Secular Context Research Articles

ISLAMIC IDENTITY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: CONTEXTS OF RELATIONSHIP

This article reveals the role of Islamic identity in strengthening the national identity of Kazakhstan. The foundations of Islamic identity are considered, as well as its relationship with the national idea of the concept of building a Kazakhstani society. The authors come to the conclusion that the Turkic cultural and communicative background has the potential to form an identity model based on historical and axiological continuity, as well as the potential to prevent ethno-religious, linguistic, cultural conflicts. In addition, the study undertakes an analysis of the impact of cultural globalization on the formation of models of Kazakhstani religious and national identity. In addition to the risks of blurring traditional cultural boundaries in favor of the ideas of Eurocentrism, cultural globalization can contribute to the process of cultural and ideological creativity with the obligatory preservation of national authenticity. Kazakhstani national identity is characterized as a civic identity that carries the installations of the national idea, which is based on the historical past and the axiological guidelines determined by it. Islamic identity in the secular context of Kazakhstan is represented by its own model, based on both the ethical and spiritual values of Islam and the national idea.

Evil, Constructed: A Salient Part of an Emerging Spiritual Veteran Identity.

This article investigated constructions of evil among deployed Swedish veterans. Six cases were used to demonstrate common themes of these constructions: humans are capable of everything; anyone can be violated, even killed; evil and cruelty comes in many forms; coldness/cynicism; exhausting to witness suffering and pain; and existential rumination. The impact of these can affect a veteran's identity and their notions of self. However, processing encounters with evil is seen, in some Christian perspectives, as an essential prerequisite for spiritual growth, and this might be potentially important to supporting the emergence of spiritual veteran identities. A pastoral care giver or military chaplain can serve as an existential conversation partner who can assist veterans when approaching such experiences and its potential impact. This may be especially fertile in secular contexts, where pastoral wisdom and ontological approaches can be hard to find in the everyday lives of veterans.

Everyday gendered Islamophobia: exploring ordinary attitudes toward Muslim women in Southern France

Scholars have emphasized how Islamophobia is a gendered phenomenon that affects Muslim women’s lives in Western countries. Nevertheless, research has most often focused on public debates on Islam within the mainstream media or on the effects of State laws and public policies such as veil bans. Much less attention has been paid to how gendered Islamophobia is produced and practiced by ordinary people on an everyday basis. Complementary to studies on Muslim women’s everyday experiences and resistance to Islamophobia, one of the key features of this article is to focus on the position of the perpetrators. It explores the narratives and reasonings of people with racial and biased attitudes toward Muslim women, in the secular context of France. Drawing on an ethnographic study carried out in the southern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) and 33 in-depth interviews, the article shows that attitudes toward Muslim women are framed in two main and somehow contradictory ways. First, Muslim women are categorized as systematically subjected to a Muslim patriarchy, through a process of racialization of sexism. Second, Muslim women are seen as active subjects, but are then perceived as agents of a dangerous proselytism. These categorizations have in common the fact that they place women under constant suspicion, especially when wearing the veil. Islamophobic policies and public discourses thus find active support among ordinary citizens, extending gendered Islamophobia even in places where religious symbols are not officially banned.

Compassion as a Skill: A Comparison of Contemplative and Evolution-Based Approaches

AbstractThe editors to this volume posed a series of fascinating questions relating to how seeing compassion as a skill can help us understand its nature, cultivation and effects within secular contexts. This paper addresses these questions by comparing evolutionary with contemplative approaches to compassion. Recent scientific approaches have explored the evolved roots and biopsychosocial manifestations of compassion and their impact on mental states and prosocial behaviour, particularly in regard to both its facilitators and inhibitors. In contrast, we discuss how the contemplative traditions have approached the origins and cultivation of compassion through observing the mind (e.g. meditation), with a focus on gaining insight into self-transcendent experiences, the nature of inter-connectivity and non-separate existence (also referred to as non-duality), through which compassion arises naturally. Both evolutionary and contemplative perspectives have the same focus which is to understand and prevent the causes of suffering, including the suffering we cause ourselves because of our harmful potentials. However, in terms of training the mind in compassion skills, this paper considers how training approaches linked to the evolutionary model often use thinking, empathising, reflecting and guided behaviour change to activate psychophysiological systems linked to caring and compassion. In contrast, the contemplative traditions focus less on thinking and reflecting and more on creating conditions for direct experiencing. A key reason for doing so is to settle the mind so that subtler levels of consciousness can enable the experience of self-transcendent compassion to arise. Thus, both evolutionary and contemplative approaches can focus on developing mind awareness and the importance of practise, but evolutionary approaches such as compassion focused therapy do not pursue transcendent wisdoms or insights.

Religious costly signal induces more trustworthiness than secular costly signal: A study of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

AbstractResearch suggests that costly displays of commitment increase trust and cooperation. In five studies (total n > 1,700), we investigated whether costly behaviours are more effective in promoting trust when integrated within a religious rather than secular context using the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as a costly display of commitment. First, we show that pilgrims base their pilgrim identity on physical effort (Studies 1A and 1B). Next, in three pre‐registered experiments (Studies 2–4) with the Spanish population, we compared the trustworthiness of people posting on Facebook about their participation in a religious pilgrimage and a secular pilgrimage/hike with various control posts. The results showed that pilgrims/hikers are perceived as more trustworthy than non‐pilgrims and that long‐distance pilgrims are perceived as more trustworthy than short‐distance pilgrims. Moreover, these effects are stronger when the pilgrimage is framed in a religious context compared to a secular context. Our research highlights the key role of religion in the costly signalling of commitment.

What Style Guides Tell Secular Journalists about Muslims and Islam

Abstract Journalists in secular contexts report – accurately and fairly, we hope – on religious communities and events. Quantitative studies of media content and discourse have suggested a rise in reporting on religion in general and, since 9/11, Islam in particular, with misrepresentations and negative representations. I draw on findings from a new study evaluating journalistic style guides on their representation of Muslims and Islam. A researcher and I reviewed academic literature on style guides, surveyed news organisations across the UK for the tools they use, and assessed those tools. In this paper, I consider the representations that emerge in ten different resources, ranging from in-house style guides to documents prepared by charities and even that most basic of resources – the dictionary. I consider their ease of use, their currency, and the quality of their contents. I am also attentive to the political context: for example, The Guardian has a richer, fuller, and more explanatory set of entries related to the tradition and its adherents than The Daily Telegraph, and this matches assessments of how these news organisations treat Muslims and Islam. From this, I comment on the adequacy of these style guides for such an important news topic in the 21st Century and problematise the utility of style guides in general as a resource for uncertain journalists.

Preserving the Tangible Material Culture of the Shona Traditional Music Legacy: An Applied Ethnomusicological Report

This article focuses on the preservation of the tangible material culture of the Shona traditional music legacy. It reports on how the author collected and deposited the Shona tangible materials used during both sacred and secular contexts. For this research, an applied action research methodology was employed together with ethnography. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in Hwedza, Chikomba, Bhuhera, and Gweru, and the applied action approach informed the preservation of tangible materials. The findings indicated that the paradigm shift in religious belief, rural-to-urban migration, and modern technology are threatening the sustenance of the Shona traditional materials and that there is a need to protect them before they disappear. As a mitigative measure, the author collected some musical instruments and traditional objects and deposited them in a local departmental music archive at a university in Zimbabwe. It is therefore recommended that more collections be done to safeguard the vulnerable music heritage of the Shona.

The Hegemonic Character of Techno-Functional Neo-Immanentism and Its Relationship with Culture Wars

This paper analyzes the social processes that have led to the consolidation of a technocratic secular order and the type of cultural struggle that has made this possible. To this end, it first proposes a reconstruction of the technocratic consciousness in the course of the secularization process that culminates in the technological determinism or technological solutionism of the social present; then, the analysis focuses on the neo-immanentist tendency of techno-functionalism, in which the secular context and the text of secularization become one and deplete a social explanation; thirdly, it reflects on and deals with the open nature of secular life, in which context does not determine social texts (inter-actions) and opens the way to the existence of different life options that compete with each other and even turn on—rebel against—institutional design. This reflection, then, focuses on the specific features of the culture wars in Western Judeo-Christian culture and its globalizing tendency. Finally, the document closes with a conclusion that analyzes the road travelled and introduces the new challenges arising from the arguments presented.

Birdman, Fly: A Reconsideration of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds and the Pre-Christian Cloak of the Sweeney Tales

Abstract: The first section of this article provides context for Brian O'Nolan's At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), situating original, early textual tensions within the history of ascetic revival in Ireland in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The second section offers a comparative look at O'Nolan's translation alongside J. G. O'Keeffe's 1913 touchstone text and Seamus Heaney's 1982 rendition of it. The final section examines two contemporary reconceptual film settings of the Sweeney tale to consider how the tale is reimagined in post-state, gendered, and secular contexts. Fragmented elements of ascetism endure via this endlessly changing tale for Celtic Christianity's contested center.

“I Remembered the Saying” (Tobit 2:6): Recognizing Emotions in Scripture with Tobit and Eve

Abstract This experimental article is methodologically Christian, in the sense that it is structured as a Christian mimesis of how a scriptural saint cited Scripture. However, the choice of subject matter commits it to engaging with the post-Enlightenment secular context, and principles of exegetical, historical, and theological analysis anchor it within wider scholarly debates. Concretely, the article takes the scriptural portrayal of Tobit’s recognition of his own emotion in Scripture as a paradigm or type for one way of encountering Scripture today. The first part examines a vignette of Tobit remembering a scriptural text about grief at a moment when he experiences intense grief. The second, longer part explores the transition to the post-Enlightenment context by performing and interrogating an act of recognizing in Scripture an emotion that has only been theorized since the eighteenth century, namely “disgust,” which is “recognized” in the scriptural narrative of Eve’s temptation in Gen 3. The purpose of the mimetic reception and the scholarly interrogation of it is not to replicate or critique Tobit’s example, but to allow it to be inhabited in a way that can remain meaningful from a Christian perspective without closing our eyes to the real challenges of modernity and, lest it be forgotten, of being human. This is offered simply as one exhibit in a potentially capacious gallery of attempts to learn from the Scriptures and the saints how to inhabit Scripture in the modern world.

How Children Co-Construct a Religious Abstract Concept with Their Caregivers: Theological Models in Dialogue with Linguistic Semantics

In acquiring a meaningful and rich religious language, children need to build up semantic knowledge about religious words. Most religious concepts do not refer directly to visible entities. Instead, their meanings are often abstract and emerge from the social observation of the world. In our pilot study, we investigate the acquisition of the religious word merciful in 7–8-year-olds during dialogic reading of a biblical story. Merciful is a prototypical religious concept and therefore a fruitful subject for research on the acquisition of religious concepts. First, following the perspective of religious education, we present theological models that identify relevant semantic aspects that constitute mercy. Two of these models relate to interpersonal behavior, which is most common in contemporary understanding. In a second step, we analyze which theological models of mercy are evoked in dialogic reading between caregivers and their children and how they are expressed linguistically. In a third step, we designed a picture story test that allowed us to investigate how children apply their knowledge to novel (secular) contexts and which theological models are evident in children’s problem solving. Our results show that two different theological models of mercy prevail during dialogic reading: the model of forgiveness and the model of compassion. Although the model of forgiveness is central in our settings, the language data show that the model of compassion is also present in the caregiver’s and children’s language. During dialogic reading, the frequency of the semantic aspects of the model of forgiveness expressed between child and caregiver is significantly related. In the picture story test, children are more likely to select semantic aspects of the model of forgiveness in religious contexts than in secular contexts. Interestingly, in secular contexts, children chose semantic neighbors more often, indicating a more diffuse understanding of merciful.

Religion and the Expressionless—A Religious Perspective on Art in Benjamin

In this article, I investigate the relationship between religion and art in the work of Walter Benjamin. I demonstrate how this relation is embedded in Benjamin’s understanding of a dialectic of secularization, which has recently been examined by Sigrid Weigel and Daniel Weidner. Within this context, I focus on the “expressionless” and its relation to the holy in Benjamin’s thought. I follow different applications of the expressionless in Benjamin’s texts from different periods and analyze their overall significance. My thesis is that the expressionless is a specifically aesthetic category that can rescue the difference between the holy and the profane, granting both spheres their own rights and thereby resisting any sacralization of art in an aesthetic cult. Therefore, with reference to the holy and to the expressionless, one can claim with Benjamin that a religious perspective on art in a secular context is of irreplaceable value, while the expressionless simultaneously safeguards the autonomy of art.

The Nontheistic Sacred: The Psychological Functions of Metal Music and Artifacts

ABSTRACT The psychological functions of the nontheistic sacred in a secular context (metal music culture) were examined for their consistency with previous studies of the sacred in religious contexts using two studies. The first experiment examined music as a form of nontheistic sacred through a comparison of death metal fans (n = 89) listening to death metal or hard rock. The second experiment examined how some metal cultural artifacts were perceived as sacred by metal fans (n = 52), and how their loss or defilement was experienced when compared to non-sacred artifacts. The first experiment found that the death metal music was perceived as more sacred than hard rock music to the metal community, it promoted higher levels of positive affect, and it was associated with significantly higher levels of prosocial behavioral intentions, social relatedness, mood maintenance, and self-awareness, with no differences in empathy and negative affect. The second experiment found that acts of desecration of sacred items, when compared to non-sacred items, led to a higher state of anger and the loss of the items led to significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety. The two experiments present evidence that the nontheistic sacred is experienced within the secular context of metal music in terms of functions and effects consistent with previous literature exploring the sacred in religious contexts.

A mission made to last: Paul as a sustainable leader according to the Book of Acts

This essay examines how the Book of Acts portrays Paul as a sustainable leader. Paul not only preached the Gospel, but also gathered his converts into communities, trained and installed their leaders, visited these communities regularly, and co-operated with a large group of co-workers whom he would train to take over from him. He readily made himself available as an example for others to follow. Paul established churches in major urban centres, which would take the Gospel to their surrounding areas. In all of this, he not only followed some early Jewish practises but also emulated the example of Jesus, who likewise carefully prepared a group of people to continue his ministry after his departure. While Paul’s circumstances and strategies cannot simply be copied in the different contexts, this presentation closes by describing what can be learnt from this portrayal for sustainable leadership in today’s churches and other organisations.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article not only contributes to our understanding of the Book of Acts but also the way it characterises the ministry of Paul who dominates the second half of the Acts. In some instances, this portrayal challenges the understanding of Paul as he is seen in much of New Testament scholarship based solely on the letters of Paul. The research also contributes to practical theology/Christian leadership studies as it, based on the historical Paul, indicates some ingredients of sustainable leadership in Christian and in secular contexts. The research is also of relevance for secular leadership studies and social sciences.

‘I Said: Hymn 38!’ The Reception of the Protestant Reformation in The Netherlands at the Turn of the Millennium—The Case of ‘The White Cowboy’

From 1998 to 2005, the once left-wing Protestant Dutch broadcasting company VPRO aired 26 episodes of The White Cowboy, including the episode ‘De Kerkgangers’ (‘The Churchgoers’). In this article, the author argues that this episode is an excellent example of the contemporary reception of the 16th century Protestant reformation within the Netherlands at the turn of the millennium. Within the secular context of contemporary Dutch society, the stereotypical world-avoidance and lack of any joie de vivre associated with the strict observants of the Dutch reformation are used to mock Protestantism specifically and Christianity (or even religion altogether) in general. Nevertheless, a more positive interpretation also remains possible if one is able to understand secularism itself as a product of the Christian tradition to begin with.

La France, l’Islam et la loi de 1905 Genèse coloniale d’un poncif : l’Incompatibilité

In the French collective imagination, Islam is the object of a triple representation. This religion is said to be the last to have been established on French territory through migratory flows from the former colonial empire, the most unsuited to the secularized context of French society, and the most alien to the French law of worship resulting from the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State. This article proposes to go beyond this representation and to put it into historical perspective. More precisely, it aims to deconstruct it, particularly from the point of view of Algeria, by looking back at the colonial genesis of a cliché that has undoubtedly left its mark: the impossibility of placing Islam under the liberal auspices of the French system of cults because of a presumed incompatibility, behind which there loomed above all the fear that Muslims would use it in a roundabout, anti-colonial manner. In return, some of them proved to be the guardians of this right in the face of structural intrusions of the state in Muslim affairs.

Wealth in Religious and Secular Contexts: A Critical Analysis of Pottery Consumption in early modern Portugal

Wealth differentials in archaeological sites are a frequently studied topic, but social differentiation approaches are rarely applied to different contexts within a wider territory, especially in Portugal. In this article, the authors discuss the differences in wealth and inequality through the consumption of tablewares from fifteen sites across Portugal dated from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries ad. The archaeological evidence derives from two types of contexts: secular (houses and dumps) and religious (female and male religious institutions). Using a statistical similarity method to compare different consumption patterns in each context, the authors discuss how this can help us understand wealth differences in distinct social environments.

Spreading the word: exploring spiritual consumption on social media

PurposeThe rapidly increasing practice of “sharing” and “liking” religious and spiritually inspiring content on social media platforms suggests it is engaging for consumers, but it is unclear why. This study aims to investigate consumer interpretations of spiritual content on social media in relation to participatory roles.Design/methodology/approachQualitative in-depth interviews and thematic analysis are used. Members of social networks actively engaged in social media posting were identified through researcher networks and snowballing.FindingsThe social media space facilitates enhanced consumer agency in the consumption of spiritual messages which are readily accessible in this secular context. Three levels of interpretive meaning for consumers, conditional on the perceived sender motivations and temporality of receipt and related to participatory roles are identified. Despite being widely disseminated and immersed in the profane, some participants receive spiritual inspiration, which helps them achieve self-transcendence. Others receive inspiration through affirmation of their values and identity; however for a few, inspirational messages are met with scepticism and are not meaningful. Social media facilitates consumers’ ability to provide others with positive inspiration, however, this is not always their intent.Originality/valueThis work contributes unique insight regarding consumption of spirituality in a social media environment highlighting the importance of sender mediation and temporal context with implications for spiritual meaning and online engagement with spiritual content. A unique typology relating interpretive meaning to participatory roles is presented.

Polish Immigrant Community Building in Brussels: The Role of the Polish Catholic Mission

This paper provides the first outline of the history of the Polish Catholic Mission (PCM) in Belgium, focusing on its role in the Polish immigrant community from 1926 to 2023. It examines the transformation of the PCM and its impact on the Polish diaspora, considering the broader context of secularization and social changes. The study utilizes primary sources, interviews, and participant observations to explore the PCM’s influence on community building, cultural preservation, and social capital formation within the Polish immigrant population in Belgium.

Professionalism of Tourism in Sudurpaschim Province of Nepal

This paper examines the professionalism of tourism in Sudurpaschim province of Nepal. Tourism is a multidimensional discipline which covers various tourism-related phenomenon- accommodation, food and beverage services, recreation and entertainment, transportation, and travel services. All these sectors require competent, efficient and skilled human resources to provide better services. In order to gain all these skills for professionalism employees get training, education and code of ethics through different organizations. So, professionalism of tourism is a process of obtaining competencies, skills, qualifications, and experiences for working effectively and appropriately in tourism sector. This paper is based on both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data are collected from semi-structured questionnaire, field observation, and key informants survey. Secondary data are collected from various sources- published and unpublished documents, journals and e-resources. The finding indicates that Sudurpaschim Province is a potential tourism development area. Its pristine natural and cultural diversities provide foundations for tourism development that encompass sites for emerging both religious and secular contexts. However, professionalism of tourism is a prerequisite for success in tourism industry. It supports to enhance knowledge, skills and practice through education and training programs. It requires a strong policy effort for identifying the effective professionalism that needs for increasing entrepreneurs' skills. It can only be achieved by the collective actions of professional organizations, state government and local governments.