Resurgence Of Religion Research Articles

Peace, Conflict and the Resurgence of Religion in World Politics

Religion has become an issue that not only affects domestic politics but also international security and world peace. There is a debate among scholars on how to interpret this resurgence of religious identity in international politics. There are scholars who regard the resurgence of religion as the reflection of the undeniable importance of religion to human beings who find meaning in life through religion. On the other hand, this phenomenon can be understood as a manifestation of the importance that identity politics, based on factors like race, religion and ethnicity has gained in international politics in the global age. There are interpretations that emphasize that the resurgence of identities in the global age is a result of the competition for power and resources. This has important implications for understanding the principles which can be used to resolve the conflicts associated with the resurgence of religion internationally as well as at the domestic level. Hence, this paper reviews some of these arguments and attempts to probe the factors behind the resurgence of identity politics across the globe in the post-cold war era. The paper also tries to understand the ways of conflict transformation, thereby emphasizing the role of peace education in the process.

The coexistence of nationalism, Westernization, Russification, and Russophobia: facets of parallelization in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Parallelization theory complements earlier concepts in cultural and political history by focusing on the coexistence of seemingly contradictory patterns in various localities, such as segregation/integration of migrants in Europe and the USA, polarization/hybridization in Korea and Ukraine, and secularization/the resurgence of religions in countries like Malaysia and Sweden. The current article examines the parallel presence of Ukrainian nationalism/Westernization and Russification/Russophobia before and in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The argument is bolstered by both Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media sources, showing how and why these seemingly conflicting tendencies coexist.

Revitalization of Religion: Toward an Understanding of the Perspectives of the Modern Religious Situation

Revitalization of Religion: Toward an Understanding of the Perspectives of the Modern Religious Situation

The resurgence of religion in international relations: How theories can accommodate it?

The resurgence of religion in international relations: How theories can accommodate it?

Nacionalni, jezički i verski identitet stanovništva Srbije

Within the current processes of globalization and integration of modern economic trends and intensive migration trends, the focus of interest, not only experts but also the public in general, are increasingly coming preservation of national, linguistic and religious identity. In accordance with the scientific significance of the research of ethnicity, linguistic and religious identity, this paper studies language and religion as important components of national identity, their importance in defining nations and national issues, as well as changes caused by numerous political factors. Empirical research has shown that there is a match between nationality and mother tongue (ethnophony), while the occurrence of a greater or lesser deviation (alterophony) is present in the fewer and sparsely dispersed ethnic communities. Regarding religion, the population of Serbia is declared to the greatest extent by the tradition, that is, the religion of parents, which is why there is a high degree of compatibility between nationality and religion. Comparison of census data shows a significantly smaller number of atheists at the beginning of the 21st century, and the reasons for this should be sought in the revitalization of religion and the action of complex political, socio-cultural and socio-historical factors in Serbia.

Church and State in Montenegro: From the Serbian Orthodox Church to the Church of Serbia

The paper deals with the role of religion and the church in the post-socialist transformations of society in Montenegro, focusing on the period from the 1990s to 2022. The goal of the paper is to present the historical and sociological (non-)cooperation between the church and the state in Montenegro and their reflection on social circumstances. According to sociological expertise, secularization and atheization of the society carried out by the then political regime and aligned with Marxist reflections on religion were in force until the 1990s. Subsequently, a period of desecularization of society and revitalization of religion and religiosity followed. Accordingly, the role of the church and religion in this republic has also changed. Namely, there is an increased role of the church in the socio-political circumstances in Montenegro. The church’s role and its reflection on socio-political reality is analyzed through three historical determinants: the period from 1990 to 1998, marked by a symphony of cooperation between the church and the state. Then follows the period from 1998 to 2008, when cooperation is observed with a dose of caution, and, finally, the period from 2008 to 2021, which is marked by the cooling of church-state relations, which culminated in the Law on Freedom of Religion as an essential point of disagreement between the church and the then state policy and the ruling political establishment.

Defenders of the Faith? How shifting social cleavages and the rise of identity politics are reshaping right-wing populists’ attitudes towards religion in the West

ABSTRACT From the display of oversized crosses at the United States Capitol riots, to a new rhetoric centred on defence of the ‘Judaeo-Christian West’ in Europe: right-wing populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic are intensifying their use of Christian symbols and language. Many observers have interpreted such rhetoric as symptomatic of a conservative religious resurgence against secular liberalism and multiculturalism. However, several indicators suggest a more complicated relationship between the populist Right, religion, and secularisation. For instance, in the United States Donald Trump was perceived to be the least religious Republican party candidate in recent history, while in Europe church attendance remains a strong predictor for not voting for right-wing populist parties. Deploying a demand- and supply-side framework to understand the socio-demographic roots behind the rise of right-wing populist movements and the motives behind their references to Christianity, this contribution posits that right-wing populists primarily employ Christianity as a cultural identity marker to mobilise voters around a new post-religious identity cleavage. However, they often remain distanced from Christian doctrine, beliefs, and institutions, and instead seek to combine cultural references to Christianity with secular policies, suggesting a secularisation of Christian symbols rather than a resurgence of religion in western politics.

Transformations of Religiosity during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic—On the Example of Catholic Religious Practices of Polish Students

This paper attempts to identify the changes in religiosity among Catholic practitioners in Poland that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the changes in the realization of religious practices by students (N = 354). A questionnaire prepared by the authors was used for the study. We sought to answer the question of the extent to which the socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects, a history of COVID-19, and the death of a family member due to SARS-CoV-2 infection differentiated the subjects’ opinions about religiosity and their undertaking of religious practices. The paper also addresses the issue of media-facilitated religious practices. The study showed that the frequency of religious practices was influenced by the perceived religiosity of the family, the religiosity of the respondent, and the declaration concerning the belief in God. The same factors most often significantly differentiated respondents’ opinions on COVID-19. No relationship was confirmed between having COVID-19 and subjects’ beliefs about the pandemic or frequency of religious practice. Among the respondents, the pandemic did not intensify the practice of religion. In the face of danger, respondents did not turn to God; there was no revitalization of religion. The situation of limiting the physical experience communion of the Church was treated not as an acute undersupply but as an opportunity or a pretext to abandon the practice of religion.

Desecularising the postcolonial resistance: the role of Islamic spirituality in the framing of Moroccan anticolonial thought

ABSTRACT It is worth noting that Marxist and secular forms of resistance have been given much priority in postcolonial discourse. We find that almost all prominent postcolonial works produced in the 1980s and 1990s celebrated the secular and Marxist nature of anticolonial liberation struggles. This emanates from the fact that the concept of resistance within postcolonialism has been defined in secular terms. Postcolonial historians and critics marginalised the role of religious anticolonial movements in favour of secular, nationalist and Marxist liberation movements. It is ‘odd’ that postcolonialism did not devote some space for Islam and anticolonial Islamic liberation movements. However, the post-9/11 global resurgence of religion has prompted postcolonial studies to re-open the question of the sacred. Because 9/11 has provoked an upsurge of spirituality and religion worldwide, postcolonialism has entered the ‘God debate’ and postcolonial writers have started to investigate the multiple roles religion played in the imperial project. In this sense, this article sheds light on the role Islam played in shaping Moroccan anticolonial consciousness. It presents Islam – Salafism and Sufism - as a mobilising ideology for the anticolonial liberation movement in Morocco. In other words, being aware of the fact that the future of postcolonialism is the return to the past as well as of the growing interest in religion within postcolonialism, in this essay I am going to desecularise the postcolonial resistance by highlighting the theological origins of Moroccan nationalist movement and attempting to incorporate North African anticolonial spirituality into the realm of postcolonial studies.

Is Religion Dead?

The rise of strident movements of religious nationalism seems to signal a resurgence of religion. But such movements can also be read as the last gasp of religiosity as it succumbs to the inevitability of secular globalization. Which is correct? Has religion revived, or is it in its death throes? Part of the issue is statistical: adherence to religion seems to be on the rise in some parts of the world (Islam in Africa, for instance), though on the decline in others (Christianity in Europe and increasingly in the United States) and under attack in China. But part of the issue is definitional: what is meant by religious adherence—social identity or metaphysical belief? Scholarly attempts to define religion are various, though an interesting new definition is provided by the late sociologist Robert Bellah, who described religion as “alternative reality.” With that definition, one can posit that religiosity is a fundamental part of the creative imagination, a constituent of culture as certain as art or music. The question then becomes not whether religion will survive, but in what way it will survive. The popular religious choice of millennials, “none,” may be consistent with the multicultural religiosity of the old Protestant liberals, a tradition now in decline. Liberal Protestants have not disappeared but have transformed into the bearers of a global morality and spiritual sensibility. Hence we may be witnessing the emergence of new forms of spirituality and ethical community that resonate with the alternative reality of traditional religious experience but that have no name and no organization. But these may become the global religion of the future.

Bloody, Intense, and Durable

A growing number of scholars argues that we are witnessing a resurgenceof religion in world politics, accompanied by an increasein religiously inspired conflict. Empirical studies demonstrate thatreligious conflicts are more violent, more intense, more durable, andmore difficult to resolve through negotiated settlements than theirsecular counterparts. In this paper, we argue that these conclusionsare unreliable, because they fail to provide convincing criteria forseparating religious conflicts from non-religious ones. Our mainconcern is with the categorization problem. What characteristics orfactors make a conflict party, conflict issue, or identity religious, andwhat characteristics or factors frame a conflict party, conflict issue,or identity as non-religious? A basic assumption behind much of thisresearch is the contested idea that religion is a universal phenomenonembodied in various forms such as Islam and Christianity. The majorityof scholars simply assume a sharp division between religion andthe secular without problematizing or justifying such a distinction. Inthis article, we argue that religious conflict is an ideologically chargedconcept, and that the study of the religion-conflict nexus reinforcesthe neoliberal status quo and current systems of power.

Crisis of the Secularism Paradigm

This essay seeks to understand the relationship between modernity, secularization, and religion. By engaging such thinkers as José Casanova, Peter Berger, Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas, the essay proposes that the post-Enlightenment project of secularization which would replace religion by science and secular rationality has proven elusive. Instead, there has been a resurgence of religion in different parts of the world, in particular Islam. Secularization itself is a complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to the absence of religion. Peter Berger summed up the persistence of religion across time and space, and in different cultures, as “desecularization.” The outstanding question concerns the proper role for religion, and whether it may return to the public square as complementary rather than antithetical to Enlightenment values in science, culture, and democratic, pluralistic polities?

Religion in war in the 21st century

This article argues that while decisions of religiously motivated parties in war may be “rational,” the “reality” that the decisions apply to may include transcendental elements that the nonbelievers may not perceive as “reality,” to wit; the actual involvement of the Deity or his angels in the battlefield, reward and punishment in the Afterworld for refraining from action in this world and the belief in supernatural omens and prophecy. Religious impact on war has reemerged, sometimes with redoubled strength, during the 20th and early 21st centuries. This is true in Islam, in the growing strength of the right wing in Europe and in the resurgence of religion as a factor in Putin’s Russia. The key to understanding the impact of religion on war is to understand the approach of each religious paradigm vis-à-vis initiation and waging of war (Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello) and the legitimacy of being deterred. In order to target the religious aspect of the enemy’s value system, it is necessary to know the various components of the religious belief system—the values, worldview, customs, superstitions and leadership paradigms.

Religious Diversity in Australia: Rethinking Social Cohesion

This paper argues for a reconsideration of social cohesion as an analytical concept and a policy goal in response to increasing levels of religious diversity in contemporary Australia. In recent decades, Australian has seen a revitalization of religion, increasing numbers of those who do not identify with a religion (the “nones”), and the growth of religious minorities, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. These changes are often understood as problematic for social cohesion. In this paper, we review some conceptualizations of social cohesion and religious diversity in Australia, arguing that the concept of social cohesion, despite its initial promise, is ultimately problematic, particularly when it is used to defend privilege. We survey Australian policy responses to religious diversity, noting that these are varied, often piecemeal, and that the hyperdiverse state of Victoria generally has the most sophisticated set of public policies. We conclude with a call for more nuanced and contextualized analyses of religious diversity and social cohesion in Australia. Religious diversity presents both opportunities as well as challenges to social cohesion. Both these aspects need to be considered in the formation of policy responses.

Social Mechanisms of Harmonization of the Relations between Muslim and Christian Culture

The article is devoted to the theoretical and methodological problems of the study of relations between Muslim and Christian culture. It has been shown that the globalization processes in the world affect all spheres of human life, diversifies it, promotes interpenetration of cultures, increases pluralism, and requires a new vision of the world in all its manifestations. It has been actualized that in today’s world traditions related to religious ones mostly gain the form of religious culture. The new state of secular culture and the emerging socio-cultural environment is accompanied by the activation of religious structures, institutions and processes, which are called »desecularization«, »religious renaissance« and »revitalization of religion« in the scientific literature. The dialogue between Islam and Christianity, Muslim and Christian culture, has historical and religious roots. In the era of wide development of Islamic culture, Muslims actively contributed to the establishment of mutual understanding with other people and civilizations. History shows that Islam has been the initiator of dialogue and exchange of opinions with other cultures for ages. The Holy Scripture of Muslims, The Koran, in many verses obliges its followers to conduct an intellectual dialogue with members of other religions. The unique and centuries-old experience of religious interaction on the territory of Russia strives at maintaining the religious identity by Christians and Muslims alike. Dialogue within the Cristian and Islamic culture in Russia does not provide for and even prevent attempts for selection of dogmatic integrity and unity of religious knowledge, however it implies the need of individual, personal relationships and joint solutions of various socio-cultural problems and challenges, where the tasks of the spiritual and moral development of society are the most important ones.

The Romanian Religious Media Landscape: Between Secularization and the Revitalization of Religion

Studies on religion in the former communist countries show that the cessation of the socialist repressions against the church and religion was followed by a revitalization of religion. Contributions supporting the model of market religion conclude that there is a higher chance of increasing religious competition and pluralization due to the opening of the religious markets, which ultimately led to an increase of religious vitality. Studies arguing for the secularization paradigm consider that the changes in the former communist countries (including Romania) rather reflect a premature secularization (Pickel, 2012). In this view, after an initial boom of religious sentiment, there has been no significant return to religion. This article provides an overview of Romanian religious media and presents the transformations of the Romanian religious media landscape by proposing the hypothesis that the religious media scene in Romania is impacted by the effects of the two co-existing opposite tendencies: religious vitality and incomplete secularization.

Religion and the marketplace: constructing the ‘new’ Muslim consumer

ABSTRACTDespite the prediction that modernization would lead to secularization, the past 30 years brought a global resurgence of religion. As many scholars note, religion has gained a new visibility in the contemporary political economy and become firmly embedded within the identity politics. The changing role of religion is linked to the growing influence of neoliberalism and the expansion of the market logic. In this study, I look at the intersections between Islam, consumption, and market and trace the shifts in the conceptualizations of Muslims in relation to the changing market dynamics and the broader socio-political and economic structures. I discuss three phases through which the view of Muslims as modern consumers in search of distinction and propriety comes to dominate the view of Muslims as non- or anti-consumers: exclusion, identification, and stylization. I conclude by discussing the implications of the study for the current understandings of the marketization of religion.

Institucionalna in zasebna religioznost v severovzhodni Sloveniji. Primerjalna analiza slovenskih regij po letu 1969

Category: 1.01 Original scientific paper Language: Original in Slovenian (Abstract in Slovenian and English, Summary in English) Key words: religion, northeast Slovenia, statistical regions, privatization of religion Abstract: A comparative analysis of religiosity across Slovenian statistical regions was conducted based on the survey data from the Slovenian Public Opinion project (SPO). It took into consideration available data from 1969 to 2016 and compared four regions of northeast Slovenia (Pomurska, Podravska, Koroška and Savinjska) with other regions in the country. Special attention was devoted to the thesis on privatization of religion in (post)modern societies, as well as to a more general thesis of secularization. Results of the analysis showed that fluctuations in religiosity in Slovenia as a whole were compatible with some previous observations: Until 1978, there was a significant decline in religiosity. This trend then reversed and revitalization of religion took place up until early 1990s. Since then, during the post-socialist period, religiosity did not change much in any direction. The crucial observation within these fluctuations is that the specific features of northeast regions endured through the entire observed period. These specific features are visible mostly in terms of relatively high levels of religiosity in general, as well as in very high levels of institutional religiosity and relatively low levels of private religiosity.

Catholicism and Citizenship, Political Cultures of the Church in the Twenty-First Century by Massimo Faggioli (review)

Crisis (2013), also published by Oxford University Press and advertised on the fly leaf of this book, is only referred to once (Laffan) in this volume under review. Dr Antoin E Murphy is a retired Professor of Economics and Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin. CatholicismandCitizenship,PoliticalCulturesoftheChurchintheTwentyFirst Century, Massimo Faggioli, (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2017), xxii+165 pages. Since his move from Italy to the USA in 2008, historian and theologian Massimo Faggioli has gained a reputation as one of the foremost interpreters of the Second Vatican Council in the English speaking world, and of the implications of the Council for the contemporary world. This particular book contains six chapters, two of which (on Religious Life and the new Ecclesial Movements) have already been published elsewhere under different titles. The other chapters arise from a series of lectures delivered by Faggioli in the United States and internationally (including in Dublin at the Loyola Institute in Trinity College Dublin) between 2015 and 2016. The book, then, does not claim to present a single unified argument or conclusion but rather a series of converging reflections and hypotheses around the seminal impact of the Second Vatican Council (and in particular of its Pastoral Constitution on the church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes [GS]) on the relationship between the church and the modern world, in particular the world of politics and citizenship. Faggioli maintains that the non-Eurocentric papacy of Francis, with his uncomplicated and full acceptance of the Second Vatican Council as central to Catholic tradition and normative for our times, gives particular point to a closer analysis of what the Council itself says, how it has been received in the meantime and how its normative teachings need to be supplemented by a deeper reading of today’s ‘signs of the times’, which differ in important respects from the time of the Council itself. He notes that GS, and in particular par. 43, offered an anti-sectarian statement of the church’s role in the modern world – while Christians were citizens of ‘two cities’, their baptism in no way implied a shirking of earthly Studies • volume 107 • number 425 110 Spring 2018: Book Reviews responsibilities but rather an ever deeper obligation to engage in our world, each according to their proper vocation. This was in contrast to a pre-conciliar view, often attributed to what has been called political Augustinianism, in which clear priority was given to the next life, and the state and civil society were viewed with suspicion and even hostility. This attitude has often, for one reason or another, persisted since the Second Vatican Conucil, in particular in some quarters of the United States, where there is a nostalgia for the supposed ‘golden age’of Christendom characterised by the Constantinian settlement lasting up to medieval times, and/or the emergence in more modern times of established churches in states having concordats with the Vatican enshrining particular privileges. Against any kind of temptation to theocracy or integralism, Faggioli notes that GS was positive about churchstate separation and also about the intrinsic value and autonomy within its own sphere of the secular world, while continuing to argue for a place for the church in the public square. However, things have changed since the promulgation of GS in 1965, and its normativity needs to take account of a different set of ‘signs of the times’. Among them are the religiously-inspired terrorist violence of 9/11, the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic church, growing pluralism and secularisation and the emergence of a globalised world, characterised by the dominance of a ‘technocratic paradigm’ (Pope Francis) and a crisis of the nation-state and of democracy and politics, which appear more and more incapable of solving global issues. In a nuanced analysis of modernity and post-modernity Faggioli argues that Pope Francis is correct in avoiding either a pre-modern turn to nostalgic theocracy or a post-modern acceptance of Catholicism as one cultural stream among others, without claim to universal relevance. Our new situation points to the reality that many modern states, deeply secularised, are ill-equipped to deal with the resurgence of religion in contemporary times. Indeed there has been...

The Charismatic City and the Public Resurgence of Religion: A Pentecostal Social Ethics of Cosmopolitan Urban Life, by Nimi Wariboko

The Charismatic City and the Public Resurgence of Religion: A Pentecostal Social Ethics of Cosmopolitan Urban Life, by Nimi Wariboko