Global Flows, Local Appropriations; Facets of Secularisation and Re-Islamization Among Contemporary Cape Muslims is the first ethnographic study of muslims in Cape Town, South Africa at this level in ...25 years. It explores processes of secularisation and re-islamization among Cape Muslims in the context of a post-apartheid South Africa in which liberal and secular values have attained considerable purchase in the new political and social elites. Fractured by status, ethnicity and religious orientation, Cape muslims have responded to these changes through an ambiguous accomodation with the new order. This study explores this development through chapters on conversions to Islam among black Africans in Cape Town, Cape women's experiences with polygyny, Cape muslims and HIV/AIDS, the status of Islam in a prison Cape Town in the post-apartheid era and on contestation over rituals among Cape muslims.
The thesis of this article is that contemporary people are increasingly ousting death from their consciousness and focussing instead on the complexities of life in a context of horizontal ...transcendence. This replaces the Pauline notion that death is the fruit of sin and will be overcome if its real cause, sin, is vanquished through the death and resurrection of Christ. The article shows how religions, the state and civil society have abused human fear of death in the course of history. It examines the way science has 'biologised' death and the impact this has on concepts such as soul, the hereafter and identity. Reflection on the hereafter tends to make light of death. The article deals with some philosophical models (especially those of Hegel and Heidegger) that incorporate the negative (non-being, death) into life (the subject). I then outline a model incorporating death into life at a horizontal transcendental level in order to make death plausible. The example cited is Sölle's work. The article concludes with a discussion of some theological implications of an immanent approach to death.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This article challenges the traditional model of the media as a positive agent for political socialization. The increasing variety of news sources has reversed the role of the media, contributing to ...growing cultural fragmentation, rather than the unification of nations. One of the most volatile cultural cleavages in countries around the world is the clash between fundamentalist and secular members of the same religion. This work explores the role of the media in societal rifts through a study of the secular and religious press in Israel. The potentially divisive impact of the media has implications for other countries in the Middle East that are also characterized by religious-secular tensions.
在現代社會的宗敎的情況而言, 它的代表性槪念是“宗敎多元主義”與“世俗化”。筆者認爲在這兩個槪念的基礎下儒敎與基督敎之間漸漸出現對話的必要性, 幷且瞩目到其意義。因此, 基于這些問題, 我想探討儒家哲學的現代意義。
我認爲, 在探討儒家哲學的現代意義時, 最重要的是回復他自己的本體。在個體或國家、文化或思想當中, 回復自己的本體應該和別人的關系當中形成較合适的, ...幷且今天儒家哲學的回復自己也要和其他思想、哲學等的關系當中探討下去。在此, 我們發現不得不重視的西方知性史、宗敎史, 以探討其中代表性的基督敎文化, 幇助定位今天的儒家。我們要定位儒敎與基督敎, 在21世紀的今天, 儒敎與基督敎的邂逅就是東方文化與西方文化核心的邂逅。基于這種探討, 我認爲重新定位這兩個文化的時候。
今天, 知性史或宗敎史所遇到的共同反省点就是以西方爲主的看法。因此, 我試圖不是在西方宗敎的立場上評价而接受儒家思想, 而是在儒家的立場上評价他們, 提出新的邂逅的方向。我認爲, 現在就是我們要脫離從19世紀以來所形成的以西方爲主的優越與自以爲是的宗敎觀、以西方爲主的宗敎敍述的。幷且最近對基督敎與儒敎的邂逅方面, 探討眞正的必要性, 所以我認爲儒家也應該用以更積極態度把握對方, 還需要確立對話的觀点。
“Religious pluralism” and “secularization” are symbols representing current religious situations. This paper pays attention to the meaning and necessity of dialogue between Confucianism and Christianity and contemplates the contemporary meaning of Confucian philosophy based on the concepts.
The most important issue to evaluate the contemporary significance of Confucianism is to recover its own identity. When individuals, nations, cultures, or philosophies restore their own identity, it is desirable to proceed in relationships with others; Self-recovery of Confucianism also has to be performed in relationships with other thoughts, philosophies, and etc. In this respect, Western intellectual and religious history is obviously noticeable. In particular, to examine the Christian culture as one of the representative Western cultures can help to identify the current status of Confucianism. Also, when it comes to considering the historical and contemporary positions of Confucianism and Christianity, on the threshold of 21st century, the meeting between them is a significant opportunity to communicate between Eastern and Western cultures. Through this research, Confucian and Christian cultures can be reevaluated.
The common criticism of intellectual and religious history is that it has maintained Western-centered perspectives. Therefore, evaluation from the standpoint of Confucianism can provide a more meaningful direction for meeting between Eastern and Western cultures than one-sided acceptance of criticism towards Confucianism from the standpoint of Western religions. This is because it is obvious that now is the time to overcome Western-centered culture chauvinism, self-righteous religious viewpoints, and Western-oriented religious description formed in 19th century. Not only that, but it has been often asserted that the dialogue with Confucianism is needed. Thus, it is required that Confucian scholars should actively understand the Western religious history and viewpoints, and establish point of view in conversation with Western religions.
Article in Chinese
Early Christianity viewed religion and politics as largely separate; early Islam viewed them as largely concurrent. But from the eighth to the eleventh centuries each modified their original ...position, so that they almost converged. However, they subsequently diverged again. This was because, in the West, political thought became secularised following the eleventh‐century papal reform movement and then the Protestant Reformation. Muslim thinkers, on the other hand, beginning with al‐Mawardi (974–1058), sought to restore the subsumption of politics into religion, notably during the sixteenth‐century Shi'ite revolution in Iran. While today the West views religion and politics as largely separate categories, Muslims see them as necessarily intertwined; attempts to separate them have so far largely failed. Hence Muslim political thought is based primarily on revelation (interpreted in various ways), while Western political thought is based on philosophy.
Članak namjerava predočiti osnovna obilježja religioznosti u procesu sekularizacije kao izazov i kontekst teološkog promišljanja. Postavlja se pitanje o poimanju sekularizacije kao locus theologicus. ...Odgovor se mora dati diferencirano. Ni jasan ne, ni nekritički da nisu ispravno rješenje. U prvim dvama poglavljima u najosnovnijim se crtama izlaže imanentan obzor ovostranoga unutar kojeg je religioznost izričaj individualnog sebstva koje je postalo »nepropusni subjekt« za transcendentno. Pritom će doći do izražaja prožimanje ili čak poistovjećivanje sekularizacije i sekularizma, na što ukazuje i »isključivi humanizam« ili humanitarizam sekularnog društva. U zadnjem poglavlju autor polazi od kršćanskog poimanja i značenja sekularizacije i ukazuje na kršćanski humanizam kao mogućnost da se imanentnom svijetu sekularnog doba pruži otvorenost prema transcendentnom. A da bismo to ostvarivali, u duhu kršćanske tradicije, nema drugog puta nego kristološka paradigma »nepomiješano i neodijeljeno«.
Scripturally-orientated perspective on the history of Western intellectual thought: the origin and contours of and questions about the consistent problem-historical method Following a previous ...article in this journal on various methods available to portray the history of scholarly thinking, especially philosophy (cf. Van der Walt 2013), this essay focuses on the consistent problem-historical method of the late professor Dirk H.Th. Vollenhoven (1892-1978) of the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In three main sections the method's origin, contours and the reactions it evoked are discussed. The first main part reveals that Vollenhoven derived his method from two German philosophers of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantian philosophy, viz. N. Hartmann (1882-1950) and R. Höningswald (1875-1947), who developed a "Problemgeschichtliche" historiography of philosophy, focussing on philosophical problems as they developed during the 2500 years of Western thinking. Hartmann and Höningswald, because of their late rationalist, neo-Aufklärung orientation, still believed in an objective, neutral approach in scholarship. They, therefore, rejected the upcoming irrationalist tendencies with relativist implications. Since Vollenhoven was a committed Christian, embracing the ideal of an integral, Scripturally-directed philosophy, he modified the problem-historical approach of Marburg, rejecting both its rational dogmatism and the opposing irrational relativism. The implications of his unique stance was, inter alia, that he did not view (as was the case with his contemporary German fellow-philosophers) the history of philosophy as a process of gradual progress, but instead from his Christian-religious orientation distinguished between pre-Christian (pagan) Greek philosophy, synthetic, Patristic and Medieval Christian philosophy and subsequent anti-synthetic, secular philosophy. In the second main section five criteria (formulated at the end of the previous article in this journal) are applied to test the validity of Vollenhoven's methodology. In opvolging van 'n vorige artikel in hierdie tydskrif (vgl. Van der Walt 2013), waarin verskillende vroeëre en hedendaagse metodes van intellektuele en veral wysgerige historiografie bestudeer is, word in hierdie artikel gefokus op die ontstaan en kontoere van die konsekwent probleem-historiese metode van wyle prof. Dirk H.Th. Vollenhoven (1892-1978) van die Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Nederland asook die reaksies daarop. Wat, eerstens, die ontstaan van sy metode betref, blyk dat Vollenhoven dit oorgeneem het van twee Duitse laat-rasionalistiese filosowe van die Marburgse neo-Kantiaanse skool, naamlik N. Hartmann en R. Höningswald se "Problemgeschichtliche"-benadering. Hy het laasgenoemde egter volgens sy eie Christelike oortuigings aangepas, sodat sy weergawe van die 2500-jarige Westerse denkgeskiedenis ook anders daar uitgesien het. Tweedens, is die kontoere van dié metode aan die hand van vyf kriteria nagegaan. Dit bied 'n konsekwente toepassing van Vollenhoven se eie religieuse en filosofiese oriëntasie in die drie hoofvrae wat hy aan elke denker stel; dit is konsekwent histories in die indeling van die geskiedenis in drie hooftydperke; konsekwent filosofies in die onderskeiding van talle opeenvolgende sinkroniese normatiewe strominge; konsekwent probleemgerig in die tipering van basiese diakroniese ontiese, antropologiese en kenteoretiese probleme; reeds suksesvol toegepas en aangepas waar nodig. In 'n derde hoofafdeling word aangetoon dat al Vollenhoven se tydgenote en opvolgers egter nie met so 'n positiewe evaluering van die metode saamgestem het nie, omdat dit onder andere te gespesialiseerd en selektief, met die gebruikmaking van onnodige en ingewikkelde terminologie sou wees en omdat dit die klem tot so 'n mate op filosofiese konseptuele probleme laat val het dat die persoonlikhede self (wat daaraan geboorte gegee het) asook die hele Westerse kultuurgeskiedenis op die agtergrond verdwyn.
Many scholars of nationalism seem to assume that religious nationalism is inherently and necessarily hostile to the secular nation-state and to modern developments in general. The present paper ...challenges this conviction by drawing on recent debates among sociologists of religion, and it points to the existence of modernist versions of religious nationalism that acknowledge the legitimacy of the secular nation-state and are generally sympathetic to modern developments. It examines one of the most prominent manifestations of this variety of nationalism, namely Protestant modernist nationalism. After a brief consideration of cases from nineteenth century Europe, the remainder of the paper focuses on the modernist religious nationalisms arising in post-Cold War Eastern Europe, with a special focus on Slovenia. References. Adapted from the source document.
In the late-Victorian period in England, attitudes towards suicide were complex. The existence of secular viewpoints encouraged compassionate attitudes to such deaths by characterising suicide as a ...result of mental illness or as a natural response to harsh socio-economic conditions. Yet, in contemporary society, traditional forms of cultural and moral condemnation continued to influence perceptions of self-destruction. This article examines attitudes to working-class suicide between 1870 and 1910 and maintains that the interaction between these traditional and secular outlooks was a highly complex phenomenon. Responses to suicidal deaths were multi-faceted. The extent of hostility or sympathy accorded to such deaths was dependent upon a wide range of factors that do not sit easily with either paradigm. I suggest that a dominant or homogenous attitude towards suicide did not exist. Instead, there existed different varieties of suicides and responses to them. The role of respectability, morality and gender will be portrayed as primary definers of what came to constitute a 'good' or 'bad' suicide.
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