The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region.Religious Difference in a Secular Agechallenges this assessment by ...examining four cornerstones of secularism-political and civil equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal separation of private and public domains.
Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and Bahais-religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim country-Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy, bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse. Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in the Middle East and Europe.
A provocative work of scholarship,Religious Difference in a Secular Agechallenges us to rethink the promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.
This volume explores how religious and spiritual actors engage for environmental protection and fight against climate change. Climate change and sustainability are increasingly prominent topics among ...religious and spiritual groups. Different faith traditions have developed "green" theologies, launched environmental protection projects and issued public statements on climate change. Against this background, academic scholarship has raised optimistic claims about the strong potentials of religions to address environmental challenges. Taking a critical stance with regard to these claims, the chapters in this volume show that religious environmentalism is an embattled terrain. Tensions are an inherent part of religious environmentalism. These do not necessarily manifest themselves in open clashes between different parties but in different actions, views, theologies, ambivalences, misunderstandings, and sometimes mistrust. Keeping below the surface, these tensions can create effective barriers for religious environmentalism. The chapters examine how tensions are manifested and dealt with through a range of empirical case studies in various world regions. Covering different religious and spiritual traditions, they reflect on intradenominational, interdenominational, interreligious, and religious-societal tensions. Thereby, this volume sheds new light on the problems that religions face when they seek to take an active role in today’s societal challenges. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past ...half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations.
Religion existiert nicht im luftleeren Raum. Sie ist gebunden an Orte und Gebäude, lokale Gepflogenheiten und regionale Mentalitäten. Auch die vermeintlich säkulare Stadt erweist sich bei näherer ...Betrachtung als religiös geprägter Raum. Kirchtürme und Minarette sind weithin sichtbare Manifestationen von Transzendenz. Umgekehrt schreiben sich die Materialität des Stadtraums, seine soziale Schichtung und kulturelle Diversität in das religiöse Leben ein. In einer qualitativ-empirischen Untersuchung neuer Stadtquartiere beschreiben die Autor*innen Prozesse und Strukturen der Verräumlichung von Religion im urbanen Raum und interpretieren diese vor dem Hintergrund aktueller sozialwissenschaftlicher Debatten.
The Potentials and Limits of Going Global Zemmin, Florian
Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society (Online),
01/2024
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Abstract This article takes part in the current quest for more global histories of religion, yet also reflects on the possible limits of going global. To this end, it engages one specific perspective ...on religion, namely a sociological one. It probes into Arabic sociologies of religion, especially with reference to Islam. The author argues that epistemically, premises of social contingency may well complement assumptions of absolute truth. However, positions that would subject religion in general to contingency – that is, the idea that religion is constructed by humans rather than ensuing from divine revelation – are largely rejected. This partly explains the rather weak institutionalization of the sociology of religion in Arab countries, but it also recalls that such global institutionalization reflects one particular perspective on religion, which is itself underpinned by normative and epistemic assumptions of the social as absolute.
The article is devoted to the patron saints chosen by young Catholics for the sacrament of Confirmation, recalled several years after the decision. It was based on focus group interviews conducted ...with stu- dents in the last years of secondary school. Despite the decision of the Polish Bishops’ Conference that young people should keep their baptismal names at the sacrament of Confirmation (if it is the name of a saint), most of the women interviewed had the option of choosing any patroness. According to the narratives presented herein, it was an important event for them and most of their decisions were careful- ly considered. Their searches regarding names were most often inde- pendent, rarely related to either religion lessons or parish catechesis.The patron saints chosen by the interviewees a few years earlier were often referred to as specific moral role models. The holy or blessed behavior and attitudes displayed by these women were usually pos- itively perceived by girls on the threshold of adulthood. Therefore, it is worth reflecting on both preventing young people from autono- mously, reflectively choosing a patron saint with whom they want to identify due to interests or professional plans as well as the entire process of familiarizing them with personal religious role models from parish catechesis and religious education at school.
Über uns der Ideenhimmel, in uns das Bewusstsein und dazwischen: die Religion als Bestandteil der soziokulturellen Wirklichkeit. Volkhard Krech entfaltet in seinem soziologischen Grundriss der ...religiösen Evolution das Verständnis von Religion als Kommunikation, die zwischen den Menschen entsteht und stattfindet.In seiner Analyse zur Ausdifferenzierung des Religiösen, die Bezug auf die Evolutionstheorie, Systemtheorie und eine semiotisch informierte Kommunikationstheorie nimmt, bewegt er sich in der Zirkularität von Gegenwart und Geschichte. Dabei macht er Religion als Sinnform zur Bearbeitung unbestimmbarer Kontingenz begreifbar.
O pluralismo, em Peter Berger, é um conceito associado ao fenômeno social, modernidade, escolha individual, diversidade de religiões e nas religiões. Nossa tese é que o pluralismo problematizado dá ...lugar a possibilidades e limites para um estudo crítico da dupla pertença religiosa que inclua as abordagens teórica e empírica. O objetivo geral consistirá no exame epistemológico do pluralismo. Os objetivos específicos serão: 1 compreender o conceito de pluralismo em Berger; 2 e delimitar possibilidades e limites da visão bergeriana de pluralismo, para o estudo crítico da dupla pertença. Na metodologia do texto, a primeira parte tratará do pluralismo em Berger, enquanto a segunda consistirá em possibilidades e limites da abordagem de Berger do pluralismo, para a pesquisa crítica da dupla pertença. Chegamos a dois resultados: a é possível, desde a sociologia da religião de Berger, uma abordagem empírica da dupla pertença que opere com hipóteses deduzidas da análise crítica do pluralismo a serem confirmadas ou refutadas em campo; e b à luz da sociologia bergeriana, o estudo científico da prática de duplo pertencimento se limitaria à abordagem empírica. A conclusão é que, em Ciência da Religião, o estudo crítico da pertença a duas religiões conciliaria as abordagens empírica e teórica.
