Religious Society Research Articles

The Minims, Their Rule, and French Religious Society at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century

The mendicant Order of Minims was founded by a Calabrian hermit and healer, St. Francesco di Paola (1416-1507), who left his homeland behind in 1483 to attend to the ailing Louis XI in France at the latter’s request. They received papal approval for a new “rule” (despite the injunction of the Fourth Lateran Council against such developments in 1215) and a previously unheard-of vow (“Lenten life”), and enjoyed a growing presence across western and central Europe by the end of the founder’s life. The Minims appear hard to interpret: while they do not fit more traditional perspectives on pre-Reformation monastic “decline,” they also are not much easier to place in more recent and more positive reappraisals of late medieval reform, which have focused more on the push that reformers provided than their pull. This article emphasizes the productive religious conversations between vowed religious activists and external supporters in the period. It is argued that the Minims’ harsh and punctilious lives dovetailed tightly with the programmatic piety in favor among the pious laity of the aristocracy and the towns. Building on these foundations, the rigorous rule that they created was the product of a deep religious interaction with society, above all that which they found in France. The Minims’ evolving social connectivity and their boundary-crossing religious development meant that they were no outlier, but rather a natural focal-point within French religious society.

С.Л. Франк в Петербургском религиозно-философском обществе

The subject of this article is S.L. Frank's participation in the creation and work of the Saint Petersburg Religious and philosophical society and the evolution of his worldview in the confrontation between the cognitive-objectivist rationalist system of consciousness of S.L. Frank and the romantic subjectivism of the «new religious consciousness», represented by D.S. Merezhkovsky, D.V. Filosofov and other ideologists of «neo-Christianity». The source of the opposition is called a different understanding of the absolute and its regulatory role in relation to reality, which was expressed – on the one hand-in the religious individualism of S.L. Frank and on the other hand-in the «religious community» of the ideologists of the «new religious consciousness». The article States that S.L. Frank's reflection on solving these problems in the Religious and philosophical society took place in the atmosphere of theoretical disputes caused by three events in the philosophical and religious and social life of Russia in 1910: discussion of the ideas of pragmatism, polemics about the specifics of philosophy in connection with the appearance of the Russian edition of Logos and the death of Leo Tolstoy. It is emphasized that the participation of S.L. Frank's understanding of these events was reflected in the movement of his thought from idealism to ontology of the «first philosophy», the expression of which was the work «the Subject of knowledge». It is noted that the «frame work» of this movement of S.L. Frank was set by the development of the scientific and philosophical and poetic heritage of I.V. Goethe. The article shows how the ideological evolution of S.L. Frank is fixed in his personal religious life. In conclusion, the author joins the assessment of the role of S.L. Frank in the religious and social movement in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, given by N.A. Berdyaev: S.L. Frank brings «clarity, freedom and quiet harmony» to it.

Bağımsızlık Öncesi Ve Sonrası Kırgız Toplumunda Din Ve Dinî Kurumlar Üzerine Bir Analiz

Din Sosyolojisi. Bu makalede bağımsızlığını kazandıktan sonra Kırgızistan’da toplumsal-siyasi hayatta önemli rol oynayan ve bunlara yön veren din unsurunu, din sosyolojisi ve siyaset bilimi açısından incelemeye çalışacağız. İslam’ın Kırgızlar arasında ne zaman yayıldığı ve benimsendiği ile ilgili tarihi kaynaklara dayanarak farklı görüşlerin bulunduğunu belirtmeliyiz. Günümüzde, Kırgızistan sınırları içerisindeki İslam’ı anlayabilmek için onun tarihteki süreçlerini göz önünde bulundurmak şarttır. Kırgızistan’ın Müftiyat kurumu; yani Kırgızistan Müslümanları Dini İdaresi’nin (KMDİ) ne zaman ve nasıl ortaya çıktığını göstermek için Sovyet Sosyalist Cumhuriyetler Birliği döneminde İslam hakkında birtakım tespitlerde bulunularak oluşum sürecinin ele alınması gerekmektedir. Kırgızistan’da İslam’ın tarihi sürecini birkaç döneme ayırmak gerekir: Ortaçağdan SSCB’nin kuruluşuna kadarki dönem, Sosyalizm dönemi ve son olarak Kırgızistan’ın bağımsızlığını kazandıktan sonraki dönem. Bağımsızlığın ilk yıllarından itibaren Kırgızistan’da dine ve dinî hayata öncesine oranla büyük bir serbestlik, bir bakıma kısmi özerklik hürriyeti verilmiştir. Ancak 4 Şubat 2014 tarihindeki Devlet Güvenlik Konseyi toplantısında dine verilen bu kısmi özerklik hürriyeti siyasetinin doğru olmadığı sonucuna varılmıştır. O günden itibaren devlet dinin toplumdaki yapısına ve yaşamına yön verme siyaseti yürüteceği kararını almıştır. Bu çalışmamızda bağımsızlık elde edildikten sonraki süreçte dinî eğilimler ve dine yönelik toplumsal yaptırımlar toplum bilimi ve siyaset bilimi açısından incelenmiştir. Kırgız toplumunun sosyal ve siyasi istikrarı için çalışma süreci ve yaptırımları üzerinde durulmuştur. Makalemizde çeyrek asırlık bir tarihe sahip olan Kırgız devletinin din konusundaki uygulamalarını siyaset bilimi, güvenlik ve toplum bilimi açısından ele alıp değerlendirmeye çalışacağız.

An ‘un-imagined community’: the entangled genealogy of an exclusivist nationalism in Myanmar and the Rohingya refugee crisis

ABSTRACT The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted religious ethnic minorities of the contemporary world. They have been persecuted in Myanmar since the post-coup military regime came to power in 1962. What explains this brutal pursuit of violence against a minority? In answering this question, I trace the genealogy and the ethnogenesis of the Rohingya in Myanmar in a longue durée through an analysis of extant data, both historical and contemporary, and I supplement it with an ethnographic study I conducted in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. I argue that the emergence of the Rohingya identity is constitutively related with the state-formation, war conquest, and power shifts in Myanmar during precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. I demonstrate how the post-coup state of Myanmar – in association with the religious civil society, led by a section of the majoritarian Theravada Buddhist Bamars – provoked religious and exclusivist nationalism and constructed the ‘Rohingya Muslims’ as the enemy ‘Other’. I demonstrate also how the democratization of Myanmar ironically exacerbated the problem. The Rohingya themselves – once alienated and un-imagined from the national space – embraced this identity of victimhood to design their resilient and oppositional disposition against an exclusivist state, which further politicized and reified the identity.

Одеський православний рух vs «більшовицька пропаганда дією» (початок 1920-х років)

У науковій нарації репрезентується нарисна реконструкція православного життя в Одесі на початку 1920-х рр. на тлі комуністичного наступу у вигляді «більшовицької пропаганди дією», що знайшло реалізацію у підступних методах антирелігійної атеїстичної пропаганди, ініціюванні розколу у православній громаді міста, провокуванні у локальному релігійному соціумі міжконфесійного протистояння та інституційного самовинищення на догоду атеїстичним маніпуляторам церковного життя.
 Проаналізована археографічна основа дослідження та фахова література останніх років надали можливість авторам реконструювати основні, векторні складові політики комуністичної влади, спрямуваної на обмеження соціально-релігійних можливостей в умовах ідеологічного пресингу комуністичної влади та підступних «практик» її органів.
 У статті зводиться окремішнє в одне ціле, й історичне, й соціальне (ментальне, релігійне, моральне, аморальне тощо), опираючись на низку законодавчих актів, невідомих/маловідомих документальних джерел, що підтверджують наступальні акції комуністів-атеїстів саме на одеському прикладі, де РПЦ була превалюючою у порівнянні з іншими церковними утвореннями і залишається такою досьогодні.

Assessing Perception of Patients and Physicians Regarding Spirituality in Karachi, Pakistan: A Pilot Study.

Spirituality plays an important part in coping with life problems, health concerns, and well-being issues at individual and collective levels. In Pakistan, few studies have looked at the role of religion in patients' illnesses. To assess patients' and health care professionals' beliefs concerning spirituality and illness to understand the role of spirituality and religion in clinics. A total of 52 patients and 50 health care professionals from different specialties were interviewed. A self-devised tool was used to gain information from patients. For health care professionals a 17-item questionnaire was used. The study results show that most patients view spirituality positively and want their physicians to discuss spirituality with them. Most patients believed that having a strong belief in spirituality helped them cope with their condition better. Most health care professionals surveyed believed that spirituality plays an important part in a patient's illness and its prognosis, but only a minority asked patients about spirituality. Most health care professionals quoted lack of time as one of the main reasons for not discussing spirituality with patients, and some believed it was a private matter. Many health care professionals are hesitant to discuss spiritual issues with patients because of lack of time, insufficient training, or their own discomfort. There is a need to incorporate training about spirituality in the medical curriculum, especially in religious societies such as in Pakistan. Further research is needed in this area.

Review: Chinese Architecture: A History, by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

Review: <i>Chinese Architecture: A History</i>, by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

Persistent becoming: women’s religious thought and the global

This essay attempts a ‘state of the field’ examination of a branch of feminist thinking within the global, namely women’s religious thought. Variants of religious feminism and women’s religious have long been existent and have recently ‘remerged’ across the globe. Some argue for the reinterpretation of religious systems that are consistent with orthodox dogma (Tomalin in Oxf Dev Stud 37(2):81–100, 2009), while others look for dialogue and intersection with secular feminist thinking. Transnational networks of religious women, both ordained and lay, exist and have encouraged serious reflection upon and provide significant challenge to unequal and oppressive gender hierarchies within religious traditions and religious societies as well as suggesting provocations to secular organising. There is, arguably, a kind of strange revolution here, where traditional hierarchies are challenged, but also ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’ structures are found wanting. In the urgencies and reflections from women’s religious thought in Asia, Latin America and in Africa, both Western imperialism and locality must be reckoned with. Conceptually, this is an essay on what or who is silenced, meditating on silence, and, why silences appear. We can argue that the secular bent of theory and study in International Relations can and does silence the interventions of feminist as well as womanist religious activity and women’s religious thought. Hence, the question, overall, raised by this essay is what could further study and engagement with such religious thought bring to the study of the international? In doing so, this essay looks at the ‘strangeness’ of women’s religious thought with celebration, reflecting generally on the parameters of such thought in its global form, particularly in terms of the sub-fields of religion and also feminist theory. It also discusses what challenges and provocations the voices of women religious bring to the study of the international, and what further study and attention to transnational movements of such religious thought could mean for alternative sites for the discussion of the global.

Personal Counselor Quality Improvement Based on An-Nahdliyah Moderation Value

The counselor's personality is influenced by belief values (belief systems), so these values are essential to consider. Indonesia is a diverse country. Indonesian society is also a religious society. In terms of diversity and terms of religion, there is a match between the two points in the an-Nahdliyah moderation value as the majority group of Indonesian Islam. This study aims to improve the personal quality of the counselor based on an-Nahdliyah moderation values by providing training to prospective counselors. This study uses a one-group pretest-posttest design. Research subjects were 25 prospective counselors at STAI Miftahul Ulum Pamekasan with simple random sampling. The data analysis technique used a t-test. The results showed that an-Nahdliyah moderating values training for prospective counselors was effective in improving the personal quality of prospective counselors. This is evidenced by the value of increasing the personal quality of prospective counselors who fall into the medium category. This means that this training is appropriate to be used to improve the personal quality of prospective counselors in providing guidance and counseling services based on the values of tawassuth, tawazun, tasamuh, and i'tidal.

Pendampingan Standarisasi Guru Taman Pendidikan Al-Qur`an Melalui Pelatihan Metode Tilawati Berbasis Aset

A teacher of the Qur'an Education is required to determine the right method of learning the Qur'an. In addition, it takes skill and skill that is standard in implementing Qur'anic learning. Therefore, it is necessary to mentoring the standardization of Qur'anic learning through training, among other trainings in Tilawati method. This mentoring is done by the asset approach in the framework of Asset-based-Community Development (ABCD). Performance Achievement in this mentoring is the empowerment of religious leaders and society in providing accommodation and consumption. Community assets were successfully empowered to support the program's success.

The Role of Religious Society in Establishing Religious Government

In this article, the role of religious society in establishing religious government has been discussed, that is, what function can religious society and its individuals have in creating and strengthening religious the religious government? In this paper, the nature of religious society and its process were examined. The collection of information in this writing is a library method and the research method is descriptive and analytical. One of the important issues in religious society is realism and dynamism, which leads to the establishment of religious government. The role of the people is another important component in creating and strengthening the religious government. Science and practice are also other effective components of the religious community mentioned.

Religious influence in policy-making: a case of sexual education in Lithuania

The Lithuanian Ministry of Education adopted the sexual education and preparation for family life policy in 2016. Policy formulation stage became the centre of the conflict between secular reproductive health and sex education activists and religious civil society organizations as well as Lithuanian Catholic Church which exerts its informal political power and utilizes institutional opportunity structures in various stages of policy-making. These groups clashed not only in the chambers of the Lithuanian Parliament, but also in the media. Competing discourses were created and maintained in various public spaces. Non-governmental human rights organizations have tried to counter the discourse of oppositional conservative and religious political actors and actively participated in policy formulation, but these attempts did not prevent the Ministry of Education from adopting a family and abstinence-oriented sex education which favours religious values. This paper seeks to understand religious influence in sexual education policy formation in Lithuania. I utilize public media reports and anonymous in-depth interviews with various relevant actors involved. This case study also enriches theoretical literature on informal institutions and institutional opportunity structures in relation to religious actors influence in morality policy-making.

İhvân-ı Safâ düşüncesinde müzik ve kosmos ilişkisi

İhvân-ı Safâ düşüncesinde müzik ve kosmos ilişkisi

De kracht van de gekleurde bril

It is a mainstay in the sociology of religion that the reflexivity that appears in religious pluralist societies has an impact on the religious identity of individuals. According to Peter Berger, reflexivity replaces the certainty of the taken-for-granted worldview by enduring uncertainty, hence relativizing every religious identity. However, his theory is underdeveloped concerning the role of culture. He fails to describe how worldviews not just respond to the pressure to relativize, but are already involved in the definition, interpretation, and integration of reflexivity itself. The aim of this article is to study the role of the worldview in dealing with reflexivity more thoroughly. A comparison between the religious trajectories of religious, atheist, and spiritual individuals, demonstrates that their own worldview restricts the scope of reflexivity letting it ending up in purification instead of relativization of religious identities.

Kejawen, Multiculturalism, and Principles of the Qur’an: Transformation and Resupposition of QS. al-Kafirun (109): 6 in Urip Sejati Community of Yogyakarta

This article focuses on the idea of multiculturalism in Javanese mythical believing (Kejawen) communities within the paradigm of Qur'anic studies. The discussion of the research emphasizes the axiological shift of QS. Al-Kafirun (109) in the milieu of Urip Sejati community of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. “Urip Sejati” is a Javanese religious society that has developed as a minority group because it is domiciled near to various centers of Islamic civilization as pesantren, historic mosques, and colleges in Krapyak. This research has been held since 2018 by doing literary studies, observations, and interviews through the leaders of Urip Sejati community.The structure of this article features a complex process of analysis on transmission and transformation of Qur'anic interpretations in the paradigm of sociology. It also analyzes the patterns of the phenomenon in a synchronic and diachronic paradigm to get through a worldview reading. On its formal form, the reception of Q.109: 6 in the membership of Urip Sejati contains informative and performative suppositions. This verse became a major foundation for the construction of multiculturalism because it contains the doctrine acknowledged as a verse that supports pluralities.

Šafā‘a. La cohesión de una sociedad

Se presenta en este trabajo la doctrina de la šafā‘a, esto es, la intercesión escatológica del Profeta por su comunidad, desde la perspectiva de los nuevos vínculos de cohesión social de la sociedad religiosa instaurada por el islam que sustituían a la aṣabiyya tribal, constituyéndose la šafā‘a en el colofón y broche final de esos nuevos vínculos. Tras estudiar dicha doctrina se constata la seguridad de la salvación final que ofrece, elemento valiosísimo de cohesión social, y se destaca la exclusividad de la šafā‘a para solo el musulmán a través de la comparación de La disputa entre los animales y el hombre de los Ijwān al-Ṣafā’ con La disputa de l’ase de Turmeda y a través de la verdadera causa de la muerte de al-Ḥallāŷ según al-Rūmī. Hay, sin embargo, una excepción a esa exclusividad ya que existen musulmanes que quedan excluidos de la šafā‘a. Son estos, los herejes, quienes con la divulgación de sus nuevas doctrinas ponen en peligro la unidad y la cohesión de la comunidad. Se termina sugiriendo el posible calco de esta doctrina islámica en la devoción a la intercesión de la Virgen, pues la devoción mariana que con tanta fuerza irrumpe en el Occidente cristiano a partir del siglo XII, y que aparece reflejado en la Cantigas de Alfonso X el Sabio y en los Milagros de Nuestra Señora de Gonzalo de Berceo, es un fenómeno cuyo origen es todavía discutido.

Dynamism of Religious Dialogue (Inter-Faith Meeting) and the Growth of Christianity in Nigeria

Religious diversity is a possible feature of any human society. Even in a religious homogenous society, there are factions and sects within a particular religion. The diversity in religious conviction gives rise to a lot of options based on religious inclination. The society in which the religion is practiced need to be at peace for the religion to thrive and be propagated hence, dialogue is necessary as to see how the orthodoxy and orthopraxy can lead to peaceful co-existence as they define the societal norms and values. It is in this respect that this paper examines the issues of dynamism of religious dialogue or inter-faith meeting in the light of growth of Christianity in Nigeria, being a multi-faith, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society Using the historical and phenomenological perspectives, the paper found out that since the 19thcentury inter-religious dialogue have been in progress and will need to continue. The foundation for religious dialogue and peaceful co-existence was laid by Chief Shodeke on December 5 1842 in Abeokuta when the three contending religious leaders - Islam, traditional religion and Christianity were invited to explain their philosophies. It was discovered that inter-religious dialogue melts the walls of in-difference and enhances understanding of the religious world view. We therefore conclude that inter-faith dialogue which offers opportunity for understanding and respect of non-Christian neighbours should be sustained for the acceptance and growth of Christianity in Nigeria.&#x0D; Key words: Dynamism, dialogue, ecumenical, inter-faith, growth.

David Martin and the Sociology of Hope

David Martin’s work has always bridged many worlds: the sacred and the secular, the world of power politics and of religious visions, of individual and society, and of poetry and rational analysis. His trenchant and uncompromising analyses of human social formations and their ideational concomitants have nevertheless provided many with a vision of that hope which must sustain scholarly analysis if it is not to become tedious and moribund. His sensitivity to tradition, to ritual, to received knowledge and the debt we owe to the past – even while appreciating the frisson of the radically new (as in his studies of Pentacostalism) – have made him one of only a small handful of scholars who could address the broad range of human religious expression and its implications for life in the world. This paper explores some of these themes in terms of what we understand as the overwhelming sense of hope that is a permanent feature of David’s scholarly contributions.

Book review: Improving Educational Gender Equality in Religious Societies: Human rights and modernization pre-Arab Spring, by Sumaia A. Al-Kohlani

Book review: Improving Educational Gender Equality in Religious Societies: Human rights and modernization pre-Arab Spring, by Sumaia A. Al-Kohlani

Можно ли совместить «свободомыслие» с верой в Бога?

The author addresses the subject of the opposition of “free-thinking” and belief in God in the domestic liberal thought and draws parallels between modern Russian society and similar philosophic discussions a century from the present time. In both cases liberalism in Russia kept to aggressive atheistic position, supporting in that aspect radical materialists. The author examines the historical preconditions for such worldview on the basis of the polemics inside the “Religious and Philosophical Society” that existed in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century. According to the author, in that period there existed a very promising direction in Russian liberal thought, when the representatives of Russian liberal ideas (along with the representatives of other intellectual directions) were the architects of the renascence of Russian religious philosophy on the eve of the Russian empire collapse. Their intellectual activity dealt with relieving the ideological hostility of liberalism towards religion and spiritual life traditions. The representatives of that direction supposed that without solving that problem of antagonism, liberalism would inevitably degenerate into culturally and politically destructive nihilism. The author stresses the relevance of similar antagonism and confrontation nowadays, drawing attention in that regard to the importance of studying and further development of all directions of thought that we inherit from Russian religious philosophy of the beginning of the 20th centu