation in the IInd Vatican Council of 1962-1965. After the elections the new pope John Paul I began to carry out ecclesiastic reforms in order to bring the Church nearer to people. In this article the author shows difficult struggle Luciani had to sustain with the reactionary part of the Curia. John Paul I wanted to maintain discipline in the Church. He intended to continue fulfilling the commandments of Jesus Christ. Luciani had to be occupied with grave problems such as financial scandals in the Vatican Bank, abortion and use of contraceptives. The reasons for his elimination are analyzed. Prof. Shkarovskiy proved unnatural death of John Paul I and described the murder of the Pope. Albino Luciani is a saint person. It is proved by numerous miracles all over the world. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p544

Soins palliatifs du nouveau-né et cultures

The period of palliative care is a difficult time for parents and caregivers because they are all weakened by the proximity of death. First of all, because of religious and cultural differences, parents and families cannot easily express their beliefs or the rituals they are required to develop; second, this impossibility results in conflicts between the caregiver team and the family with consequences for both. Caregivers are concerned to allow the expression of religious beliefs and cultural demands because it is assumed that they may promote the work of mourning by relating the dead child to its family and roots. However, caregivers' fear not knowing the cultural context to which the family belongs and having inappropriate words or gestures, as sometimes families dare not, cannot, or do not wish to describe their cultural background. We attempt to differentiate what relates to culture and to religion and attempt to identify areas of potential disagreement between doctors, staff, and family. Everyone has to work with the parents to open a space of freedom that is not limited by cultural and religious assumptions. The appropriation of medical anthropology concepts allows caregivers to understand simply the obligations imposed on parents by their culture and/or their religion and open access to their wishes. Sometimes help from interpreters, mediators, ethnopsychologists, and religious representatives is needed to understand this reality.

Spiritual assessment as part of routine psychiatric evaluation: problems and implications

Spiritual assessment as part of routine psychiatric evaluation: problems and implications

Reflexões e discursos sobre a vida humana: novos subsídios para aulas de ciências

Objetivou-se, aqui, analisar os discursos científico e religioso, de professores de ciências do Ensino Médio, e de representantes do senso comum (perfis variados, maiores de 18 anos, que não estão envolvidos diretamente na discussão sobre o tema, e não pertencem aos demais grupos estudados), sobre a definição de vida humana. Nesta pesquisa, com abordagem qualitativa, utilizaram-se entrevistas semiestruturadas para a coleta de dados. Os dados foram analisados sob vários olhares teóricos. As "falas" dos sujeitos foram registradas e analisadas por meio de interpretação simples, buscando-se identificar os significados mais importantes. Ao se conjugarem múltiplos discursos, pretendeu-se gerar subsídios a serem utilizados em ambientes de educação formal e não formal em biociências e saúde. Ao se sistematizarem discursos que ordinariamente não são vistos juntos, e este é o ineditismo da pesquisa, buscou-se fornecer informações abrangentes para uso em aulas de ciências sobre vida humana, e, dessa forma, contribuir, significativamente, para o processo ensino-aprendizagem de ciências.

Donor designation: racial and ethnic differences in US nondesignators’ preferred methods for disclosing intent to donate organs

Little is known about racial/ethnic differences in preferred methods of disclosing deceased organ donation intentions among persons not previously designating their organ donation preferences publicly or the association of medical mistrust with preferences. We surveyed 307 United States (US) adults who had not yet designated their donation intentions via drivers' licenses or organ donor cards (nondesignators) to identify their preferred disclosure methods (personal discussions with family, physicians, or religious representatives or public registration via mail/telephone/computer, workplace, place of religious worship, or grocery store/bank/post office) and to assess the association of mistrust with preferences. In multivariable models, we assessed racial/ethnic differences in preferences and the influence of medical mistrust on preferences. Nondesignators most preferred discussions with physicians (65%) or family members (63%). After adjustment, African Americans (AAs) were more likely than Whites to prefer discussion with religious representatives. In contrast, AAs and Hispanics were less likely than Whites to prefer registration at a workplace or through mail/telephone/computer. Medical mistrust was common and associated with less willingness to disclose via several methods. Encouraging donation intention disclosure via discussions with physicians, family, and religious representatives and addressing medical mistrust could enhance strategies to improve nondesignators' donation rates.

Does Russia need sex education? The views of stakeholders in three Russian regions

Objective To investigate the attitudes of the main stakeholders towards the introduction of sex education in schools in Russia. Design Qualitative semi-structured interview study. Setting Altai Krai, Volgograd Oblast, Moscow, Russian Federation. Participants One hundred and fifty-three interviews with Intersectoral HIV/AIDS Committee members, government officials responsible for HIV policies and interventions, non-governmental organisation and private-sector representatives. Main outcome measures Perception of and attitudes towards the introduction of sex education in schools. Results Ninety-one per cent of stakeholders welcomed the introduction of sex education in schools and emphasised its importance for a child's personal development, public health, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS control, and pregnancy planning. The majority of respondents suggested providing different information for each age and grade. Despite the claimed support of interviewed policy-makers and main HIV stakeholders, there has been no action to introduce sex education. The majority of respondents were of the view that wider positive support through propaganda about health, sex and healthy lifestyle should be gained prior to introducing sex education in schools by addressing the stigma surrounding sexual issues. Conclusions There was little opposition to the introduction of sex education in Russian schools expressed in our survey, but there are uncertainties regarding curriculum quality, teaching methods and the starting grade of teaching about sex, and there is a need to cover local sensitivities in the territories. These concerns could and should be addressed during curriculum design, development and programme implementation by the federal and local authorities. Wider involvement of educational specialists, peer-adults, health workers, celebrities and religious representatives in discussion of the curriculum could help prevent opposition to its implementation. Contribution to knowledge Discussion of sex-related topics has been taboo in Russia and there has been little research into opinions on issues related to sex education. The contribution of this research is in gaining theoretical in-depth understanding of the attitudes of the interviewed stakeholders in Russia about the introduction of sex education in schools.

The next generation of Assyrians in Sweden: religiosity as a functioning system of meaning within the process of acculturation

For ethnic groups in which religion is an important dimension of culture, attention needs to be paid to religiosity as a system of meaning when studying their process of acculturation. Using a sequential mixed model research approach, where quantitative have preceded qualitative methods, three generations of the Assyrian population in a Swedish city have been studied concerning their acculturation processes in relation to religious values and practices. The research question guiding this study is: Does religiosity function as a system of meaning among the Assyrian youth in Sweden? The main objective of this study is to highlight the role of religiosity in the process of acculturation. The quantitative questionnaire material shows that religious values and practices decline from the first to the third generation (statistical significance at p < 0.001). The qualitative interview study with members of the third generation shows that religion has been a positive part of childhood. In adulthood, however, other systems of meaning also have become central at the same time as religious institutions and representatives are being criticised. This change needs to be understood against the background of the Swedish cultural context, one of the most secularised in the world.

Conference Review: Notes on the “International Congress of Traditional Medicine, Interculturality, and Mental Health,” Takiwasi Center, Tarapoto, Peru, June 7-10, 20091

English translation by Glenn H. Shepard Jr. Revision by Matthew Meyer This article reports on the recent “International Congress of Traditional Medicine, Interculturality, and Mental Health” held by the Takiwasi Center in Tarapoto in the Peruvian Amazon. The event united 218 researchers and indigenous and religious representatives from 22 countries to present results of scientific discussions and engage in political and ethical debates surrounding the increasingly globalized, transnational, and biomedicalized reach of indigenous medical practices, especially ayahuasca-based therapy and religious practice. The author interviewed several key researchers and representatives present at the event, and presents several important controversies in the field of ayahuasca and traditional medicine. She also reports on the colorful and eclectic nonacademic sessions at the event which included Inca chiropractics, ayahuasca sessions, and various forms of indigenous medicine. The text also reflects on the tragic events that unfolded in nearby Bagua, Peru, on the evening of the meeting, bringing a special urgency to the event's focus on indigenous cultural heritage.

Constitutionalism as a Peaceful "Site" of Religious Struggles

The author analyzes the relationship between religion and constitutionalism. The time seems propitious for an examination of the relationships in the West between Church/es, the State, and the general principles of “constitutionalism," a definition which cannot be separated from the analysis of its historical and secular roots.It is not arbitrary to explain constitutionalism as a product of a “long process of secularization, however, the idea of secularism (laicïté, in French) has never been clearly defined. On the contrary, it has often been the source of tension, for example the debate on the common Judeo-Christian heritage in Europe, during the drafting of the EU's Constitutional Treaty.In the West this is an era of unprecedented religious diversity. In some States one religion still predominates; in others, religious representatives have a formal political role, for example, the bishops who sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom where, as in Greece, a national Church remains a reality. Nevertheless, the separation between Church and State is, generally, the prevailing principle in the institutions of the Western legal systems and their politics. In any case, the “religion issue" still remains an important aspect of liberal constitutionalism which is a legal model that contains institutionalized mechanisms of power control to prevent tyranny and to guarantee individual rights and liberties, including religious freedom.The author will try to demonstrate that the discourse of human rights – a pillar of modern-contemporary constitutionalism – offers, both at national and supranational level, space for re-defining (i.e. re-inventing) the meaning and boundaries of sovereign power because it is more compatible with some fundamental principles, such as human dignity, rule of law, liberty of religion and conscience; as well as a more “homogeneous definition" of a secularized constitutional legal system.

The Levites in Exile: A Response to L. S. Tiemeyer

AbstractSome scholars have contested the presence of Levites among the communities that endured exile to Mesopotamia during the 6th century BCE. The present study examines a number of post-exilic texts that presuppose the existence of Levites in the Eastern Diaspora, attesting to the likelihood that during the Neo-Babylonian period, many Levites were indeed taken captive along with other Judahites, even as other Levite groups remained in the homeland. This led to a diversity of sacral and social purviews within/between the different Jewish communities of the Persian period and their respective religious representatives.

Voices in the Wilderness: the Established Church of England and the European Union*

The interrelation between church and state in the UK is informed to a considerable degree by the anomalous status of the Church of England as the established church for a major part (though not by any means all) of its territory. This paper examines the historical inheritance of establishment and evaluates the manner in which this informs the dynamic between the secular and spiritual authorities. It considers the place of religion within the European Union (EU) as viewed by its institutions and by individual faith communities. While there is discernible evidence of respect being afforded to the sacred within the organs of EU governance in terms of the recognition of Christian roots of Western Europe and dialogue with religious representatives, this is neither systematic nor universal. The Church of England in particular is yet to find its voice in the corridors of influence in Brussels, and it is ventured that the anachronism of establishment may be part of the reason for this.

“I know y'all think I'm pretty square, but tuh, I believe what I believe”: Images of Evangelicals in American Film

This article provides a critical analysis and historical overview of four types of evangelical Christian images in American movies since 1970: the hypocritical, the psychotic, the naïve, and the insensitive evangelical. The typologies are examined through formal analysis, as well as considerations of script adaptation and critical responses. Historically, the benign religious images that dominated when religious representatives played constitutive roles in shaping the content of American movies at the site of production have generally been replaced with images that are provocative but equally lacking in verisimilitude. The essay concludes with a consideration of images that complicate these dominant types.

The New Integrationism, the State and Islamophobia: Retreat from multiculturalism in Australia

Since their introduction to Australia in the early 1970s, the politics of multiculturalism have entailed a degree of state control over the cultural affairs of (principally immigrant) ethnic communities. This was largely obtained by consent rather than coercion, and this consent was often purchased with various forms of state resourcing for community needs, with a measure of coercion attached to the threat, where necessary, of funding withdrawals. Beyond the basic framework of liberal-democratic norms, very little of the ground rules for the acceptable practice of minority culture were inscribed in legislation or state pronouncements. The pursuit of the ‘War on Terror’ since 9/11 has increasingly seen the intrusion of the state into cultural, and especially religious, matters of minority populations, overwhelmingly among Muslims, in Australia. Pronouncements are now routinely made by political leaders of what is acceptable in a sermon, for example, and what is ‘extreme’, ‘radical’ or unacceptable. Religious leaders themselves have been identified by state actors as exemplary or beyond the pale and to be replaced. The government has involved itself in the process of selection of religious representatives, and made strong representations about the selection of leaders and their necessary attributes, such as fluency in English, attitudes favouring ‘integration’, beliefs in women's rights, positive disposition towards the alliance with the United States, and so on. There have also been government demands for ethnic/religious schools to teach ‘Australian values’. At present there is no legal basis for such prescription and proscription, which operates rather by hectoring and harassment and the implied conditionality of the remnants of multicultural funding. All of this action can be shown to be discriminatory, in that it is directed only towards Muslims. It also represents a dangerous trend in terms of undermining the right to religious freedom, enshrined in a number of international treaties to which Australia is a signatory.

Faith in Human Rights On 10 December 2008 Senior Religious Representatives State Support of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

AbstractOn 10 December 2008 ten senior religious representatives of different world religions will assemble in the Peace Palace in The Hague to declare their support to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the presence of a large gathering of dignitaries. They will be the first signatories of the Statement Faith in Human Rights, open for endorsement by other prominent religious leaders around the world. This article describes the origin, purpose and preparatory stages of this International Inter-religious Conference.

&lt;em&gt;Laïcité&lt;/em&gt; in the United States or The Separation of Church and State in a Pluralist Society

American separation of church and state is much more exigent than French laïcité, in that it prohibits the state from helping one or all religions in any manner; either in making religious representatives accredited and recognized political interlocutors in political and social dialogue, in putting edifices at their disposition for religious practice, or in financing religious schools-all things that French public authority does to benefit certain religions present in the territory of the Republic. As a result, religions, churches, or sects in the United States are all on equal footing with the others; none is privileged. The downside of the situation is that freedom of religion is in no way helped or assisted as is often the case in France and in Europe more generally.

Laïcité in the United States or The Separation of Church and State in a Pluralist Society

American separation of church and state is much more exigent than French laicite, in that it prohibits the state from helping one or all religions in any manner; either in making religious representatives accredited and recognized political interlocutors in political and social dialogue, in putting edifices at their disposition for religious practice, or in financing religious schools-all things that French public authority does to benefit certain religions present in the territory of the Republic. As a result, religions, churches, or sects in the United States are all on equal footing with the others; none is privileged. The downside of the situation is that freedom of religion is in no way helped or assisted as is often the case in France and in Europe more generally.